The Invisible Baseline

For a while, I didn’t think of it as a problem. It just felt like life getting better.

A nicer dinner here. A more interesting bottle there. The occasional splurge slowly becoming the routine. At some point, we stopped asking if we should go out and started asking where. Nothing felt excessive in the moment, which is usually exactly how excess begins.

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The Shift from Choice to Expectation

It starts with convenience. Then it moves to experience. Finally, it settles into “taste.”

You learn the difference between good, great, and memorable. Once you cross that line, it’s incredibly hard to go back. Casual places don’t start feeling “worse”—they just feel less. Your baseline shifts just enough that the idea of moving backward feels slightly offensive.

During our time in Malaysia, there was a multiplier I didn’t fully appreciate: Currency Arbitrage.

We were spending in USD while living in a world priced in MYR. The exchange rate acted as a buffer that made everything feel “reasonable” to us. But for friends earning in the local currency, that same dinner landed in a completely different reality.

Same table. Same meal. Two different worlds. That gap is easy to ignore when you’re the one benefiting from the math. Nothing we did looked reckless; it was just a steady stream of “reasonable” decisions that eventually added up to something much heavier than expected. Once a luxury becomes normal, it stops being a choice. It becomes a requirement.
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The Hidden Cost: Friendships

Eventually, this lifestyle began to bleed into our friendships. I started noticing two nagging feelings that I couldn’t quite shake.

The first was the “Bad Taste” factor.

I wondered if constantly talking about these “memorable” meals was creating a barrier with the people we cared about. For most of our friends, eating out at that level was a rare celebration, not a Tuesday night. We kept inviting them along as if it were no big deal, which probably wasn’t malicious, but it was certainly careless.

It was only when I asked my wife, Cat, how this was even sustainable—even with a solid IT income—that the mask slipped. That uncomfortable conversation became the foundation for a much stronger, more honest friendship with our inner circle. We stopped trying to “keep up with the Joneses” and started being real about the pinch.

The second feeling was harder to process.

I felt a strange compulsion to try every high-end spot, especially with the MYR at a historical low. Naturally, I wanted to share these experiences with my closest friends. But not everyone wanted to go at that frequency, or at that price point.

So, I’d rationalize. I’d tell myself the easiest way to make it work was to just pay for everyone.

It sounds generous until you think about it for more than five seconds. By paying, I was removing the financial friction, but I was also fundamentally changing the interaction. At some point, it stopped feeling like we were sharing a meal and started feeling like I was buying the experience.

And if I’m being honest, it felt uncomfortably close to buying the friendship.

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The Second-Order Effects

The most dangerous part of consumption isn’t the hit to your bank account. It’s how quickly the extraordinary becomes invisible.

• How a “treat” becomes the default.
• How something you chose becomes something you assume.
• How something meant to be shared starts to separate you from others.

I still enjoy a great meal. That hasn’t changed. But I am far more aware now of the second-order effects—the ones that don’t show up on a Michelin-starred receipt.

The hardest part isn’t deciding if a steak is worth the price. It’s realizing how easily those small, compounding decisions can quietly reshape the way you relate to the people you love, without you ever noticing it happened.

For #ELF#