What is the most pretentious thing you've seen someone do?

[kinzarose]

Inspired by another thread. When I was at university there was an older lady who thought she was vair posh, was very keen to have her designer labels on display and loved name dropping brands into conversation. We had a group tutorial over lunch once, so we all ate together. This woman took a two foot (yes, literally) wooden salt and pepper mill out of her bag, stood up and started grinding pepper onto the shop bought sandwich she had with her. It was just the most pretentious thing ever, she was a "food snob" apparently 🤣

@Tulips15

Drove their 'A-B' car home and returned in their new expensive car- A 2min walk from house to bus stop, to collect their child.., to make all the other parents 'jealous'at the bust stop where we collected the primary age children. Their exact words were ' Can't be seen in the cheap car'🤣

Suddenlyfamily5

My MIL telling me about her trousseau.

I don't even know what trousseau is!

That wouldn't have been pretentious coming from someone of her vintage though. Back in the day, a trousseau was the norm, it was just the nice new holiday clothes that you bought for your honeymoon. Everything was new and pretty, it was part of the planning for your wedding really. You'd get your dress, and your trousseau for the honeymoon .

@GreySweater

I have the misfortune to be working (distantly - she is based in USA) with someone on a project (basically we pay her / her team loads of money for consulting and they don't do a lot). She is very well connected with many senior leaders in my company, hence the reason she has the project. She often name drops - for example she has referred to wonderful moments 'of clarity' she has had when with her very good friend 'Michelle' (Obama). I love Michelle (but her 'friend' is a dick).

How did you stomach this? I would die .

My story is probably the weakest, but I'll explain it more if someone asks.

My DS goes to quite a middle class comp.

He has a friend, nice kid, who moans whenever Mummy can't get to M&S and he has to make do with Waitrose cakes in his lunchbox. Poor lamb!

After living a year in Canada aged 23 I came home with a Canadian 'rr' Pretentious as fuck. Thankfully twenty years ago so people might have forgotten.

I find it so peculiar that anyone would consider a pepper pot aspirational! Just odd.

We were on a cruise and turned up for the first trivia quiz. It is teams of six. There was a rather distinguished gentleman sitting alone. We asked to join him and he agreed.

Chatting before it started he told us he was some big wig at Cambridge. That's great we said. (DH and I are graduates of much much lower status Canadian university.) We are good at trivia.

Said gentleman clearly thought we were dressed like clueless raga muffin Canadians. Maybe we were. We are from Vancouver where yoga pants and goretex are high fashion. My efforts at forming a bit of rapport were rebuffed rather rudely every time.

We played the game and did OK.

The next time he clearly avoided us. OK then. We formed a team without him and proceeded to trounce his team every time. He had the most sour expression!

@Avarua

After living a year in Canada aged 23 I came home with a Canadian 'rr' Pretentious as fuck. Thankfully twenty years ago so people might have forgotten.

What's a Canadian "rr" and why is it pretentious? I really need to avoid using it if I ever get to travel to England again.

When my children were at primary school, a designer clad mum told everyone that her husband worked in London in investment banking and that they lived on a very posh, expensive road in the town.

Turned out they lived in a 1980s three bed semi. Oh and the husband was in prison!

To explain mine more (I might as well).

I am sat on the floor with friends waiting for the evening event to begin, near the front of the large tent as it happens. I notice the 2 girls approaching the stage with their male friend.

Girl #1 (red bandana) walks along the front and begins a chant. Some people respond as if this is a nightly occurrence, but I'm not sure it was. With some help from Girl #2 IIRC, she begins to throw sweets towards the people responding and seems to love the attention. At one point she seems to be aiming towards specific individuals with both hands. She then sits down with Girl #2 (blue bandana) at more or less the front.

Later on, she stands very close to the stage, as if she knows the band but probably doesn't.

What's a Canadian "rr" and why is it pretentious? I really need to avoid using it if I ever get to travel to England again.

Yes, as a Canadian I am wondering this too I had no idea.

a dude I went to uni with powdered. his. hair. and had a tin wastepaper basket with a map of the world with the empire in pink. Professed to like snuff, not the porn kind. Told me explicitly that he was cultivating an English accent. I don't know if this is pretentious so much as Peak Bless.

