to ask if you think you have been overlooked because of your perceived lack of wealth?

[suebfg]

I didn't used to think that this sort of thing existed (maybe I am too naive) but since DS started at school, I feel as if I have been bypassed by a few people because I don't wear certain clothes, drive a fancy car etc. Are people really so shallow?

Everybody avoids the very groomed ones, except the other very groomed ones! They intimidate everyone - rich or poor!

Maybe we all do it it all the time to each other without realising it. It's only when we are at the receiving end that it 's felt?

I think you are right SB. I am on Expat Woman as well btw.

Thanks Nelson, that's good to know

Omg fellatio! Who are you on EW? Please confess. I HAVE to know!

I have absolutely no interest in anything about anyone other than whether or not they are interesting.

Wish everyone was like that.

And how do you first decide whether they would be interesting to get to know hully if not by judging on first impressions?

PM sent SB

Talk to them/ eavesdrop on their conversations.

How else?

I talk to everyone unless they glare at me in a don't-approach-me way

Exactly Hully. I know loads of people who should be my 'type' in theory but they are dull as mud.

Eavesdrop?

Unfortunately there are people like this

There are a group of mums at my kids school who used to ignore me, she had seen both me and DH at school quite a bit and had assumed we were both unemployed layabouts (we both work flexi from home)

I make an effort with clothes, but unless DH is going into the office, he generally looks like a scruff, our car is a bit of a banger and we rent our house (we rented to start with when we moved a few hundred miles away, we love our house, the rent is cheap and our landlord won't sell so we're happily renting) so she looked down on us

Then one of them realised my husband was her husband's boss.

Now she falls over herself to invite me round for coffee and her horrible jewellery parties. It does make me laugh

Hulls, you are that mad old woman at the bus stop aren't you?

I am.

I don't get out much so I have to make the most of it

I like people as a whole. Its usually hard to find a dull a person. I'll talk to anyone. And yes some people don't want to socialise with us as you are not the right sort - that is their choice. It's all groovy.

There is a father at ds's school, who is rather sweet in his own nobbish way. He likes to ask how work is going for my dh and waffle on about how he misses the days when he was "just a sales rep" and the simple times before he was in terribly important senior management. Dh is not a sales rep. He is the Director of the rather large company in question.
Its been eight years, I haven't the heart to correct him, and it means we don't get invited to the Summer and Xmas soirees thank god.
None of the other parents who know me well can bring themselves to do so either.

When I was doing my MA I got my nose pierced and all of a sudden the cool people on my course started talking to me and old ladies stopped sitting next to me on buses.

I have found this to be true. We have always lived well below our means without really considering that we were giving the impression of always being skint. We didn't realise we were being spoken about until kids started saying to us 'mummy says you're poor because you have a rubbish car'.

Without saying too much we work/ed on the edges of academia where conspicuous consumption would be eyed with suspicion, but we live in an environment far removed from that. For example, we haven't got a TV, and round here people say it is because we can't afford one because it is unheard of not to have a TV. But if we lived nearer work nobody would make that inference, because it is quite common to not have a TV.

I think a lot of it is to do with your experience and expectations. I would tend to assume someone running an ancient estate car, and wearing an old tweed coat with elbow patches would be quite well off, but most of the people where I live would assume that person didn't have two pennies to rub together.

You're talking about snobbery. Snobbish people make assumptions based on all kinds of irrational pointers and it says far more about them than it does about you. Then again inverse snobbery ... 'think you're too good for us do you?'... is just as bad.

I can't say I've ever experienced inverse snobbery......does that mean I'm at the bottom of the social pile not worthy of inverse snobbery?

To the poster who thinks that her mum hasn't visited her in 8 years because of where she lives, I don't think that is the reason

I drive a 10 yr old Honda and wear M&S to school functions at DCs private schools. I've never encountered the above mentioned snobby parents.

I suppose income groups of a feather/do flock together (There are exceptionjs

I mean someone on a low wage would not be paying 90 quid for a meal

And of course, Networking is very popular now. Which is people looking for
people similar to themselves.

Snobbery is not very often discussed. Because no one thinks they are a snob. (I have met a few money snobs in my life)

"Thinks have changed noticeably for me in the last couple of weeks since I bought myself

1. A couple of pairs of Good shoes (after not buying shoes for 5 years or so unless mountain walking boots and trainers)
2. A Tommy Hilfiger down coat. (After looking like a scarecrow for months)

Shop assistants are extremely attentive. The mums at gymnastics talk to me (at least until they see my car, it is a pppp-Peugeot against ther Lexuses and Volvos)

I think in Britain you are judged on

1. Your accent.

A foreign accent is lower in the pecking order than regional British accents

1. Class Background
2. Economic situation"

I find this to be very true.

I don't give a monkeys about how I look since DD has come into my world but I know a definite difference is there in how people used to treat me and how they treat me now. When I do bother to dress myself up a bit, people are very different.

I just don't bother about it. my one pair of jeans right now are 3 sizes too big, I only have one pair of boots, one pair of flats and one pair of trainers. I have one skirt and one dress. I have a 5 year old coat and a few vest tops and two jumpers. That is truly it. These are the only things that would fit me after having DD and I haven't been able to go shopping for new clothes yet.

Its the occupation of the middle class to always have their heads stuck up their own backsides.

I have friends who claim benefits but I also have long standing friends who are neither working class or aspiring middle, they are lovely and not for one minute are they snobs.

I have a friend (long term friend who I've known for 20 odd years) who seems to care about 'getting in' with the 'in' people. I put it down to insecurity in some ways, she was the same in school too.

I'm someone who will talk to anyone. At the school gates I am not looking for new best friends. It's just a matter of passing a few minutes talking to friendly people.

at all the anti middle class rants.