The Unambitious Social Climber

I am an unambitious social climber. I have no real desire to achieve anything, and I never have. Yet, things always line up in my favor. An opportunity I did not ask for comes to me, offering a clear path to having more. And then, for no reason at all because I do not desire anything, I put in the bare minimum effort that the opportunity requires of me to get more.

For example, in high school, I was acing all of my classes. Not because I was book smart, but because my local public school was poor; a lot of people couldn’t afford to put in even the bare minimum effort. The staff was often apathetic and unqualified. The students were stressed and unambitious. The grades we got, good or bad, equally meant nothing coming from a school like ours. I was collecting my A’s that meant nothing, when a teacher came to me and told me I was chosen to participate in a nationally renowned academic competition. I would be leaving with her to compete for the chance to go to the district level. All I had to do was agree to go. Opportunity, bare minimum, more.

Once I got as far as states, I left the fancy hotel that the competitors were staying in one night to find a fast food restaurant because I did not know what to order from the high-end menu I had been given for room service. When I found one, I felt a sense of familiarity and chose to eat inside with the locals, something I was never comfortable doing in my hometown. While I was eating, I was approached by a guy my age who was clearly never bullied into fear of social situations. He introduced himself as Max. I must have looked misplaced here, even in a fast food restaurant, because he knew I was in the area for the academic competition. Either that or he saw that I was registered with the FPRR. He asked me if I would tutor him if he paid my living expenses and gave me a monthly stipend. I agreed again. Opportunity, bare minimum, more.

After the first month of tutoring, Max fell in love with me. I knew this because he told me on numerous drunken occasions. No matter how many times this confession had happened we would never speak about it when sober. This is relevant because, to say the least, tutoring was not working for Max. I figured out quickly that his payments to me had nothing to do with his education. He was paying me for my companionship because he knew otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford to be around him. My FPRR-Score alone would have gotten me barred from entering the upscale locations he was taking me to. Eventually, the time came for Max to take his college assessment. Like me, he didn’t have anything in particular that he wanted to do with his life. However, unlike me, Max did have things he was supposed to do with his life. I found that people with money had expectations. He was expected to go to college and he was expected to pass the entrance exam for a prestigious university. So, via an elaborate cheating scheme, I passed entrance exams for both of us. For celebration, Max invited me to his family’s vacation home. Opportunity, bare minimum, more.

On the first morning of the trip, I came down stairs from my temporary master bedroom and found myself aimlessly wondering around the large vacation home, admiring how beautiful it was to have money. I stepped into what could’ve been an office space, but one that was for show and not use. There was a small bookshelf in the corner of the room that fascinated me. It was beautifully color-coded. The way the colors blended so flawlessly made me believe the books themselves couldn’t be real books. Each shelf had a different range of pastel colors displayed on the books’ spines. Everything was perfectly arranged except for one misplaced book, a small black notebook, wedged into the pastel pink to purple section of the book case. It made no sense because the rest of the bookcase was pastel colored novels, and there was no place for a little black notebook. Recognizing this fact made me deeply uncomfortable, though I couldn’t pinpoint why.

“Well where’d that come from?”

I jumped in surprise as everything was suddenly disrupted by the voice of Max’s dad, who I hardly ever spoke to. I hardly spoke at all, but I spoke even less with Max’s father. It wasn’t just because I was a closed book. There was always something off about the interactions between us.

Max’s father walked up behind me, slowly, still suspiciously eyeing the placement of the little black book.

“Probably doesn’t belong there, eh?” he continued. His deep voice sent chills down my spine and I could not bring myself to turn and face him. I wanted nothing more than to run for cover.

“No. It probably doesn’t.”

“Why don’t you get it out of there, then?”

I took the little black book out. I opened it, and flipped through a few empty pages to fill the silence and do something with my hands.

“It’s all yours,” he finished.

With that, I left the book, left the room, and walked directly out the front door. I went back home, with no goodbyes to anyone. I didn’t even pack my bags.

