@neco So, dealing with people can really suck. The Internet anonymity and stress of living cheque to cheque makes it far easier to be a judgemental ball of depressed rage. It's totally them. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when people are being dicks though. Subtle gatekeeping is still gatekeeping. And upper middle class folk discuss their disagreements differently than the poor.
I grew up with lower class working parents. One of my friends from high school grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. Her perspective of the world differed from mine, and learning how she interacted with the world helped when I had to start passing as higher class in better paying jobs.
Today I might have a better standard of living than most of "where I came from" partly because I was open to learning how people raised in better conditions act. (Part of it was luck, some of it was hard work.) Her perspective shifted after her disability caused her to be unable to work, her father died, and her mother's retirement money barely covered bills. She's asking me for tips on how to be more frugal, for cheap recipes, for how to better navigate SNAP. We are still friends, we both have better life skills by learning from each other and we talk honestly between ourselves about our situations.
You belong here. I belong here. She belongs here too.