> It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't
Any examples spring to mind?
Any examples spring to mind?
- Talking specifically about money (how much high-ticket items specifically cost, how much anyone specifically makes) is gauche.
- Depending on the group and the location, there are functionally dress codes - you show up to brunch in sweats and sneakers and everyone else is in polos and boat shoes, you "dress up" in a shirt and khakis, everyone else is wearing a blazer and slacks, you put on a Macy's suit for a formal event and everyone else is wearing Tom Ford or Armani.
- What you do for leisure can be a fraught discussion - we eventually started traveling more, but I've met people who talked casually about summering in Ibiza or the Hamptons (and who used "summer" as a verb), or who have seasonal homes. "I stayed home and played X-Box" as an explanation for what you did on vacation earns a side-eye.
- What and how you eat, although that one has relaxed a little bit over the last few years as street food has been gentrified and made trendier.
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell
Link: http://a.co/406UQB1
Try liking somethings considered as "white trash" hobbies/entertainment/activities, or as "posh" ones as a middle class person.
(E.g. a middle class high schooler who likes the opera instead of say, Hip Hop or whatever. Or wear some Comme De Garcons clothes around middle class dressed people, or stuff you bought at the Dollar Store...)
Not throwing daggers or anything, but every strata has things that are a bit strange about them.
Yes, I know that upper class does that too, unless you are in the hills where there really isn't any lawn to take care of, etc.
That's entirely the point. Lawns originated in the middle ages as a status symbol. They demonstrated a) that you could afford to waste a perfectly useful piece of arable land and b) you could afford to pay a team of men to neatly scythe and shear it. It's hard to tell how much land an aristocrat actually owns, but the size of their lawn acted as a reasonable proxy.
The invention of the mechanical lawnmower helped to democratize the lawn, establishing it as a symbol of middle-class suburbia. A small lawn in front of a suburban house didn't demonstrate that you were gratuitously wealthy, but did demonstrate that a) you could afford a larger plot of land than strictly necessary to accommodate your house and b) you had leisure time to spare.
I'm so damn sick of all this stuff. It's like nobody can just make a normal dish without putting some insipid "twist" on it anymore.
Edit: I should note this was in northern California, where people generally do not vacation on the east coast because of both local attractions and a high cost of living that makes saving for vacations much harder to do. We happened to have some family in the Carolinas which was part of our reason.
This is not just a rich people rule.
I grew up solidly middle class, and you could hear a pin drop if you asked someone in the room how much they were paid or how much that engagement ring cost.
(Not to mention in the US even coal miners would describe themselves as "middle class" these days, nobody is "working class" anymore).
We were pretty much lower middle class (sometimes lower-lower) , had friends who were better off and friends who were much worse off, and nobody really talked about money openly.
In my family I always figured it was WASP reticence, but now that you mention it I think it was something broader. Maybe: people with money don't need to talk about it, people without money are embarrassed to talk about it, and if you're somewhere in the middle you don't want to reveal your hand.
My father poured molten metal in a foundry as a married 19 year old.
Clothing is usually pretty easy once you find the staples; after that its your behavior that makes it. To actually look good though, you need to understand the group's values enough to move beyond the basics.
And of course, you need to learn to have an opinion on clothing, to understand (and deny) other's opinions. At the very least, when some chucklefuck gives you a look for eating fries by hand, you should be able to defend your position
Yes, and I'd extend this to talking about where your money comes from, as well as how you spend it. Don't expect a straight or detailed answer to "What do you do (for work)?" or "Where did you buy that?"
Asking those questions immediately marks you.
My overall takeaways from the book were:
1. Class is correlated with income, but not identical.
2. Class is so ingrained in so many areas of our lives that it's almost impossible to change. You might as well just be comfortable with the class level you grew up in, because you'll probably always be there.
