Perhaps that's one reason these events exist - FAANG and start-up schmooze fests sweetened with a sprinkling of cultural sugar frosting.

Also, data point of one. Sometimes faking it doesn't work out so well.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/09/anna-sorokin...

Of course that's the far side of the line - someone with no real income at all. But if your networking expenses are regularly on the far side of your income and you don't have some kind of track record to prove to yourself you can make the networking work, you're playing some very high stakes poker.