To think social class plays a part in making friends

[Jadefeather7]

I know a lot of people will likely find this obnoxious etc but as I’ve become a mum and seeking to make mum friends I feel like I didn’t realise before how much background impacts on friendships. Most of my friends come from a similar background i.e. we are professionals who live pretty comfortably. I was at a coffee morning today and I found myself having to really think about what I was saying. I felt a bit odd talking about my job and lifestyle. I thought about just sticking to baby topics as that’s what we all have in common but there were things that I couldn’t say for example when the mums were talking about babies not sleeping I couldn’t say that we managed to sort out our baby’s sleep with a sleep consultant. I even felt embarrassed about the way I speak English and felt that people would judge me for being ‘posh’.

I do appreciate everything I have had and I don’t look down on people who don’t have those things but I couldn't help feeling like the odd one out today and feeling that I couldn’t really be myself. I’ve read threads complaining about it being the other way around i.e. mums feeling that NCT groups are too “middle class” but I’m finding the reverse. Has anyone else experienced this? Do I need to try to find friends who are more like me or am I just sheltered and needing exposure to different people? If the latter do I just talk freely and risk coming off like a show off/snob or do I need to constantly be aware off how I come across and keep things to myself?

don't get bogged down with. Please Mumsnet, do consider an option of being able to edit one's comment.

@BloodyDisgrace
What I find funny is that I never actually mentioned the sleep consultant but apparently even thinking about wanting to share something that worked for me shows a lack of empathy! The reason I thought of it was because it really changed our lives and I think it’s a shame that people have to struggle with sleep issues sometimes for years on end. The NHS provides some support with feeding but there’s no advice on sleep which is also so important.

Apparently I could have just spoken about the techniques but to be perfectly honest I believe a lot of it was down the encouragement the consultant gave me to persevere and the tailored advice she gave based on how DS was responding to different things.

Jadefeather7 I'm glad your DS is sleeping better now. It must have made a huge difference. I don't have any children but a relative's newborn was helped by a cranial osteopath. I didn't even know these practitioners existed if she didn't mention it. It only took one session and the child stopped crying and was sleeping better.
Not everything is a marker of social status. Not each pence you have more than another person is a sign of social superiority. I wish people relaxed a bit about what was being said, but paid more attention to how it is said.

@Whitejasmine

The point I’m making here is that I consider myself more intelligent than a lot of people I know who have degrees. I don’t believe going to uni is necessarily a sign of being above average intelligence!

You might not believe it - for whatever reason - but generally it is true that those who are of above average intelligence will indeed have gone to university and have at least one degree.

BloodyDisgrace
Common sense and tact as in any other getting to know you interactions.

Jadefeather7
It isn't a case of "even thinking about it..."
The thing that stands out through all your posts is that all these mums must have an issue with you because of your class, they must have an issue with you because of how you talk because they're brash and working class, how you're feeling so awkward because you felt you couldn't mention sleep consultants. Etc.

It's all based on this assumption that everyone you're meeting is insecure or couldn't deal with hearing about money or thinks you're posh etc.

The reality is that most people rub along just fine with people from a range of backgrounds. Nobody is stupid enough to believe we all have the same earnings, but equally common sense says that if someone is talking about as struggling with something (any topic) then chiming in with "oh i had similar but it's so much better now I've thrown money at a fairly niche service" would be awkward. There's no need to think "ooh I figured I probably shouldn't mention it because the working class women might think I'm posh". It's as simple as "nobody would do that because it would be an insensitive thing to do regardless".

I honestly wonder if your own obsession with how others must be viewing you is probably affecting your interactions.

Re. discussing how much you earn or boasting in general, it is not the thing to do. It’s not about people being “coy”.

@LolaSmiles I don’t think it’s an unfair assumption to make when they started ignoring me from the start. It seemed to me based on that, that it was something about either the way I spoke or the way that I looked that made them decide that they didn’t want to talk to me off the bat. If they had given me a chance and then started ignoring me later I could have put it down to them not liking me as a person or not liking something I said, but I wasn’t even given a chance here. If they had ignored other new people who came in later I could have assumed they were just unfriendly but they were smiling and talking to the others. I’ve mentioned earlier what I said to them as soon as I walked in something totally inoffensive like “Hello, is the X group? I’m Y. Nice to meet you” after that they continued making small talk amongst themselves totally ignoring me.

But as many of us have said, the people who ignored you from the start ignored you because they were rude and/or insular. There are rude people in all social classes and social groups.

Despite this, you're still assuming that they've hear you utter a sentence and therefore decided based on your class to ignore you. Or they've looked at how you dress and made a class assessment to ignore you.

