To hate snobs with a passion???

[SneakyBlinder]

I was just chatting to my neighbour and she was telling me that her son has a new girlfriend (I’ve known her son for years) she was saying how nice the gf is and how happy he is with her. Then she said “the only downside of course is that she lives in ” (an area about 25 mins from where we live)
I was a bit taken aback by this and said “does it matter? It’s just a house, on a road” and she said “of course it matters...that’s not what I wanted for DS”

Now this has really got my back up. When I had my eldest DD I was given a HA place in a less then popular area of my city. I didn’t care though, it was mine and I was happy. I made it nice. I worked hard, got my degree, worked full time and although things were tight most of the time, me and DD were happy. It didn’t matter what road our house was on....

Am I being naive? Do people really judge other people by where their house happens to be? Regardless of whether the person had any choice in where they were housed?

[Camomila]

MrsKoala Depends where in Surrey I guess, we used to live in South Croydon - 10 min drive one way was leafy Surrey, 10 min the other way was East Croydon.

Being a snob works both ways. So true, I got bullied a lot for being 'posh' at primary school, I grew up on a HA estate and got free school meals! I was just quiet and did well at school work.

[MysteriesOfTheOrganism]

Gf lives in ??? Oh dear, how shocking.

[Morana23]

I grew up in a 'nice' area and shocked my parents and everyone else when I fell pregnant at 18, and ended up as a single mum living in a council house. Years later I'm working, almost completed my degree and married to an amazing man, situation is completely different but I am still in that council house. I am happy here, my husband and kids are happy here and we have no intention of moving on to 'better' places - even though we could if we wanted to.
I think the assumption that all council estates are awful is honestly just wrong. My mum was horrified when I was offered this house and I can honestly say I enjoy living here far more than our 'desirable' area growing up. People are friendly and down to earth, sense of community is much stronger here and I don't feel judged anywhere near as much as I used to.

[Iamthewombat]

@MysteriesOfTheOrganism that is exactly how I imagined the OP’s neighbour.

[NailsNeedDoing]

Snobbery is horrible, but it happens both ways. I hate when people are called snobs just because they live in a decent area and have a decent job, or people are called stuck up, posh or names along those lines when they’ve done nothing except be something other than working class.

People need to stop judging each other on meaningless, superficial shots that gives no indication at all of their character.

[Lightswitches]

MsEllany I think you're mixing me up with someone else, otherwise you are projecting massively. I was curious to know what made OP's area that she once lived in as "less than popular" as she said it was. That's literally all I asked.

[MrsKoala]

My area seems to get it from both sides on here. It is described as rough by people in Sevenoaks and T. Wells (but, let’s be honest, everywhere is rough compared to that!) but described sneeringly and dismissed as ‘the posh part of Kent’ by others. I think it’s posh really as I’ve lived and worked in London most of my life it doesn’t have the edge that you get there. Even in a posh area of London you aren’t far from somewhere a bit more spicey. I know Shepherds Bush is considered posh but you couldn’t pay me enough to live there. I’ve seen too many fights and muggings. I saw someone glassed in the face and hit with a pool cue in a pub in Chelsea.

Camomilia- I had similar primary school I was considered common (chavvy if that word had been invented then) because of my clothes (tacky, nouveau and showy apparently) and in secondary I was considered posh because of my accent.

[SneakyBlinder]

@MysteriesOfTheOrganism @Iamthewombat

She doesn’t look nearly as posh as her

[Mumoblue]

Snobbery is stupid.
If someone is privileged enough to own a house in a nice area you'd think they'd be happy enough with their lot, but it does seem like some people aren't happy without being able to sneer at the peasants.

[derxa]

@MysteriesOfTheOrganism that is exactly how I imagined the OP’s neighbour. Although Hyacinth is a snob she's always round at Daisy and Onslow's house sorting things out

[aintnothinbutagstring]

Some people have nothing else, other than their 'class', to prop up their self esteem. They literally have nothing else going for them in life, it's quite sad really, that struggle to keep up appearances so people can't see how ordinary you really are (yet we do).

[MrsKoala]

Pootle I remember working at an art gallery and a woman in the office said loudly that we were all to lock away our valuables as ‘the electricians are coming in and you know what they can be like’ I said back, ‘my dad’s an electrician...’ and watched her face as she backtracked furiously. I heard some absolute classics when I worked there. I bet none of them let builders use their loo

[PinkSpring]

We have some neighbours like this.

It's was a new estate, we purchased our house using shared ownership (so they were shown on the development map as social housing) and the houses we back on to were big "private" houses. We were in the garden not long after we moved in and overheard the neighbour behind us whinging to her husband how they needed to pay to have the patio moved so the "social housing" can't see them whilst they are sitting in their garden AND they actually did move the patio!! Even all these years later, they seem to think they are better than us so we don't speak.

