I can maybe see the uncouth part, but why is it immature and unsophisticated? Is it because you’re not used to it?
Children interrupt conversations with non-sequiturs when they want all the adults to concentrate on them. If you’re getting this sort of reaction from your fellow students, I’d suggest that’s what they’re thinking about you. They don’t consider that you’re leading the conversation in interesting directions. They just think that you’re butting in like a child. And so they simply ignore you.
I understand why someone would ignore me when I do this. But not all adults shun this form of conversation. It’s useful and fun to some people, which is why I wouldn’t call it immature.
The way you are describing non-sequiturs used by children for attention is different from my example. A child using it for attention is not part of the conversation and is trying to get in. That would be immature. But if you already have a conversation going and you want to change the topic, an abrupt segue isn’t a cry for attention.
I guess I was just mislead by this:
and this:
and this:
and maybe this:
Because the upper crust is taught not to be vulgar. It’s much easier to pass off a passive aggressive insult as a compliment than it is to pass off a straight slam as a compliment.
Some adults find making farting noises with their armpits to be useful and fun. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s immature.
I think what you’re discovering is not that ‘upper class people are passive-aggressive’ - the reactions you’ve described are not passive-aggressive at all. You are being ignored because your behaviour is obnoxious, but rather than making a scene about it, your friends are choosing to ignore you. I would imagine they’re hoping if they ignore it long enough, you’ll stop.
No, because as I said earlier, it shows poor impulse control, a lack of self-awareness and a disregard for other people. If 4 people are having a conversation and you abruptly decide to change the topic out of nowhere, it absolutely is a cry for attention. You are showing a disregard for the interests of everyone else and trying to get them to focus on you.
A conversation has a natural ebb and flow to it. If someone is regaling the group with some amusing anecdote, the polite thing is to stand there and STFU until either they finish or they provide you with an opening to interject something on topic. If the conversation appears to be winding down and people are shuffling around awkwardly, that is a chance to either excuse yourself or to start your own anecdote.
The reason the more affluent classes know this is because they spend a lot more time at cocktail parties and similar social events holding polite conversations with groups of complete strangers.
I have found that, in general, the higher up the social spectrum one goes, the less one finds humor, er, humorous. Rare sense of humor. Also, the more money people have, the less time that they have to spend in idle chitchat about cats. They want to talk about making money, keeping money, and doing things that those with money do.
Also, as pointed out above, nobody took you to raise, and better manner says 'do not correct others." Hmmm…what other things may I point out for you?
Oh, btw, they aren’t trying to force you to conform; they, are, in effect, ignoring you. They had no reason to carry on with your disjointed conversation, so they didn’t participate in it. No passive agression, just disinterested.
Best wishes,
hh
I also don’t think it sounds like they’re being passive-aggressive.
If one reads Miss Manners, she often advises people to ignore rude behavior, for several reasons:
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If they’re paying attention, they’ll realize they’ve erred and will be sufficiently mortified that pointing it out would be rude.
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They don’t know better, but you’re not close enough to them to point it out.
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They’re deliberately insulting you, in which case it would encourage the insult by acknowledging it. (This is where she adds a withering but polite response that I’m terrible at.)
There are others, but that’s a start. It’s almost always impolite to acknowledge the rudeness of others, with some exceptions.
There’s no polite reason for someone to point out that you’re being rude by trying to drag the conversation around to what you want to talk about. It’s probably obvious. (By the way, the only person I know who uses a non sequitur to change a subject is utterly lacking in other social skills as well.) For most polite people, the knowledge that others are politely ignoring their behavior provides sufficient incentive for them to change it.
I disagree with this. Most rich peole I know earn so much money so they can retire early and do what they want to do instead of work. Unlike many reality shows demonstrate, it has little to do with status and everything to do with peace of mind. Most also want to leave their children a legacy. I’m hardly rich, but I come from a well-to-do family, and the reason they earned their money was to ensure their children’s future education and have money set aside in case they needed it later because they started off with nothing. I’m sure for some it is about buying status, but for most rich people I know, it’s about contingencies and their kids.
That said, I agree with those who have said that the non-sequitor outbursts are odd and immature. It’s discomfiting to others when you come up with some random shit you blurt into a conversational opening. Doing that totally messes up the flow of conversation. It also serves no purpose. You don’t add anything to the conversation, you don’t force people to think differently - generally the reaction is, “Huh? Anyway…” Plus, the people having the conversation might actually be enjoying what they’re talking about and want to continue discussing it.
Also, having delighted in doing something similar when I was in eighth grade, it’s hard to listen and participate in a conversation when you spend most of it thinking about how you’re going to wow someone with your next conversation bomb.
Or the reason they are ignoring you, is that it sounds like you’re trying to be funny…and for whatever reason, they just don’t think you’re funny.
For many rich people, what they want to do is what they are doing - building their business or pursuing their professional career. It’s not a job to them. It’s what gives them purpose and enjoyment in life.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. But I think what you might find is that at least with the professional classes, people who enter those classes tend to be more serious. They are serious about their careers and their studies and they want to be taken seriously. That is not to say we are all pompous, humorless jerks. I’m considered quite amusing by my peers. But it’s a dry and sarcastic, not “zany” or “slapstick”. If you are looking for that, a career in law or business might not be for you.
I’ve bitched before about San Francisco having the greatest number of incredibly passive-aggressive people I have ever encountered. Now that you mention it, I think your socio-economic theory may be a large part of the reason why this is.
