Here They Come, The Pretentious Ones.

A few months back I set myself a challenge of sorts, perhaps it was more of a quest! The motivation behind this ‘quest’, well I wanted to immerse myself more than I had previously decided to, within Madrid social spheres. Basically, I hoped to meet new and interesting people, to maybe form friendships with.

Well, as some of you may recall, I have achieved this. I joined countless meet-up groups, circulated, discussed and had fun. I met people I have remained in contact with, people I now call friends, and others, others I actually don’t want to meet again!

This is social trial and error!

I suppose by the very nature of being social, you cannot pick and choose who you meet! I quickly began to notice that I was coming into contact with one type of individual though; time and time again the pretentious ones would make themselves known.

So often, whilst in tne company of others, this characteristic reared its ugly, boring, childish, poisionous, carefully applied and maintained, self absorbed head.

One human characteristic I abhor, and freely admit I have no time to pretend I am interested in indulging, is pretension.

I am used to pretentious people though, I have experience in dealing with them on countless occasions; from being a student at school, being an employee, a friend and so on. Unfortunately pretension is, and always will be, here, there and everywhere; hiding in full view amongst people of all ages and backgrounds. Just like a sociopath / psychopath, the pretentious ones exist in quantities the rest of us would be surprised about!

It seems that everyone has at some point in their life, had to associate with a pretensious individual.

Why is pretension so terrible though? Well, the pretentious ones spoil and pollute not only social occasions. They turn all gatherings into a competition, a school-yard, a charade, a stage for them to flex their pretentious muscles and exert their superiority on the ‘simpletons’ surrounding them.

Yet, I ensure I remain aloof and thoroughly unimpressed by what others might deem to be high intelligence, grandeur, intimidating wonder, superiority or whatever else. I have no patience to sit, listen and feed the ego of the pretentious ones!

In my experience, there is definately something about ‘the arts’ that attracts this type of person, drawing them out from the woodwork in droves.

Intellectualism and creativity is great, but by being these things does it have to then delete all the ‘people skills’ a person might possess? Why do the pretentious ones suddenly forget they are human, only human, just like all the other flesh and bloods walking about this humble pile of dirt! I don’t understand why they adopt an attitude of superiority, when we are all learning, all of the time! None of us are impervious!

In fact though, experience dictates that such people actually feel, but conceal, a deep seated sense of insecurity. They doubt themselves, their choices and their social status; hence their attitude, their carefully applied and mainained persona, their pretension.

They battle to be seen as ‘cool’, but I only see insular, boring, supercilious, restricted and fragile.

Why do the pretentious ones derive comfort in shunning the genuine and real though? Why do they prefer not to celebrate individuality, and refuse to delve into enjoying life? Why do they restrict themselves so tightly? Why the charade? Why the fakery? Why act as though nothing is capable of impressing them, everything is passé, why be supercilious and bored by it all – even though they haven’t really actually lived!!

Why impose this on others, socially?! How social is that attitude, NOT very!

I really don’t understand why pretentious people tend to like, and pursue activities they feel identifies, and associates them with being seen as an intellectual! I doubt whether they enjoy ‘the arts’ as much as they profess they do. I feel they say they like such things to fit in, to be part of a crowd. Whether this crowd is categorised as elite or not, it is still a crowd, rather like being back in school!

Intellectual and creative pursuits are not just for the pretentious people of the world. Although amongst their cliques, the pretentious ones excel at being priggish or ‘posh’. They work to belittle, and deny anything that doesn’t fit with their ideals of what is ‘in’, what is cool, what is creative and intellectual.

They ring-fence intellect and creativity; constraining them, exerting their influence and pontificating about what they believe these things to be. Basically removing what these things symbolise fundamentally; freedom, change, diversity and so on.

What is this attitude if not one belonging to someone from a high school clique, a teenage wannabe?

They tell others what is acceptable, how to behave, function and think.

People never grow out of this pretentious behaviour either, and no one confronts them!

I just don’t get it! I just don’t like it! I just can’t tolerate it socially!

What has happened that people just can’t have fun, be silly, mess about, admit they are wrong, laugh at themselves and just live! What is wrong with that? Why can’t they be intelligent, creative and interesting without being so conceited, and self absorbed? Sometimes it seems as though they can’t smile through fear of cracking their face!

