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 🤣

@Ionlydomassiveones

Round where I live - buying period properties and turning them into modern grey and glass monstrosities with huge, naff concrete fountains and fake grass.

this should really really be made a criminal offence , its the absolute worst sin there is

+Round where I live - buying period properties and turning them into modern grey and glass monstrosities with huge, naff concrete fountains and fake grass.*

I don’t think that’s pretentious - just bad taste/naff.

I remember when a couple at work got engaged and a very pompous man swept in and said:

"Felicitations! Let's have a decco at the sparkler"

An (ex) friend talking about our kids playing football said she hoped they would provide adequate comensurables. I think she meant food.

I was on the tube with my sister, it was nearly empty but a woman came and sat directly opposite us and started over-miming to whatever was on her headphones, with actions. She very obviously wanted us to be impressed and kept trying to make eye contact. We got off two stops early.

When I was in college there was a fellow student who every single day dressed, spoke and acted like a 17th Century European aristocrat, complete with ruffles embroidered coat, gloves and cane. Actually it was a bit of a mashup as he also wore a tophat. He was Chinese so the look was a bit incongruous anyway. I met him at a party and I thought it was some sort of costume/act, but it wasn't a costume party. He said he was 'charmed' to meet me. I was dumbfounded. When he walked away I said to the person who introduced us

'Is....what....is that a costume or...?' and she said
'No-one knows. He's always like that. No-one has ever seen him act any different'.

And until the day we graduated, he never did.

I was in my local shopping centre with my mate a few years ago - it is not a posh area. We were queuing at a greasy spoon cafe and a young lady marched up to the front of the queue yelling at the staff in a really plummy voice " do you do goats cheese and caramelised onion ciabattas?"
We pissed ourselves laughing 😅

@simitra

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.

You don't sound very nice @simitra

The one I remember involves a mum from the leafy, outstanding state school my dc attended. Some of the cliquey mothers fancied themselves as rather very special and probably a bit posh and secretly miffed that their poshness doesn't quite stretch to paying private school fees for their cherubs. Anyway, they were the inner circle of the school PTA (this they proclaimed on FB).

They mostly ignored those of us they felt didn't fit with their aspirational lifestyle. One day, a few of us were helping the PTA set the Christmas lunch tables for the children, it was all plastic plates and plastic cutlery, which could be easily cleared away after (I know crap for the environment but this was a few years ago). I did my best to be helpful and dashed round the hall laying the knives, forks and spoons.

I had just finished placing 150 pudding spoons when one haughty mum told me in a very reprimanding tone of voice that I had placed the spoons incorrectly as the spoon handle has to face right. She then went round and turned the all 150 white plastic spoons so that the handle was right. This was for kids age 4-7 .

Thanks for these, woke up and have had a good laugh!
Can't remember who asked, but salt/pepper mills aren't in any way pretentious - but bringing 2 foot tall ones to uni to grind over your sandwich whilst making sure everyone is watching - is very pretentious to me. Especially since there is adequate salt and pepper sachets in the shop you bought the sandwich from!

It’s Simitra’s neighbour who doesn’t sound very nice.

I think doing that is having incredibly poor taste…but am I being pretentious?

I was helping out on the refreshments stall at a primary school Christmas craft fair. We had tea, hot chocolate or instant coffee. The coffee was very obviously instant and described as jnstant on the price list.

A man ordered a coffee. He brought it back a minute later asking for a refund because he 'just couldn't drink that awful stuff', it was too much of a change from the freshly ground espresso he'd had at home before leaving.

On holiday years ago with now dh, his parents, his nephew and my dd. Mate of dhs booked same resort with his 2 teenagers and last minute, his latest girlfriend invited herself along.

Walking into the hotel bar to meet us she eye balled dd in her pushchair, and nephew playing with cars along the table looked all slapped arsed and exclaimed 'oh, I didn't realise it was a faaamily holiday, I thought it would be cultural'. It was a resort on a greek island not particularly known for its culture.