3. A big reason for #2: caring about your class in the first place is middle class. The more you care about where you fall in the class hierarchy, the more middle and upper-middle class you are. Lower class folks don't really care (and may even take a certain amount of "pride" in being lower / working class), and upper class people have nothing to prove to anyone.
But the book goes into excruciating detail about the way people dress, speak, decorate their homes, what jobs they have, cars they drive, etc, etc.
Well, except for each other. And very much so.
One of the takeaways I got from it was that every single upper class activity is designed to be incredibly expensive and time consuming, just because only the wealthy can maintain those form of activities. Having driveways made out of gravel, that constantly need to be redone at considerable expense, or having a yacht. Despite this, the true upper class is incredibly banal; Fussell describes them as totally uninterested in ideas, reading time and cheap disposable mysteries if they ever bother to do so. There's really a lot of Thurston Howell in them.
I think most people here would dislike how Fussell pegs liking science fiction and technology as a fairly low class activity. But it's funny how right he is, because among the upper-mids here...you hate social media in the same way, and the lower class uses it just as much.
But, oh that book is devastating. Fussell is a wonderful writer, and a keen critic.
The upper class hobbies are definitely a thing. Equestrian > sailing > skiing > golf probably. Golf only being this low because it was "democratized" by muni courses and popularized first by Arnold Palmer, then by Tiger Woods.
Skiing is probably the most approachable of the activities for the upper middle class professional, but it's a $300/day activity that necessitates travel. A fairly devastating expense for many.
A $50/day activity at a local hill + a $150 initial investment (one that will last you multiple winters) in some decade-old used equipment at a local swap event.
Skiing is not cheap. But it's extremely expensive only if you have extremely expensive demands - such was wanting to ski while living in an area without hills or snow.
Ditto skiing with lift passes, travel, and lodging. Having a local hill is the exception rather than the rule tbh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGemNT7urY
The only thing this scene from the wire fails to capture is that once you learn the mannerisms, how you should look, how you should act to not feel out of place - you then need to learn how and what to speak about. It's hard to hold a conversation about Mr. Smith's recent trip to the maldives, his new non-profit business venture, and roger federer's latest australian open win if you're working a 9-5 and vacationing once a year in california. So in many cases you can look and act the part, but really you can't speak the part.
Then at the end of the meal, you're relying on them to pay for that $150 bottle of wine they ordered.
If you're going to resent someone getting an extra 10$ worth of food you split the check based on costs.
If 10$ is effectively meaningless but 200$ is not. Split it per person, it's fairly close and reasonably fast.
If 200$ is effectively meaningless, rotate who pays it's faster. This can blend into: If 2,000$ if effectively meaningless, or you want to show off, who pays may not relate to who paid last time.
Yes, I might have had an extra glass of wine. Or you might have had an extra side dish or a G&T. Let's either just split the bill, or I'll pay today and you'll get the next.
That's how it's in my country for all classes, poor or rich.
When friends go out, someone and pays for all the others (and someone might ask to chip in or pay themselves, but the first one doesn't take no for an answer).
Next time you see each other, the other person can pay, but no one keeps any very specific tally ("I paid 3 times, you paid 1") -- that would be considered tacky and cheap. That said, if someone systematically over many meetings never takes initiative to pay that the rest start considering them a cheapskate (but never giving specific tally or anything -- it's more from the feeling "never remember you paying").
Anybody insisting on splitting the bill, or obsessing over who ordered what, is also seen as a cheapskate.
That's how it usually goes among people with regular income. Now, sometimes, when the company is comprised of people that might be students, unemployed, etc, they more often agree to split the bill. But in this case too, obsessing over who bought what is considered rude, and usually it's just a simple bill/persons split that's paid by all.
If we're splitting a bill, I insist on this, because some of my friends don't drink alcohol, and some do.
(I drink.)
In our culture's case, in general the amount each one ate doesn't matter -- whether one had steak and the other just a salad, the salad person can very well still go on and insist on paying for everybody else. Nobody would care about "a 15% to 30% difference in cost" (the person paying for everybody wont feel it's a burden, and the persons having their meal paid, wont feel like imposing).