Our next door neighbours purchased using shared ownership as well and they come out with some ridiculous lies. Not long ago they told me they own their house (no longer shared ownership) and at the time we were finishing the process of buying ours fully so I kept checking the land registry to see when ours turned to freehold - checked theirs, leasehold and still shared ownership. Still is to this day.

They lie about their jobs and what they earn (they have seriously dropped this into conversation) and it's all lies as I know where they work and what they do!

I honestly don't care, it's none of my business - but why lie about such random things?! I wouldn't dream about telling them any of our financial details or making up stuff but they seem to insecure and desperately to be seen as "middle class" that they come out with utter rubbish!

[SummerCherry]

I’m not sure. I spent most of my life being so unsnobby that I went the opposite way and took too many chances on situations, places and people that I shouldn’t!

So yes she shouldn’t have just condemned the girl for where she lived. However it is totally fine to want more for your son, if he was going to live in the area for example, if it’s pretty rough or stressful. A middle way!

[RedOasis]

This is the reason why some folk don’t get ahead in life. Unfortunately we are a country that is run by snobs and this resonates right through to the kids that attend certain schools etc - not the kids faults but that is just the way it is. Snobs are pitiful creatures I find. A terrible waste of resources!

[Deathraystare]

’well I am middle class" into almost every conversation’

My dad used to say "Well of course I am working class (pronounced in an affected Northern way although he was born in Brixton!!!))but in a middle class job!


Er Dad, you are now Middle Class haha!

[Deathraystare]

I suppose I must admit to snobbery though. When I hear of Thamesmead/Woolwich or Plumstead (a friend lived there) I am afraid I do not have a good impression of those areas.

[MsEllany]

@Lightswitches projecting? I was responding to what seemed like a loaded question. In a fairly benign way I thought.

[Quarantimespringclean]

My niece is very bright. She went to a very ordinary State school, did well, went to Oxbridge and got an excellent degree. She now works in international law in a big City company having very rapidly risen up through a graduate programme that mainly recruits posh public school boys. One of her current team of graduate trainees is so outraged that a mere woman from a normal background is in a position of authority over him that he openly refers to her as ‘Hounslow Comp Girl (ha ha banter)’ and goes over her head to other staff for direction. The senior managers send him back to her but the message isn't getting through and he is starting to look like an idiot. He even tried appealing to a director on the basis that their dads were at school together and got knocked back.

DN is confident enough in her abilities to be able to see the funny side of this entitled pin head who hasn’t even got the sense to realise she is fully aware of his shenanigans and will be carrying out his annual appraisal, but nevertheless it’s galling that she should have to put up with his snobbery.

[LakieLady]

YANBU. I grew up on the roughest council estate in Croydon, and in the 2nd roughest part of it. My parents were pretty hard up and we lived in a council flat. I also got a scholarship to a very posh school.

The snobbery I experienced from some of the other girls was breathtaking; comments like "Oh, so your parents don't own your house?" "Your parents haven't got a car?" etc were really hurtful. I was practically the only girl in my year who didn't have a pony. We didn't even have a fucking phone until I was 15! (This was 1960s, when it cost a small fortune to have a telephone line installed and connected).

I already had lefty inclinations, courtesy of my Labour activist dad, but it really made me realise how awful inequality is for those at the bottom of the heap and, I suppose, radicalised me to some extent. In that respect I regard it as character forming!

Ironically, my racist, sexist millionaire BIL accused me of snobbery a few months ago, and blamed it on me going to a "posh" school.

He's now sending his two youngest to a private school.

[jessstan2]

"As many people already know on here, I live in Surrey. I have been judged for that on here more times than I've been judged for other, far more heinous things!"

I've not heard anyone speak negatively about Surrey. Parts of it are very pleasant. The bits on the edge of London, like Croydon and Thornton Heath, aren't so good but generally that is known as S London area, not 'Surrey' proper.

Maybe the people having a go at you for living in Surrey have never been there. Take no notice as long as you're happy.

[Hopoindown31]

Judge people on what they do and what they say, not on where they are from or the accent they say it in. I've found that seems to have got me through life quite well.

I'm an educated professional from pretty humble beginnings so get the snobbery in both directions. My northern accent prompts a few comments professionally by the usual public school educated twats and the fact that I went to university means that I am effectively a class traitor back home.

[Hopoindown31]

@Quarantimespringclean

Sounds like someone is gunning for a shit performance review by the looks of it.

I'd be putting the cocky shit on capability proceedings of I were your neice.

[Desiringonlychild]

Yeah people online (and a few IRL) have told me that they wouldn't buy a flat. But I want to live in London, near DH's family and that happens to be zone 3 north london. And a 2 bed flat is what I can afford as a 27 year old as a terraced house is £1 million here.

I don't get why people are looking down on me for not being able to afford a £1 million house in my 20s.