@LobsterNapkin

What's a Canadian "rr" and why is it pretentious? I really need to avoid using it if I ever get to travel to England again.

Yes, as a Canadian I am wondering this too I had no idea.

I'm guessing it means you pronounce your 'r's? Like normal people?

Come to Scotland or Ireland instead of England. We get you

Some university students in the 80s could be quite pretentious. I remember one fellow student who wore a felt hat, of which he was exceedingly proud, and would bring any conversation around to it: e.g. if people talked about the weather, he would say, 'I hope it doesn't rain because I don't want to get my felt hat wet!'

@LoveFall Cruises do seem to attract snobs! Glad your team won.

Young child in a (not particularly) posh restaurant: "Mummy, what are working-class people reeaally like?"

Angry self-appointed spokesman of a group of hoorays in a gem of a farm shop cafe, where they clearly publicised that they weren't a fast food place and that they cooked fresh meals to order; and they'd been waiting just 20 minutes since ordering - struts over to the counter in his red trousers, salmon shirt and accessory cravat and shouts "WE ARE LITERALLY STARVING OVER HERE!!!"

I think the woman mentioned in the OP might need to watch her step - I imagine a two-foot long pepper grinder could look quite like something else that you wouldn't want to be waving around in public

Waiting at the London embassy for my immigrant visa interview before moving here and a woman sat next to me and started to make small talk. She had a very fake American accent. I didn’t comment on it at all (I knew she was wanting me to). So she casually dropped into conversation “oh I keep speaking like an American! I’m so sorry! My boyfriend lives in LA (like I’d be impressed by that shit hole) and so I have ended up speaking like this because I just spent a whole month living with him there”. I didn’t have the patience to argue with her that a month in LA is not “living in America”.

I’ve been with my American husband for over a decade and have lived in the US now for almost as long and my accent hasn’t changed.

She was devastated when my number was called and it started with an I (for immigrant). She was there for a non-immigrant visa interview.

Oh and for true pretentious twattery, the Bolognese thread from last weekend was world-class.

Moved into new neighbourhood. One day I pinned up a sheet against the dividing fence to use as a photo backdrop. Towards the end of the session nosy NDN asks me what Im doing.

"Photographing things for insurance purposes". I wasnt going to tell her I sold antiques online.

Then she starts to tell me that its "her" fence which she paid for and I shouldnt be pinning things on it. I told her ok, you show me your reciepts to prove you paid for it and I will stop using it. But until then its just a boundary fence and I will continue to use my side as I wish.

She then launches into a long diatribe about new people moving into the area and how she and hubby have lived here since the dawn of time.

"There was no fence when we moved in, only the concrete posts. We put in the fence"

"So you built it to keep the dinosaurs out then?"

You should have seen her face.

Young child in a (not particularly) posh restaurant: "Mummy, what are working-class people reeaally like?"

^^ brilliant

My mum tells me a story about her and my dad (both Northerners) were in a restaurant in Tunbridge Wells or some such place and overheard a woman nearby say : 'There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Northerners'.

I told her she such have said :'Well there's a fucking lot wrong with southerners!!' à la Vera Duckworth

I had to work at a toney prep school. One day, a family came in for a tour and I heard the following exchange:

"Where would you like to go for lunch darling?"

"Mummy I want to go to Nobu for sashimi"

The chid was 6 or 7. I'm 34 and I still haven't been to Nobu!

Young woman on her phone, striding through Victorian station….

“No, Aidan, grilled asparagus does not constitute fucking nibbles…”

My exH only listened to rap music. But not just any rap music...but "Intelligent rap."

huh??

[confused}

Was in a resturant in the Midlands. Two guys on table next to us (early 20s I would say) spent the whole time talking politics and trying to out do each other loudly. Very annoying and very close together tables so hard to not listen! Towards the end of their meal one of them starts slating "northeners" and basically calling anyone who lives north of the m25 poor and he had witnessed so much poverty just being in the Midlands for a few days blah blah blah. When his card declined at the end of his meal I was dying to lean over and ask if he needed one of us northerners to foot his bill as clearly he was the one with cash flow problems, not us cash Hardy Northerners!