You're really searching for a class angle here for something that is more logically explained as "said hi and a couple of rude cliquey people weren't bothered and didn't talk to me"

(I'll read the full thread later, it might be interesting)
Another thing pops to my mind: sometimes confessing to sensitivity (as in "I was thinking if I should really say that") is such a marker of middle class that anyone who just bumbles on without thinking what they say or do suddenly becomes incensed for no apparent reason. As if displaying sensitivity reveals that you've had a very sheltered cosy cushioned life, and they didn't, and this upsets. I'm speaking from experience. What I've realised very early on after moving here from another country is some people will like you for the same very traits and habits for which others will dislike you. There's no other way of putting it. These traits are what someone sees as "one of us", and the other sees as belonging to an outsider. And these traits/quirks etc. are to do with your background and how much pain/struggle or comfort you had as a child. And people will never confess to weighing you up like this. They'll deny it vehemently.

On the other hand, the post reads to me as [a very mildly termed and nicely expressed] attempt to analyse it sociologically, in terms of social class rather than "people get on when they get on, there are some arseholes etc etc". And some people who didn't get this approach then chose to pose as "offended" because it looks like a safe option, from which they can level veiled, thinly disguised insults or hostility. Why do some commenters feel hostile? Perhaps because they had some snobbery from others in real life, and they suspect you, OP, is one of these people. But they don't know you; and they forget that really arrogant ones never ponder what to say, they just blunder on.
There is no lack of snobbery on this site. I've seen people using in earnest words such as "classy", "common", "chavvy". On one thread someone said their Grandma called some salad a "council estate salad". Now, this is snobbery and arrogance to me, not the OP's sensitivity or even daring to discuss the subject of class.

The thing is that from the interaction:

1. I said hi to some people who were already talking

2.They weren't bothered, probably a bit rude and insular and carried on with their chat

Most people would take from that "ok so they were rude" and not dwell on it, because people can be arseholes.

Most people wouldn't decide it's because we are middle class, they dislike us for how we talk, how we dress etc (whilst commenting on how they're brash a BD working class), think of other occasions we have to self censor around people because we're middle class. It's a whole series of jumps based on the assumption that working class people couldn't possibly manage to deal with a range of people who aren't like them. I think that's the issue.

I was brought up working class but now tick many middle class boxes. There's unlikely to be anything in the original interaction at all

Social class /education level /shared interests may affect who people become friends with, because of having more in common to talk about.

However, it shouldn't affect whether people are polite to one another in a public setting - that's about good manners. Excluding individuals isn't considered polite in any social class. It should be perfectly possible for anyone to turn up to a toddler group and chat with others present. Whether close friendships develop is a different thing.

@LolaSmiles The bit you are ignoring is that they were friendly with all the other women that arrived afterwards. If they were just rude and insular they wouldn’t have bothered with any of the others and I would have thought they aren’t interested in making friends with anyone and that’s fine. However it was only me that they were ignoring and the only two things that I could think of that would differentiate me so immediately would be the way that I speak or the way I look (i.e. the colour of my skin)

The discussion has moved on to saying you should be able to be civil in a group environment whatever the people's background - well yes, of course, unless you're a judgemental idiot. However the op asked about actually making friends. My experience is that I've always found it easier to make friends with a certain type of person - fairly similar to me in class, education etc. I'm looking to make new friends atm and have lots of lovely acquaintances but haven't got there yet with making friends so I'm interested in this question! I have picked up the belief that it's more "worth" investing in people more similar to me due to friendships normally going that way. I've also had friendships not work out where I think class differences were a factor in that. But I also don't want to be that cynical! My parents were from very different class backgrounds so I was exposed to a range of perspectives and still like talking to everyone really although I'm quite shy so that holds me back a little.

I agree. I felt an outsider on the school run and when I go to parents evening. I'm glad my dd is in high school now and I don't have to see anyone, or worry about if anyone is going to talk to me.

I agree chocolate but sadly some people are just rude.

OP It still could be topic of conversation, mid flow on something else and rude when you joined, other people might have hung on the sidelines and grabbed a seat but then joined the chat later with contributions. Even down to where you join in a circle or conversation seems to make a difference (and I'm usually the person who misreads a group and somehow ends up stuck on a limb where it's hard to join in)

I often feel awkward entering group situations but have found on reflection that sometimes I'm actually just a bit socially awkward at times, especially if I'm nervous.

Sometimes other people are rude. Sometimes it our own approaches to social situations that are a factor.

Both are more likely than deciding not to talk to someone because they sound more middleclassy

Again with the sleep consultant it simply comes down to having some empathy and phrasing it accordingly, rather than it being about money or class.

I never felt I could fully join in with newborn sleep discussions either.
‘Me? Oh, no problems at all thank you. I don’t have a difficult birth to recover from, dd has always been a good sleeper and a generally easy baby. Not to mention that I’ve never needed much sleep’

Really not what someone struggling needs to hear.

