To hate when people are clearly trying to suss out what social class you are?

[pukkapad]

I often have to attend black tie dinners etc for networking for work. It's part of the job, albeit pretty nice.

Over the years I've noticed a clear set of questions people ask when they are trying to ascertain what social class you are, how rich/posh you are, your background, how you fit in with them etc.

Do you like to ski? Where have you travelled to? Where are your parents based? (NEVER where are you from) How well do you know London? Oh it's like boarding school!

Gosh it gets so tiring. They're clearly only interested in you if you are similarly living off 'London money' and do things "properly".

Am I the only one that gets sick of people trying to find out what your social class is? No I'm not aristocratic nor rich, I'm solidly middle class but who cares!

Surely everybody except maybe the upper echelons and the really poverty stricken lower is a mixture now and mingles, even marries from a large section of society?

Nope. I hardly think many people are happy to mix with my shameless type family. My working class in laws refused to have anything to do with them.

Surely everybody except maybe the upper echelons and the really poverty stricken lower is a mixture now and mingles, even marries from a large section of society?

I think not. The middle classes are too tedious to be tolerated by the uppers or lowers, and the uppers and lowers (for all their common ground, e.g. smoking, neglectful parenting etc) inhabit basically different planets so they rarely meet.

What do brown people get to be?

There’s none of that generational class stuff for us; I’m still 2nd generation. Both my parents born elsewhere.

And yet Asians are fascinated with class and desperate to be middle class even though we don’t have any claim to any class at all really.

Is class only a white thing?

You can’t get brown upper class can you? Not British anyway. I’m not talking the Ambani family here. Native Indians are obsessed with class. A step up from obsession with Castes I suppose. Although by British standards the Ambani’s aren’t upper class they’re just fantastically wealthy.

It’s all very confusing from an outsiders perspective.

My grandparents were factory workers in the UK in the 60’s, my father a clerk, my mother a housewife. We grew up in council estates. So I guess I’m working class???

Is the caste system not all about class? - I know very little of it myself. I'm white but not British - my home country of course has levels in society but not as comically and rigidly defined as the English class system.

That's an interesting point faff. I have a member of staff who is Indian. VV well educated. Tends to give orders to junior staff and irritates. At ths same time tells us about her maids and drivers in India. Yet here her DH works in a shop and they live, with a baby, in a one bed flat. There's an extraordinary lack of empathy and lordliness.

Interesting talking about the caste system. A very good friend of mine is Indian, he’s a big foodie and likes to introduce me to new, exciting restaurants. He once took me to a very swish Indian restaurant where he proceeded to treat the staff like shite.
I was shocked but he felt it was totally acceptable

Could it be because they are shitheads and not because they’re Indian?

A large number of people lack basic manners - regardless of class privileges.

You could have some real fun with this op! I would. Or just yawn and say, why do you ask? Tedious as fuck.

Thank you for that one Hide the whole point of my post was that my friend made a judgment which was based on his upbringing regarding caste/class.

I know what you are saying Loving and you’re trying to show the existence of the caste system. But you are attributing it to him being Indian when there are lots of Indian people who don’t behave like that and are therefore inadvertently perpetuating a racial stereotype. It’s always best to leave race/nationality out of it. Even if you truly believe a persons race/culture are behind their behaviour. Because a persons race can’t/shouldn’t be the basis for the description of negative behaviours of a person. As it was in your post and the one above. We didn’t need to know the persons nationality to have understood your point. Because the point about those two people was not that they were Indian but that they are dickheads who treat other people as lower than them.

Where I live this is not so much to do with class but to ascertain what religion you are.
‘Where did you grow up’, ‘What primary school did you go to’ etc. There is a huge religious divide where I live but with each new generation it lessens until I hope it disappears entirely

@SilentIsla Are Soles on the menu at your restaurant by any chance?