[SE] Status pretensions

[Figleaf23]

Hi,

On page 19 of Social Engineering, it says:

It’s possible to try to pass for lower
Status, or even for negative Status.
This is a formof social pretension, discussed
under False Identities (pp. 37-
39). The same applies to passing for
higher Status, but you must be able to
afford a suitable standard of living. If
you maintain a higher standard of living
than your Status requires, but
don’t have the skill to sustain your pretensions
consistently, you will gain a
bad Reputation. If you don’t try, but
just spend your money freely, you have
an Odious Personal Habit (p. 80). In
either case, people who are on to you
will base their reactions to you on your
true Status, with added penalties for
your pretensions.

Example: Jean Richard, a bourgeois
under Louis XIV, spends a substantial
part of his wealth to buy a seat on the
Privy Council, a fairly large body with
few actual duties, after which he is
treated as a minor noble: He has
Courtesy Administrative Rank 6 [6],
Filthy Rich [50], and Status 4 [15],
which includes +1 imputed Status
from Wealth. Wanting to make an
impression, he buys a substantial
house in Paris and incurs $60,000 a
month of living expenses. This is Odious Personal Habit
(Social Climber) [-5], which undermines the reaction bonus his
Status would normally grant him, reducing his net bonus from
+4 to +3.

I'm having a little trouble understanding this passage.

I'm assuming that the skill to sustain the pretensions refers to Acting. So you try passing for a Duke and you fail your Acting roll often enough you get a negative Rep. So far so good.

But then it goes on to say that if you don't try to pass for someone of higher rank but just spend a lot of money you have an OPH and people will react negatively to your "pretensions". This part troubles me. If you're not trying to pass, then there is no pretension and it would seem to imply that simply free-spending on its own automatically imposes a significant social Disad on a character (in-play, so no points gained).

The example doesn't really make clear which part of his behaviour rates as social climbing, or why a rich merchant purchasing a house is an OPH. (Also, this conflicts a bit with reality wherein we see lavish spending actually ASSIST social climbing rather than penalizing it.)