Changing times? Surprising (to me) behaviour in hotel

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

I'm just back from a short break in a nice hotel in the Lakes. Fancy hotel in picturesque setting, spa etc. I don't know if I'm just getting old but I was surprised by some of the behaviour of a number of people there (who all looked to be in their 20s or early 30s). Is it just changing times or am I old-fashioned or what? Bear in mind that there are plenty of walkers who use the hotel and I haven't got any issue with less formal behaviour in the right context eg leaving dirty boots in the porch and walking to the bar in their socks.

Dress: fancy hotel restaurant. Women with skimpy, very flimsy dresses more suitable to a nightclub, at dinner. One had the front completely cut out from the bra part to below her waist. Apart from anything she must have been freezing. It was about 4 degrees outside, the fires were lit in the lounges etc, it was NOT a warm night.

Conversely at breakfast, when most people were just dressed casually but not scruffily (i.e. in jeans and jumper or t shirt, or walking trousers if they were going out walking for the day), the younger ones looked like they were taking the bins out or had literally just rolled out of bed, hair all dishevelled bed hair. Quite a few women in old leggings and an oversized hoodie, with slippers. One looked like they were wearing pyjamas. Men in obvious gym shorts and trainers. Clearly they weren't going in the gym straight after a big breakfast so had they just come in from the gym, and were putting their sweaty arses on the chairs? They all looked stand out sloppy compared to everyone else.

There were a couple of other little things which surprised me. After dinner a young woman sat in the lounge had her bare feet up on the low table where you'd put your drink or bar snacks. It was in front of the fire so maybe she was warming her feet but still.....yuck. Just not behaviour I've ever seen before in a nice hotel (or any hotel).

During dinner there was a load of noise from the table behind. Music etc which clashed with the music being played on the restaurant speakers. I turned round and there was a couple in their 20s just watching facebook reels or something on their own phones with volume on high, not interacting or talking to each other at all.

At breakfast, there was also noise from a screen which I could hear from the other end of the long dining room. Dora the Explorer or something on full blast on a screen being watched by a toddler while their parents and grandparents just chatted amongst themselves.

The nightclub gear at dinner is probably the one that didn't bother me that much: woman's right to choose what she wears etc, but the rest just surprised me. It just felt like a drop in standards of behaviour somehow. Not what you would have witnessed even 10 years back.

There was a much older guy in his late 70s or something who walked into the bar in the afternoon to meet some friends and he was dressed very stylishly in a jacket and shirt and was even wearing a hat (like a trilby kind of hat, not a beanie or something). He stuck out a mile, but in a good way. He had nice manners too. No bare feet up on the tables for him Made me wish a bit that we could go back a bit to the days when people made a bit more of an effort to make themselves presentable in public, and to avoid behaving in an anti-social manner.

Have times moved on, and I'm just not keeping up, or have standards of public behaviour dropped?

You can comment. You are in your own home. Your description is correct.

I'm old. I live in a caravan on a strip of land that I own. I need to move into a town so I have some protection and support but frankly, I can't bear people now. They are utterly revolting.

I spent years working as a registered veterinary nurse. I love animals because they just are. Dealing with asshole owners who have no clue that they are not meeting the needs of their animals and don't want to know how to do so whilst standing in the consulting room wearing their night clothes at 3:30 in the afternoon and stinking of drink and expecting to not have to pay (with gold teeth and the latest mobile phone). Driven me mad entirely.

I have no idea what has gone wrong with humans but it's severe and irreversible apparently.

If I leave here, I want to move to outer space : (

If you go to spa hotels where people are on spa breaks you regularly see people wearing the hotel bathrobe to breakfast. I’ve seen lots of people wearing them having lunch in the hotel restaurant too

Depends on the hotel. Most luxury hotels will have a spa area, but wearing a bathrobe around the hotel would not be seen as acceptable. Both The Savoy and Claridge’s hotels for example. Both have spas, but I have never seen anyone at breakfast or lunch there in a bathrobe.

Lol I was talking more Macdonald Spas £99 weekend break rather than The Savoy 🤣

And you feel okay to be ageist .
I’m old. I don’t vote Reform, don’t hate young people and I’m not racist ( or ageist).

The standard of dress and behaviour in certain places has most definitely dropped. Those hotel guests had absolutely no regard for the other people sharing the same space and it really is quite sad that the one person who stood out in a positive way was the older gentleman who was suitably attired for the environment.

What folk choose to wear in the privacy of their own homes is entirely their business; however, when in public, venue appropriate dress is, in my view, very important as it signals respect for others in the same environment.

What folk choose to wear in the privacy of their own homes is entirely their business; however, when in public, venue appropriate dress is, in my view, very important as it signals respect for others in the same environment.

The difficulty with this argument, and it's faced by OP also, is that the more people are dressing in a different way to the one you approve of, the harder to argue that it isn't appropriate dress. Because these things are about norms. Clothing norms have never been static, and most of us aren't sufficiently influential for anyone else to care whether we think something is suitable or not. If enough people attend somewhere in pyjamas or joggers, that becomes one of the norms for a venue.

It's fine to have an opinion about change being bad or whatever. But the more enthusiastically you argue that standards have dropped, the more that erodes your argument that people who go along with those new standards are being inappropriate.

You also have to then explain why 'showing respect', which you seem to define as going along with a particular view of dress, is something that people following one clothing norm are more entitled to than people following another. That's what happens when changes in clothing habits get to a critical enough mass.

Thank you! You've put across the point I was trying to make very well

If you have paid for a relaxing weekend in a spa hotel then breakfast is going to be relaxing with the same clothes. What people wear to dinner is none of your concern.

Have watched many an Agatha Christie and in the 1930s all the women would wear skimpy dresses at night, even chilly nights.

Exactly. Things evolve. And go back further into history and the French Court (1600s); fashion was a huge boob fest even to the point of revealing nipples, but showing your ankle was a strict no-no.

I do always find it funny that people are in hotel on holidays, they’ve probably gotten tan done/ nails done and brought their best clothes but they think the restaurant in the morning it’s fine to wear pjs/ snoodies or haven’t brushed their hair (and I don’t always brush my hair but I mean they tied it up in a way you would if you were putting on face cream/ make up!). Standards are pretty crap now

If I'm on holiday, I'm relaxing. If that means I look like I've rolled out of bed and into the breakfast room, so be it.

One's clothes and general outlook as well as behaviour are the mirror of one's character : If people want to show thslvs the way they did in your hotel , it is bc they cannot stand up to the peers'expectations OR they think that is the way they want to be seen : I'm with you 100% and I wish you a swell next holliday !