And later that night, the teenage dd of dhs mate was flapping a fleecey throw around getting snuggled up in it. Girlfriend 'ooh careful dahling it's a cashmere pashmina'.

'Its a cashmere paaashminaaa' has become an actual phrase in this house if someone is being a pretentious knob. I say it a lot to teenage dd who is adamant we are middle class when we are actually working class. Apparently getting mealdeals from M and S, having 2 fat ponies and me being at uni means we are. We definitely aren't.

@SpindleWhirl

The man who forgot how to speak English having spent the summer in France. He couldn't actually speak French though, so communicated to us in mangled franglais.

God that was funny.

I see you and raise you a lecturer with an American accent. She went tot he states for 2 weeks, acquired the accent and has not dropped it since.

Also the 'Audi woman'

I'd been taken into hospital as an emergency at about 11 am, I spent the day and most of the night being moved to different rooms / wards while they wound me a bed.

At one point at about 2 am I was lying on a trolly trying to get some sleep. there was an elderly lady i the next bed and her daughter.

Elderly lady kept asking where daughter's husband was. Well husband had, '"one to fetch the Audi, mum, the Audi"

elderly lady, "the car?"

daughter, "yes mum, he's taken the car back home and he's fetching the Audi"

This one went on for ages and the daughter's voice got louder each time she mentioned it.

An ex friend referring to her husband on social media as “the husband”… “The husband and I…” lol

Lunch was made with organic vintage cheddar, vine fruit and freshly baked artisan bread.

A cheese and tomato sandwich then.

All the ones talking about pretentious people in college - was it the 80s? That's how the 80s was - full of poseurs. (I used to dress in 20s dresses and use a long cigarette holder at the time, then i became a goth to rival any of the most outrageous outfits Abbey on NCIS Turns up with, button up boots, lace mittens & parasols, the lot)

I agree. My generation had trousseau parties before the wedding. (Like Hen parties but with no drunkeness or foreign travel). The brides friends gathered to help her pack and brought something special as a gift. It could be an embroidered apron, a set of towels, crocheted lace centerpiece etc.

this sounds lovely. I wish that would come back as a a custom.

I was behind a yummy mummy in Lidl who was on the 'phone to her friend. She told the friend she would see her later, but was in Waitrose at the moment.

On honeymoon we went to a grill type place. You know, chicken, ribs, burgers, very much a grill.

So we’re standing there waiting to be seated when this child in front of us who couldn’t have been older than about 9 pipes up, “there’s just nothing on this menu to eat.”

@SophieKaczynsky

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!

This strikes me as sad not pretentious. Poor woman, desperately trying to keep up appearances.

Working late one night and pouring rain offered colleague lift home as I passed nearby and she normally walked, ohhh no need my fathers will come to collect me in his Mercedes! Mercedes in question was an old rust bucket, she saw me come out of the car park and the following morning asked how long have you had that car? oh about a year, sniggering from other colleagues as car in Question was a rear engined German car.....

@HighlandCowbag I hate to tell you this but I'm pretty sure owning ponies makes you middle class 🤣

When I was at a Scottish University aeons ago, there was a chap who offered two different kinds of sherry to his visitors, complete with silver tray and sherry glasses. It was the hall of residence later popular with Kate and William.

I thought I was posh having a bottle of Ribena.

A guy I knew at uni used to smoke a pipe and wear a trench coat at all times. He was 20. He also looked a bit like Keanu Reeves, so had some redeeming qualities.

When I first started going out with the man who became my first husband he told me that his mother and stepfather used to spend the summer at a house in France. Apparently they used to tell their friends and colleagues that they only spoke French to the locals AND EACH OTHER the whole time. They were teachers in private schools so they were away for about 6 weeks. She liked to waft around local food markets living the book 'A year in Provence' that was a best seller at the time. I didn't know any of them very well at that time so I said "Oh wow how fantastic to be bilingual". He laughed and said "Oh it's all bullshit. Between them both they only know about 20 words of French.Turned out there woukd be an awful lot of bullshit.