To find my family a bit common and embarrassing

[holdonfor1moreday]

Or am I just pretentious?

They love the cakes at pat Valarie and go on about them. When I think these are vile made off site factory cakes that are frozen.

They played the sam smith album and went on about how good his voice is and all that. Sounds like music for people that dont like music IMO.

They are wolfing down cadburys chocolate saying how delicious it is. Over sweet waxy stuff - give me Mr Roth any day.

I just don't feel on the same level as them. Really average lives and I just have nothing in common with them.

Oh, Lanark, since you're genuinely interested in the topic and no-one else is, I'll play. (See, I'm classy with my inclusive manners!)

Yes, there are people who're 'aggressively third-rate". They're called inverted snobs and are every bit as wearing as OP the other sort.

On t'other side of the coin, I did the improved circumstances thing quite meteorically after leaving home. Once I'd got over the juvenile urge to impress or educate my folks, it was okay. Anyway, I'm all disimproved now so my previously less refined family live a rarefied lifestyle compared to mine.

But my Granny - who was a gypsy, had been a kitchen maid at 13, and whose sense of her inferior social place had never shifted, felt uncomfortable. There was nothing anyone could do to help her feel better: she & Grandad were pretty well off, but it made no difference. I once went to tea at her house and praised the lavish spread - you know, it was tea at 4pm, with acres of cold cuts and cakes. She demurred, "I bet you have much more sophisticated tea at your house."
"We don't even have tea!" I said, "This is such a treat."

And then she got all flustered & upset because she assumed tea was the "wrong" thing to do.

That was about 30 years ago, and I still feel really sad about it. Class is a vicious thing.

I think its rude to point out if people have bad taste.

If someone thinks TGI friday is fine dinning, you just nod and judge in your head.

Is this a wind up or are you really that moronic? Or just very young, in your teens? Because then I get it. It's you against them and you are better at everything.

'Following the swell of the tide, like dead fish and broken plastic'. How profound. Is your bedroom painted black?
I know someone who is an 'experimental musician' who uses the words 'mainstream' and 'popular' as terms of abuse and his whole existence is about proving how unique he is and how he doesn't follow the crowd. He's a twat and his 'music' just sounds like notes played in the wrong order.
You'd love him.

MissHooliesCardigan - my exOH used the same expressions to describe music I liked (which happened to be grunge/heavy metal) because it was so mainstream and for plebs. Funny enough, he loved the cheesiest music ever, think Modern Talking etc. in the 80s.
I also have a colleague, who thinks himself an unrecognized poet and only reads, listens etc. to artists who are almost unknown or have patently extreme styles and works. I like almost everything and have no problem with the so called mainstream if it sounds good. So debating Ed Sheeran who he totally slagged and I said I rather liked, I told him that I am mature enough to not feel like I have to justify my taste in arts to anyone and I don't have the urge to only like the most niche artists ever to prove to myself how special I am. Funny enough, he never commented on my tastes again.

*Come on, of course people are often aggressively third rate, Deliberately following the herd so they don't feel 'different' necessarily means following the swell of the tide, like dead fish and broken plastic.

Its mortifying when you find people who represent you by association have consistently dull and uninspiring taste. *

It's mortifying how bad grammar can influence your opinion about other people. I feel embarrassed on their behalf because clearly they are completely unaware of how awful it looks like.
And I had a laugh about the dead fish and broken plastic comparison. Especially considering that so many people want to be so different and unique that they end up establishing another herd. At the beginning of 00s you couldn't cross a road without a herd of goths coming your way. All looking the same and yet smirking (sorry, bad expression, smirking would ruin their make-up so they went for the "my scornful eyes say it all" look) at your so mainstream image.

Sorry, how awful it looks/appears/comes across.

Seems no big deal tbh, its not like one of them being massively racist and homophobic (up to all gays are paedos..)

I think Lanark has gone off to write some experimental poetry while listening to a band that no one's ever heard of because they're shit

As people have mentioned goths etc, I may as well ask. I don't "get" hipsters. Are they very fashionable or trying to be alternative? Does anybody know?

