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?

Heavens. Is that an appropriate way to speak to others in France and in French society 'arseholes like you'. ? Because the translation sounds even worse and more aggressive and obnoxious and plain offensive than how you said in the OP. I was shocked at the original OP and really beyond shocked now that anyone could speak to you like that.

If someone speaks to you like that then it is reasonable to next time give him as many barrels as you can load and reload IMO.

@ComeTheSpringLobelia in a strange way the word connard isn't too bad depending on how you say it - written down it does sound bad though ... I think we were all just too shocked to react.

I am just reading it and cannot process how I would have reacted at all.

Honestly I would ignore it uness he brings it back up then have your five kids cost the environment more than one tumble dryer comment

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

Apologies. I had made an incorrect assumption. As you were. I’m a tumble dryer person too. My DH a fanatical line dryer. I do it secretly when he’s out! (Shhh 🤫)

As for middle aged pompous misogynists. I find they are best ignored and talked over.

I've been whatsapped by the host and the other tumble drier owner. Host is very sorry about his behavior - her theory is that she thinks he's about to get divorced and other tumble drier owner thinks he might have taken cocaine. Their consensus is that he's normally not a twat. Host is however now furious at thought that he might have done coke at her house....

You sound v jealous of him and his massive inherited apartment

Wow. Skippy would be proud of that leap.

It does sound a bit like he had no filter for some reason. Coke or otherwise.

@UWhatNow to be honest I do sometimes dream of having a wife who would do all of my washing .... but for now, its just me, my tumble dryer and my cordless dyson ...

Oh MY.

The cordless dyson did it.

You earth burner, you.

I wonder how much of a carbon footprint cocaine has - surely that negates a few drying loads on his tally sheet!

I don’t think I could have held myself back from telling him to fuck off and addressing the irony that a man with 5 children is lecturing others on their carbon footprint!
what a twat!

All I could think is how jealous we in the UK are of someone able to afford to use a tumble dryer! When I was laundering for 6, & working FT, my tumble dryer was a godsend, even better than the dishwasher.

And also because OP has imagined it…

I lived in a Paris suburb for a year and the ville’s Mairie had a rule that you couldn’t dry washing outside in the garden, but wouldn’t have dreamed of contacting the Mayor to tell him he was a “connard”!

It was right of you to not upset the dinner party, but the time to comment has passed, so I'd just let it go and avoid this person in future.

I am surprised that you both couldn't come up with something more interesting than a dryer as the highlight of your year though. Or are tumble dryers not run off the mill appliances in Paris?

I bet the host doesn't invite this man to her next dinner party.

I'm not in the UK, so it might be different, but I decided to cut back on tumble dryer use and put everything out to dry to save costs. It really didn't make any real difference to the power bill, which surprised me.

@lifeinthehills they're not that common here actually I find - the question we were answering wasn't about the high point - but about seemly small changes that had made a big impact. My tumble dryer has - it means than instead of hanging around for another load to finish to get it hung up during half a weekend day- I'm out and about and seeing more expos etc in Paris.

Anyway - the rude guy texted today and asked for my address - no apology - just if he could have my postal address - I sent it back to him - we'll see.

Why on earth does he want your address for?

Exactly yea why does he need ur address? I would not have given it to him

@Soubriquet I don't know to send me an invitation to the baptism of yet another child ? To get ecological radicals to protest outside my window ? To add my address to the canvasing list for the Green Party? maybe so he can signpost me to a convenient green space in Paris where I can hang my clothes out to dry outside ?

I hope you didn’t give it to him

To send you chocolates to say 'sorry; and to proposition you in some sort of French version of negging?

To send you flowers and suggest that you go away to an ecological retreat together - by the way it is a nudist one?

To send you champagne and an invitation to his ecologically friendly hut tub sans bathing suit?

(I might be projecting somewhat).

@Soubriquet I did. His message was polite. We're in the same social cercle anyway - he could have found it easily enough anyway, it's in an email thread he's in. I have a door code. I don't think he's remotely dangerous in anyway. Just a slightly agressive asshole; I actually do think it could be an invite to a baptism - last child is 10 months old and hasn't had one yet - the others had theirs much earlier ...