To want to tell acquaintance to piss off?

[burgledinParis]

I was at a dinner party with friends and friends of friends yesterday. We were going round the table and all talking about something small we did in 2022 that changed our lives.

A good friend and I both said that we'd gotten tumble driers and that it had been life changing.
Both of us - mid thirties - work very long hours - out of the door round 8 in the morning - often not back in till 9-10pm. Both single, no children. Live in Paris with high mortgages or rent, small spaces, far from perfect sound proofing - which means no putting the washing machine on late so the spin cycle doesn't wake neighbors. For both of us pre tumble drier this meant doing all the washing on weekends and then living in our small apartments with our washing drying taking up half our sitting rooms. Also - you can only do one load at a time and have to wait for it to dry before doing another load. We both basically said that the tumble drier was game changing as it meant we could set our machines to do the washing during the day and pop in tumble drier in the evening thus freeing up weekend time that used to be dedicated to washing and half our sitting rooms.

Acquaintance who lives in a massive inherited apartment and has five children and a wife who doesn't work went on and on and on about how we were ecological sinners, lazy, that the carbon footprint of our tumble driers was poisoning his children and that if that was one of our highpoint of 2022 we were both basically lazy, unorganized, boring fuckers. He was so vehemently agressive about the whole thing and wouldn't let it go. I think his poor wife probably does all the washing .... She wasn't at the dinner party she was looking after the children ...

Not wanting to ruin a lovely dinner party for our hosts I just smiled and gritted my teeth and grinned and made jokes the fact I that I would compost my left overs ... good friend tumble drier owner two had pretty much the same reaction.

Would I be unreasonable the next time I bump into him to tell him that my tumble drier has less of a carbon footprint than any one of his five children, or that I only ever fly for work and get the train for my private holidays where as he talks about multiple shortfall holidays a year, and then tell him he can fuck off if he brings up tumble drier again?

Oh, what a prize twat - just wanted to make the dinner conversation all about him and score points. He'll be imagining everyone thinks he's amazingly clever, whereas in fact they're cringing and wishing he'd shut up.

I wouldn't bother explaining your carbon footprint to him - you don't owe him an explanation.

Ugh. Mansplaining twat. Next time give him both barrels.

I think you would be perfectly reasonable to not justify yourself at all about carbon footprints and just go straight to the point of him being a massive rude twat who ought to get to the far side of fuck.

I would have asked about his five children at the time he was having a go....??

Honest to god, you couldn't make this up!

I think his poor wife probably does all the washing .... She wasn't at the dinner party she was looking after the children ...

How on earth did you stop yourself from giving him both barrels on this?

Fucking hell. Point out the carbon footprint of his FIVE CHILDREN.

I wouldn't feel I needed to explain anything to him the next time I see him but would have made sure he knew my thoughts about his opinion in no uncertain terms at the dinner party.

Nah. You'd look a prat.
The time to say anything was there and then.

He sounds like a sanctimonious twat and I'd have to say something!!!!

Yes go on do it

They couldn’t have a go at him for misogynistically leaving the laundry to his wife seeing as op and her friend appear to be in exactly the same situations in their relationships.

I would have had to say something. It probably would have been something like, ' I'll tell you what, I'll only have 4 children so that I'll be able to claim the moral high ground re climate change, sound good?'

"I'm sure none of us are perfect, mate. I have a tumble drier, you have five kids. Have you found out how it happens yet? And where is your wife this evening?"

The biggest threat on the environment/ biggest carbon footprint BY FAR is having a child- so just drop that in next time you see this father of five!
Look up how to reduce your carbon footprint- the best thing you can do is not having children!

@Lost123454 there's always one twat on a thread. Same as there's always one twat at a dinner party.

Tumble driers are amazing.

Sounds like a novel!

YANBU

Well, he sounds like a charming chap!

@Lost123454 slightly jealous of course, I'm human - but I didn't know this fact before someone else mentioned it - more about the point that the price of 10 sq/ft of real estate in the cheapest parts of Paris is round about 10-12k€ to buy. Monthly rent per 10sq/ft is round about 30€ in a cheapish area. So a small laundry horse takes up 500 euros a year in floor space alone. Besides, the friends we were having supper at have a massive apartment which also has a terrasse which is amazing for Paris and I'm not jealous of them... They have both lived in smaller spaces though.

@ICanHideButICantRun I didn't want to encourage him or spoil the evening for the hosts and given the guy I was actually scared he'd say it was his wife's job to do the washing as he worked and she stayed home- then the shit would really have hit the fan - and the host couple were already looking a bit embarrassed

@UWhatNow not sure I follow - We're both single and childless - only do our own washing

I don't know why, I'm normally pretty easy going, pretty "écolo" ... no car, I recycle, don't fly, avoid plastic packaging, etc ... but he just really got to me.

Mostly because it was a lovely fun unjugmental conversation up until the point we mentioned our tumble driers. I'll probably not bump into him for another 6 months but I'm under the impression I'll still be seething...

He sounds very rude! Was he drunk?

Did he actually call you 'lazy, unorganized, boring fuckers' or are you paraphrasing?

You are right that having 5 children and frequently flying on holidays are worse for the environment than one tumble dryer; but I wouldn't get into it with him. Just have as little to do with him as possible.

I agree he’s a twat, but it doesn’t sound like he was mansplaining - that’s quite a specific thing.

Still a twat though 😆

Yup!

@ToWhitToWhoo

He'd had a few drinks - an aperitif, a couple of glasses of wine - we all had - but no one was drunk.

I'm paraphrasing because it was in French but he said "mais c'est a cause des connards comme vous, qui arrivez pas a vous organisez et etes pas foutus de faire des efforts pour votre petit confort que la planète crame" the "connard" wasn't said in an agressive way but still ....

google translate says it translates as :

"but it's because of assholes like you, who can't organize yourselves and aren't bothered to make efforts for your little comfort that the planet is burning"

I'm imagining this as an episode of Call My Agent.