Now, I have turned over a new page in my life. I am 22, have graduated from college, and used the money I made spending months with Max to pay for all of my books and extra living expenses. I still graduated with a mountain of debt, but my FPRR-Score was rising steadily. I kept things simple, did them by the book, and got an office job. I moved out of my parents’ house, but I couldn’t afford to go far. I’ve seen Max on TV a few times now, which doesn’t necessarily come as a shock to me because Max has always been rich, attractive, and equipped with family members who work in entertainment. What did come as a shock, though, was the $20,000 in cash he sent me that came in a box with a short message written on a small, somehow familiar looking piece of notebook paper this morning.

I took a page out of your book. –Max

I stared at the note in disbelief. The intense wave of emotions that hit me distracted me from any relevance that I might have otherwise noticed related to the familiar paper or ominous message. Max had just put a target on my back.

Was it possible that he wasn’t bitter about the way I checked myself out of his life and had truly gifted me this money off the books so that my newly found wealth would go unnoticed by the FPRR? I checked my financial records, which were available to anyone who connected with my phone. There, in fine print, was a $20,000 receipt for incoming funds. My FPRR-Score had risen into the green “stable” zone (where it definitely should not be yet), my enrollment in the FPRR Living Assistance Program (which allowed me to move into an apartment even with debt so long as I kept my score up and had an acceptable occupation) had been revoked, and I had a bold red notice stamped over my debt records telling me that a representative would be arriving to discuss the terms of my registration.

This was a preplanned attack by Max. He had managed a plot I would have never thought him capable of. In short, he registered an outgoing payment of $20,000 to me that he reported I received about 5 days ago, but since he somehow had the box delivered to my job this morning, the office had only just reported that they had received notice of my new income today. Even if I explained that I also only learned about the money this morning, the FPRR would be more inclined to believe Max, as someone who did not need to be registered with them and was therefore more trustworthy when it came to money related matters. To my job and the FPRR, it looked like I had hoarded the money for several days before finally coming clean. My boss had given me a scrutinizing look, handed me the package, and then sent me home early, grumbling that I could afford to miss a day of work.

The Financial Planning and Responsibility Registry now had me noted as someone who was hiding a large sum of money and avoiding spending it in a responsible manner; they were coming for me. There would be so many questions. Where did you get this money? Who is this celebrity to you? Is there a chance this person would give you this much money or more again? Do you have a lot of friends with this kind of money? How long have you had this money? Why did you keep this money?

The whole point of the FPRR’s creation was to take financial responsibility off of poor people like me. Clearly we would only destroy ourselves if we had such autonomy, so the FPRR would decide what was best for us to do with any income we received. I became an FPRR member automatically because my parents were and the same had happened to them. Now, the FPRR would either label me as parsimonious and, therefore, in need of rehabilitation or they would think I had spent those 5 days trying to find a way to escape with the money. The latter was more likely, since the late registry of the money would appear suspicious.

I couldn’t go to my parents for emotional support. They already thought of me as selfish and secretive because of my time with Max’s family, gradually raising my FPRR-score and fraternizing with the rich while they remained poor with low FPRR scores that got more inflexible as they aged. What would they think of me if they saw I had received this much money? They would never believe it was random. What would they think of me as their son if I told them the truth about me? I had taken advantage of Max’s feelings, letting him continue to pay me even though I knew I wasn’t really helping him. And it was no accident either; I knew what I was doing. I just wanted more.

I wasn’t entirely honest about the type of person I am. I am a social climber but, no, it is not truthful to say I am not ambitious. My efforts are not bare minimum. I didn’t accidentally become smart enough to get invited to that academic competition and I didn’t just end up at states by chance. I studied, sometimes all night, to make it that far. In fact, I sat down to study that night at the restaurant where I met Max. He didn’t just tell me he loved me, I told him I loved him too. I never meant it, and the first time I said it because I realized that my position as his tutor was threatened by our lack of progress, and I didn’t want him to find someone else. After that, I kept saying it, because he kept me around. It wasn’t easy cheating Max into a prestigious university, but I did it through planning and hard work.

Why do I have to lie to myself about my ambition? Because there is something deeply embarrassing about you and everyone else knowing you really tried, and still ended up just as poor in the end. Now, I have an opportunity to choose to either balance the books and pay off my debt, or find a way to bypass the FPRR, take the money, and book it. Opportunity, a scheme, more.