This. Shame means you're not as desperate as some.

I have a computer programmer brother (I'm a programmer too, but indie, operating my own small business). When my car finally died, he helped me with a down payment on a much newer car: as a direct result I'm paying hundreds or even thousands less on constantly fixing the old one. Whether he minds doesn't change how much that helps. (for the record, he doesn't like that I still have a car payment, but that was my call: given the situation, I was adamant that I'd (a) also be heavily invested in the vehicle and (b) get something so current that it'd be some time before it got broken-down)

My brother's not going to be comfortable with the situation because so long as there's still a car payment, it could be repossessed if I went 'double-super-uber-poor' and didn't pay it. That's fine, I've never failed a payment or bill in twenty years, and the benefit is well worth it.

I would point out that 'if any well-off person cares about you even a little bit' is not what we're talking about. Rich people will look away in a heartbeat if they only care a 'little bit'. That's no lifeline, and don't act like it is. But if you have someone seriously close to you, you may very well have to trade some of the ease of your relationship for an exchange. The tipoff is if the rich person is actively reminding you they can bail you out of things, and if they perceive it as YOUR pride/shame that's getting in the way.

Then if you do let 'em help you, you have to maintain boundaries and handle things in a defined way or you could damage the relationship. It's the equivalent of 'hey I left my wallet at home can you get my double grande ultra coffee that's eight bucks' only in the hundreds or thousands. You don't want to get into a 'now this is what we always do' situation. The signaling is important.

I run a Patreon as my primary income, and I'm up to around the top 3% sitewide (top 50 in games/tech). I recently had what was clearly a well-off guy bump the whole Patreon up to the next goal, $800 a month, because he liked it (it was the 'begin open sourcing plugins, one by one' goal).

It was an $80 jump, 10% of the whole Patreon all by himself, and the risk was that he'd dial it back as more people came in so the goal stayed but eventually he'd be out, goal achieved early. That would cause every new person joining at say $1, to feel as if they had accomplished nothing.

As soon as I began talking to him and asking him to please dial it back and not be 10% of the goal all by himself, he expressed polite hurt… and quit the site entirely. I couldn't send my final wall-o-text explaining why I'd asked him this mean thing, and the $800 goal evaporated, leaving a bunch of excited celebrating patrons sitting there wondering what had happened.

Be careful about assuming that, if you know or can interest rich people, you therefore have a lifeline. They can be as fickle as poor people, but they're able to swing amounts of resources that will make or break you, so you might even want to entirely avoid courting rich people. The worst situation you can possibly be in is depending on a number of rich people and offending them somehow: I much prefer running my Patreon centered around small donors, and having statistical noise soak up minor issues.

A rich person is just as capable of ditching you over minor issues, but in doing so, can cripple you at a stroke. You're still poor if you only have the sympathy of a rich person or two.