It's not about achieving some perfect balance or fairness in any particular meal -- people genuinely want to treat others, and enjoy taking turns doing so.
It's only longer term one would care for patterns of behavior (the person who after so many meals with others never volunteers to pay etc).
A lot of things in this thread seem completely foreign to me. Every restaurant I've been to in the past few years has just asked how we want to split the bill. They seem to keep all orders separate in the system and just merge them if you want shared bills.
Know how to pronounce the items on the international restaurant menu before trying to order them. If you don’t know, don’t ask out loud. Whisper into your rich friend’s ear so as to not embarrass them.
Don’t speak about the unspoken codes either, and if you must, do it privately with your rich friends and go along with their answers.
Don’t not have enough money for something unless you express clearly that you are too good for it. Not needing it bad enough is not an acceptable excuse.
When others share stories of their extravagant lives, hold a straight face. This is normal stuff for you, remember? You already know what that’s like.
Speak of politics as though identity issues(D) or working hard for your money(R) are more important than class issues. Remember that class issues are not something you are particularly affected by. You can acknowledge they matter but insist identity issues are more important. This helps wealthy folk feel both compassionate, concerned and comfortable with their wealth. I’m not taking a side here, only giving proven survival tips.
Your family is kind of more like cartoon characters. You just share jokes with them and nothing else, unless something tragic happens or if they invite you on a nice vacation. Don’t discuss any other relations with your family members.
Fashion: In the least, if you wore it in high school, you don’t wear it now.
Music, art: Don’t ask who this is. You’ve heard it or you are too busy to care.
Like parent said, these can be overridden with confidence and flair but that takes some acclimating and strategy.
Whelp there goes my dreams of hanging with rich people
They had good burgers and chef salad was good as well...
P. J. Clarke's is another one where you could get decent burgers.....
This is hilariously wrong.
You might say that's completely obvious, but it helps some people to be reminded of it.
You also used the word "only".
Your sentence read as "you can't become rich other than just saving on expenses." Maybe you can see how that is a really weird thing to say.
That said, I'm a big fan of burgers and order them often. Screw what other people think.
I've noticed that waiters/waitresses seem to treat me worse if I order a beer where I could've ordered wine. Especially when the cuisine is French or centered around steak.
... unless you are taking part in some 'whimsically proletarian' sort of event, or making some sort of 'statement'
The biggest one was pouring wine. I remember a few times I poured it kind of off and I got that distinct look of class violation. Haggling about splitting checks also got those looks often, the lesson I learned there was that almost always, the party will want to split it evenly rather than do something as gauche as math, so rather than order less, order much more so you get a discount on your meal :-)
I also spent some time in a small rich beach town, and from that time I remember how my switching to boat shoes seemed to instantly ingratiate me with some people. Also never mention how "cool" it is that someone has a jetski or nice boat, those things were just taken as statements of fact.
To many people these might not seem like real mores or wealth signifiers. Maybe you think I was just over-sensitive. This whole article though, is about feelings, and certainly in those moments it seemed like everyone was certainly feeling something strongly.
Edit: Not talking about the guy who rents a $10k apartment he can't afford to trick people into thinking he's rich. Talking more about people buying into social strata they can reasonably or paying fealty to those in higher strata to benefit their career. It is a thing out here.
The guy I had in mind was, I think, 29, german and I think working at BCG? Very polished. Had his fresh-to-the-city model girlfriend and threw great parties.
I think Astoria is slightly wealthier than Harlem in recent history, but neither is known for for having a particularly moneyed population.
Today, I know more wealthy people in Harlem than in Astoria.
-- Billy Joel
Also: "Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey? You can't dress trashy till you spend a lot of money"
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Addition 1 Hitler & the holocaust Abortion Child care Adult care
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