But in SF, even many of the “lower-class” people carry an attitude of “I’m better 'cause I’m from (or live in) SF!” and that can make them feel and act like those from a “higher station”. So there’s really no escaping the overall web of passive-aggression here. It’s really maddening sometimes!.
It kind of sounds like you’re trying to rationalize behaviour that you’re actually driving.
It sounds like no one finds your ‘style’ of conversation, clever or amusing. It’s not drawing the attention, (being called on it), you’d like to be receiving. You come across as cherishing the opportunity to ‘explain yourself’, which is an indicator that this interaction is really all about you getting attention.
No one is amused by this ham handed and juvenile attention seeking device and they ignore it so as not to encourage you. You seem to lack sensitivity to the social clues they are sending you.
You were, no doubt, the wittiest guy at the liquor store, but now you’re in a bigger pond and it’s time to grow up a little.
How’s that for calling you on it?
To some people perhaps, but clearly not to your fellow students, otherwise they wouldn’t be ignoring you.
I disagree. If you’re in a group discussing topic A, and one participant suddenly starts talking about the totally unrelated topic B, it’s very distracting, and quite odd. I’d consider it a definite “everyone look at me” moment. And I’d ignore that person too.
I do believe elbows (post #54) has hit the nail on the head. Well put.
I’m trying to rationalize the behavior of the law students. I know what I’m doing and why. I know it’s not accepted in some circles and I don’t care. It’s enough for me to find it fun and amusing, and if others don’t, then we just won’t become the best of friends. It’s not a big deal.
It sounds like you are equating a cry for attention with getting people to acknowledge the things you say. When I’m having a conversation, I do want people to respond to what I say. Is there anything wrong with that?
Deliberately ignoring social cues because you disagree with them is not a lack of sensitivity. My OP should tell you that I’m aware people are ignoring my behavior.
Once again I’ll ask why is my behavior juvenile? You can’t say it’s juvenile because it was ignored or no one was amused by it. That’s circular logic. It doesn’t prove anything.
You can’t say it’s juvenile because I was seeking attention either. I would have to be seeking an inappropriate amount of attention to be considered juvenile. All I did was try and talk to law students the same way I used to talk to adults and friends back home.
There is nothing wrong with my style in and of itself. It seems to only be considered juvenile and immature by the people who aren’t used to dealing with it.
You’re saying this style shows poor impulse control and a lack of self-awareness. But that can only be true if I used a conversation style that no one appreciates. Since it has been appreciated before by people who understand it, I don’t see why it is so horrible that I should have known not to use it with law students.
I know not to use it now, but only because it’s not what law students are used to. Not because it’s intrinsically a horrible and immature conversation style.
This is because in polite cocktail societies people don’t like to confront people. So when someone changes the topic aggressively, people who are usually passive might not know how to deal with that. Usually it would require some verbal aggression of their own to change the topic back to where they like it. If they dislike doing that for whatever reason, then they would be adverse to abrupt topic changes.
In a sense, my style seems to be like a high contact verbal game. More like contact football than two-hand touch. And I can see how pressing people who only want to play two-hand touch to play contact football can be immature. Yet it’s not like I could have asked people before the conversation started if they would like this conversation to have non-sequiturs. In a conversation I just talk the way I like to talk until I’m told otherwise. In this case, I was ignored, so I’ll take a different approach from now on.
Still, nothing I did was immature. Contact football isn’t less mature than two-hand touch because some people can’t stomach playing with contact. It’s just a different game.
“I don’t care” — you clearly do, or you wouldn’t have started this thread.
"the same way I used to talk to adults and friends back home. " – You’re not back home anymore. These people are unimpressed by your frequent attempts to get someone to ask you, “Whatever do you mean, clever Lakai?” It IS hamhanded, and it IS immature.
“a high contact verbal game” – See, this is actually passive aggression and you won’t recognize the immaturity until you recognize that this is just a hamhanded way of showing off your intellect.
“I would have to be seeking an inappropriate amount of attention to be considered juvenile.” --it could not be clearer that you are seeking an inappropriate amount of attention. Stop and think about the most common response that people have to, say, a tantrum throwing, attention seeking, child or teenager. Ignore them, any other reaction only encourages them.
“Contact football isn’t less mature than two-hand touch because some people can’t stomach playing with contact” – but when you insist on playing contact, when everyone else is clearly playing touch, that’s immature. When you insist on playing contact regardless, because you think you’re such a star at it, embarrassingly immature.
My suggestion; stop trying to defend your actions and grow a little. So sorry your thread didn’t go the way you thought.
You want to behave in a way people find unacceptable and expect them to play your game even though they do not want to, insult them when they don’t play by your rules by calling them passive aggressive, and wonder why you are immature? :dubious:
I agree with elbows and msmith537.
By changing the subject aggressively, you’re trying to decide that all of them are going to talk about what YOU want to talk about, which is immature and shows a lack of regard for the other people. Most people don’t want to engage others aggressively, and they’ve chosen to avoid a direct conflict by ignoring you. It works for them in that they get to continue the conversation they wanted to have, and, if you were paying attention, it would work for you by letting you know your behavior was rude. Since you obviously don’t care if you’re rude, why would any of them want to interact with you at all? It’s your problem, not theirs.
To use your own analogy, running in and tackling someone in the middle of a group of people who have agreed to play two-hand touch is incredibly uncouth.