Do you have friends outside of your social class?

[tolatola]

I hadn’t realised what a bubble I live in. I’m privately educated, come from a very upper middle class family, went to Cambridge, and now work in an ‘elite’ profession. I live in an expensive area of London. Naturally, my friends or social time is spent through people met through work, university, or family members.

I went on holiday recently to a seaside town. We rented a house on the seafront. We went to a local pub and got chatting away to a lovely couple. They were from London, but very very working class. We had a lovely evening chatting. But it made me realise that I live in a real bubble. How many people have friendships that span class boundaries?

There still seems to be a mix of classes in my village. The village pub and village events are where they meet.
I think as people are being priced out of the villages, in some cases where they were brought up, and there are fewer farm jobs, that this will change.
some villages locally are just dormitory villages for middle class people who work in the nearest cities, with a sprinkling of gentry in the bigger, landed houses.

Yes. And I’d say at least half of my friends are originally from outside the UK, where what distinguishes class is generally very different. And many are Black and brown, and don’t consider the British class system in any way relevant to their backgrounds or able to be inclusive of them.

I’m not sure how anyone can live in any kind of major town or city, let alone London, and work in any kind of professional job, and still manage to somehow avoid people from different backgrounds and racial groups.

Yes but not miles outside.

I am middle middle class and was born that way, I have lower and upper middle class friends, some working class friends who are now middle class. I don’t know any Dukes or Dustmen.

I honestly don’t have a class. I am friends with people I like and it has nothing to do with their financial or work situation.

I have quite a lot of Asian / black friends and colleagues and if you asked them they’d all happily place themselves as middle or working class or whatever.

I went to Cambridge and most of the students were from lower class backgrounds, with wealthy working class parents who'd sent them to private schools. It was a culture shock for me as I'd grown up very poor, but middle or upper middle class culturally. I was expecting students to have an interest in literature or thought, but it was more a laddish culture at Cambridge.

As a teenager I rebelled against my UMC background and had some very diverse friendships. Despite becoming very successful in my chosen career, travelling and mixing with an extremely wealthy set of well-educated friends, I never let go of those early friendships so can claim a very diverse group of close friends. They don't mix very often, as I would normally encounter these friends in completely different settings, but on the odd occassion when I have thrown a big party, it is interesting to enjoy the company of friends from the complete spectrum of wealth and class.

I appreciate that @Indigotree. This was not the case for his family, nor was (is) it the case for a significant proportion of the people who lived on his estate.

@Indigotree "I went to Cambridge and most of the students were from lower class backgrounds, with wealthy working class parents who'd sent them to private schools."
That must have been a very unusual
college.

Yup, born on a council estate oop North, my friends are from all over the shop but a few landed gentry, a couple of Lords and some Right Hons, I'm not a professional and they're not friends through work, we just get on well (although I find them quite silly and clueless about life in general and will tell them so).

I don't even consider I'm in a class! You do live in a bubble don't you!

Yes me-deprived childhood, homeless as a teen but now mix with people from all kinds of backgrounds. It helped moving to London and meeting people through friends of friends who became friends and also my dh who although not rich came from an arty bohemian family very different from my own. I take people as I find them but also know that if I’d never wanted to move from my childhood town, I’d just have mixed with similar background. So if you move around, I think it’s quite easy to have a wide social mix of friends.

Not at all. It was quite normal and friends at other universities like St Andrew's and Edinburgh found similar demographics. I think some colleges were posher though. Mine wasn't one of the famous ones.

OP this just ain’t true: no UMC person would spend all night chatting merrily to random WC strangers.

Hmmmm. Depends what you mean. I have friends with very different backgrounds from me. Both posher than me and the opposite. But I'd say we're all solidly middle class now without any obvious difference. My friends are from University, from work or from my very middle class village.

I slap it out of her hand just in case.

Yes I do, because my own background is very mixed, so I've met people from all walks of life. Grew up on a council estate, went to a deprived inner city comp, and had a disabled child and lived on another council estate, so met lots of people through those who were mostly working class and some middle class. Have studied a couple of different degree subjects and taken some hobbies with a mostly affluent client group, so know lots of middle class people through those. Then I remarried and moved to an expensive part of London, DCs did expensive baby classes and then to prep and extracurriculars so most people I know through those are very wealthy middle class, and a few upper class.

I don't really mix the friendship groups though, I'm not sure how they'd all get on. Most of the people I met later in life have no idea of my council estate background (it's not clear from my accent and I don't share much information about my past).

Chavvy is an appalling, ignorant and hateful word.

So if you are at least trying to appear smart, I’d drop that.

I don’t have a “Social class”. I have friends who live in council housing and friends who are multi millionaires.

We are all happy in our skins, would all love to have the money the rich peopke have, but we are classless

People tend to gravitate and want to spend time with others who have similar morals and outlook on life. This can span different 'classes'. For example, some people are okay with behaving however they want and to hell with everyone else, if anyone else even enters their minds. I could not associate with people like this.

I've reported the OP to the gentlefolk over in "Pedants' Corner" for calling this thread

Do you have friends outside of your social class?

outside of? Really - what a waste of a private education.

Yes I agree. If I judge people at all it's not on their 'class' or 'status', it's their behaviour. I have real issues with rudeness and bad manners and that spans all walks of life.

I am not even sure what class I am any more. I was so certain I was middle class to begin with, I grew up in Ireland, posh accent, private school, no horses! but I believed I was middle class, then I went to London and (some) people were asking me if my dad was a builder. That's extreme but it was an indicator that whatever signals I was giving out at home were irrelevant here.

My x was a bit ambiguous too, his father was high up in the army but his mother was a second wife (sorry, no offence to second wives, but his situation was messy) and then he insisted on giving the children very poncey names :-p and then, I ended up a single mother, I'm ''ok'' financially, I have enough but not a whole lot more.

It sounds a bit deepak chopra but after you've lived a bit and recovered a few times, it's just not relevant. MY PEOPLE are people who are self-aware, respectful and open to connecting with people.

They were from London, but very very working class.

Does ‘very, very‘ working class differ from just ‘very’ working class and from working class without one or two ‘verys’.

I do hope they thanked you for your time OP. 😅

Did you find out what they call their grandmother? I bet it is Nana.