Hipsters are so alternative that they became mainstream which will soon be gone and another alternative will arise to become mainstream.

Someone asked whether my (greying) dh had gone hipster when he couldn't be bothered to shave for a few days. It was only then that we realised that hipster was a "thing" and suddenly felt very old and behind the times.

then she got all flustered & upset because she assumed tea was the "wrong" thing to do.

garlic Not as sad as your granny, but she reminded me of my mum. We used to always eat McDonald's, and then I married and moved and we hardly ever used to eat there any more, except I didn't notice.

One day years later, she said sadly: 'I don't suppose you and DH like McDonald's, do you?'. She was wrong. We ate McDonald's whenever we wanted, it was just that I wouldn't choose it on the days she came round, because I didn't want to spoil my appetite for dinner. But she thought it was because we were too good for McDonald's.

So I was able to change that one in time, and whenever we fancied it, we'd have a McDonald's and I'd have a snack in the evening

Cadbury chocolate is shit.

Sam Smith is mediocre.

Where do they shop?

I forgot that god awful over priced cake place, vile cakes, dreadful service and shit coffee.

I know someone who is an 'experimental musician' who uses the words 'mainstream' and 'popular' as terms of abuse and his whole existence is about proving how unique he is and how he doesn't follow the crowd. He's a twat and his 'music' just sounds like notes played in the wrong order. You'd love him.

MissHoolie I'd have probably loved him too - at 15. I was an insufferable intellectual snob but without the intellect.

I hated bands who'd 'sold out' ie started making a bit of money and used to vehemently deny ever liking them, like Peter did to Jesus.

I also used to read improving books, except never the ones for which the authors were best known. That would be too sheep-like.

So instead of Nabokov's Lolita, I read (or tried to read) Glory etc. God, I was awful.

limited That was also me as a 15 year old when I decided that anything popular was for stupid people. I also became a Marxist. I remember a friend pointing out where I'd written I love Duran Duran ('love' symbolised with a heart) on my desk prior to my enlightenment and me vehemently denying it. I was awful.

We've just had an Aldi open up near us. The other week I was parking and saw some ladies going in clutching their Waitrose wine carriers! (Of course it may be the only ones they had available but I had to chuckle.)

BTW they do a mean chocolate wafer biscuit in Aldi. Their chocolate is yum all round, especially the rum and raisin and white choc and coffee.

I once saw some ladies buying bedding in Primark. They took everything out of the primark bags while still at the till and transferred it to identical large M&S bags! There was quite a bit of sniggering going on from other shoppers.

Glad you managed to fix your McDonald's misunderstanding, limited :)

martina yes lately it seems in trend now to be alternative and grungy.
It seems i am in trend for the first time ever

I can say that yes spoons may not sell gourmet food but their coffee is good.
Their beans are ground when you order a drink, unlike Starbucks which are automatic, plus whenever i ask for extra hot in Starbucks it is at best, warmish.
My spoons i have to say, seemed to have been well trained at making drinks.

It all depends on your point of view...

One mans (or woman's of course!) distainful 'dead fish and broken plastic' could be another's evocative 'flotsam and jetsam' :)

Anyway, I spent an enjoyable tea break making imaginary cake orders with Pat Val's online 'make a cake' app thingy.

I've never heard of pat Valerie until now so where do I fit on the social spectrum? We normally get 3 for £1 cakes off the market or home make them for special occasions!

April fools right?

If not, you sound like a nasty piece of work.

I don't like any of the things you've mentioned however my family do. Would I think any less of them? Umm, NO! They all eat dairy milk which I hate the taste of, my mum loves SS and my sis goes wild for a Pattiserie V however I would NEVER think any less of them.

It would never cross my mind that they were common or embarrassing. It really shows the type of person you are to think this way.

I bet if something happened to your family or you were to need them in a crisis, you'd go running and wouldn't give a shiny shit how 'common and average' they were. That's the type of person you are.

I have several friends who don't have any family whatsoever. They'd chop off their limbs to have a common, average, embarrassing family.