Money couldn't buy friends, but you got a better class of enemy.

Wealth trades friends for fancier enemies

There's a dark humor in this that cuts through one of our most persistent anxieties: that wealth might somehow solve our loneliness problem. We've all fantasized that money would make us popular, or at least less isolated. But what Milligan captures is something stranger and more true—when you have resources, you don't actually gain loyal friends, but you do gain something people are willing to pretend to be loyal for.

The real twist isn't just that friendship can't be bought. It's that money changes the quality of your problems. Suddenly you're not dealing with casual indifference or genuine dislike. You're dealing with envy, manipulation, and the complicated sting of never quite knowing who wants what from you. In some ways, that's a more sophisticated form of loneliness. You're surrounded by people with clear motivations, and none of those motivations are "I like you for you."

It's a useful reminder when we're chasing success or security: getting what we think we want often just trades one set of human problems for another. The real work of building genuine connection—the unglamorous part of actually being available to people without anything to gain—doesn't change.