A brief line about having been very lucky because she was an easy baby, or in your case because you had outside help is more than adequate as a response without being insensitive to a potentially exhausted new mother. The time for further details is when they no longer feel intense envy for any reference to getting sufficient sleep.

@LolaSmiles If I hadn’t bothered to go up to the only people that were in the room at the time and just sat on the side, then my not going up to them and introducing myself would have been your reason for why they ignored me.

I didn’t immediately start making contributions to their conversation. I sat down and listened for a bit waiting to see if they would include me as the newcomer. When I saw that wasn’t happening I made a comment to see if that might prompt them to try to be a bit more inclusive but it didn’t.

Anyway it seems like you think it’s totally inconceivable that anyone would decide not to bother talking to someone who is different to them. I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen a number of threads on MN where people from working class backgrounds have complained about feeling discriminated against by middle class people. I don’t know if you think those people are also making it up as well. This stuff does happen.

Ok, so you couldn't have done anything differently at all (none of us where there to comment on the interaction to say either way how your contribution went). Equally It couldn't have been that they were being rude.

It's most definitely personal. The mean working class women who were, according to you, brash evidently didn't like how you spoke and decided to ignore you because you are middle class.

End of discussion. You're only interested in being told it's class anyway. Next time find a group that's likely to only be frequented by middle class people who look and sound like you and then you can have it confirmed that people can only interact with people just like them

I am really, really sorry to say this OP but I'm afraid I think that in the current climate it's more likely that this was a matter of race rather than class.

@LolaSmiles Yes I was the one that was there, not you, so I am best placed to say what was likely going on here. I know they weren’t incapable of being friendly and I know it was personal to me. For some reason you keep referring to these women as “brash” even though I have never called them that. If you read the original post I wasn’t looking for explanations for why these women ignored me, but thanks anyway.

@bluebilledbeatboxingbird Possibly. I just find it hard to image. I’ve been lucky to have never really experienced much of that sort of thing, so it’s a bit hard to believe.

Ok so you were there. Anyone who disagrees or offer alternatives can't comment.
... So why ask? (Standard MN - ask for opinions, when people disagree insist you're right and then tell them they weren't there so can't comment)

I took the brash from this comparison of the dominating working class woman picture plus the overall comparisons between you/them
She was dominating the group and was probably the most ‘working class’ person there (I’m guessing this from the way she spoke). I didn’t say anything that could have been perceived as offensive or snobbish but I do have a polished way of speaking and I found myself wondering if it was because of that

Apologies if that's now you intended it to come across but from the whole thread of being used to professional people who are comfortable, not being able to be yourself, feeling embarassed for how you speak in case it seems posh, feeling you couldn't share sleep consultant stories, it seems very much like "I've judged these women for how they talk and therefore they must have an issue with me for being more polished and middle class than they are".

It absolutely has to be class because theres no chance there could be any number of other factors including your own interactions (something we all have to consider when entering new groups, but you've got a unique power to know you read the room and new groups brilliantly at all times). If being with people like you is clearly the big issue then maybe don't bother with any group that might have people who aren't comfortable professionals who look and speak like you. The rest of us will get on with rubbing along just fine with a range of people and accept we may encounter some rude ones along the way but that's life in these groups.

I wasn’t asking for people in MN to give me their opinions on an interaction that I had that they had never witnessed! I was asking if anyone else had experienced anything similar and also whether people censor themselves in these situations. It’s quite different.

Just because this women was dominating the conversation it does not mean that she was “brash”. The reason I mentioned that she was dominating the conversation was to show that she was not shy and was in a good position to try to include me. If I’m dominating a conversation and someone new joins, I will make the effort to try to make them feel welcome and included.

And yes I do think I’m better placed to “read the room” as I was the one that was there not you!

It’s quite bizarre. I’m really not sure why you think it’s impossible that I was ignored for the reasons I believe I was ignored. If a working class woman told me that she had been ignored by a group of middle class women I wouldn’t invalidate her reading of what had happened. I know that this sort of stuff does happen and I don’t feel the need to be defensive of the middle class.

This thread is illustrating the OPs issue very neatly!

OP, you’ve omitted one key detail. Was your baby wearing a babygro or an outfit?

Definitely. In my NCT I was one of the better off mums, the problem was that the ones I got one with best moved way out of the area as they couldn’t afford it.
Then at DCs school I felt the other end of it where many mums had au pairs, lived in massive detached houses etc and we live in a semi and (just) have a cleaner. I once went to a dinner at one of their houses - all talking about au pair experiences etc and I couldn’t keep up! They were all fine individually but as a group - not for me!
I found my own level w the school mums though - ones who live in modest homes but don’t have all the ‘trappings’ of the more wealthy. So even in MC circles there is a difference. Some of those mums are so lovely but I’m just not in that dinner party vibe (then I have to reciprocate and it’s never great!). I prefer to go out!!