Honestly I can’t think of anything worse, going through life worrying how you appear, ignoring people and things you deem beneath you. Basically, these people are so stiff they seem dead already! This is NO way to live! No way at all! All things considered, I actually feel quite sorry for the pretentious ones. They are so constraint, they cannot change, they are stuck in a rut and can’t escape. How very sad.

NOTE: Before people critique my writing as judgemental and stereotypical, I have to state I don’t deem all intellectuals or creatives as pretentious people. I am discussing certain people, certain situations from my experiences and via my own opinions. I am not judging or commenting on ALL creative and intellectual people, merely some!

Confident? Who Can Tell?

I don’t want to dig at anyone else. I don’t want to say; ‘hey you are wrong’! Yet, I have to state, just for my won record, that I don’t necessarily agree on any one definition of confidence, or in fact how to spot confidence.

Until I know a person I refrain from making a sweeping judgement on them and their life history. Perhaps, because I spent my life being judged by others!!! I also don’t agree that by being confident it can make you a beautiful person, because confidence alone doesn’t make a person anything.

I also question whether any one person is 100% confident? I doubt they are, and doubt they are confident 100% of the time. Also, how often is confidence mistook for being arrogant, cocky, foolish, dismissive, spiteful, brash and so on and so on?

I too used to think, because I was actually told by people who said they were under confident; the reasons these people always bragged about themselves and their life, bullied others, acted up or had to be the comedian, talked too much and too loudly, was because they felt under confident. Perhaps this is true for some people, but not for everyone.

Now, I have never been 100% confident in me – NEVER! Yet, I am good at masking this, moving on, challenging myself and pushing myself to ensure I don’t hide away. I can appear confident no doubt, but not by bragging, talking too loudly or rambling on and on about me in conversation. Just by how I interact, what I am willing to do, even good eye contact and positive body language.

In fact, I learnt to not brag myself up or what I had or did from a young age. Bragging was believed to be crass, and discussing your personal life and wealth was too. Also hogging the conversation, talking too loudly about nonsense or personal matters, and acting like a complete fool to gain attention – all were deemed crass and a BIG no, no!

I was brought up to be modest, not to ‘blow my own horn’, to listen and then speak, to be mannerly and adhere to social etiquettes. In short, I was taught to not act as though I were too important, not to place myself above other people. Whether I was richer, more intelligent, more talented, artistic, or whatever; I had to just keep quiet about it all, and allow others to impart to me their life stories.

Being forced to be modest all of the time, and this sort of ‘social conditioning’, along with other issues, has actually contributed over the years to my own battle with under confidence. Another reason, one of THE most profound reasons for feeling bad about me in general, stems from being severely bullied from a young age up until I left school. This was actually because of who I was, and what others perceived of me. I know because some of these bullies actually admitted this to me at one point. They bullied me because they saw me as threat. I wouldn’t be like them, I didn’t want to be their friends, I refused to bow to what they wanted or act as though I wasn’t an individual with my own brain.

Yet, some people think that ALL bullies have confidence issues, well, my bullies may have had those issues, yet I do too and have NEVER bullied another.

So is it wrong to display a ‘false confidence’? Is it wrong to brag about you, to talk loudly, to perhaps not listen intently, to be the comedian (or whatever else)? Well consider this, how can anyone get anywhere unless they are willing to at least brag a little about themselves and their qualities? How do we become an employee, a student, a boss, an entrepreneur, how do we get a bank loan or find a partner? We display ourselves in the best possible light, and we talk about what we can offer, and often languish in a little self importance.

People may be or not be confident, BUT people being people WILL display this under confidence in many varying ways. There isn’t one type of anything. Confidence, like the weather, changes depending on what, who, where and how.

In my opinion any-way!!!

Related articles: from lifeonwry.com at WordPress
Can You Spot A Truly Confident Person?

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion – Beau Brummell and the History of the Quintessential Man’s Suit.

The British Regency period (1811-1820: when The Prince of Wales became Prince Regent), has been described as the most explosive and creative.

Akin to the 1960’s; enormous changes in culture and society all fused together in one enormous burst of energy.

The battle of Waterloo was won. London was completely re-designed. Turner and Constable were painting, the waltz was introduced (highly risky dance for that era), and Jane Austen and Lord Byron were inspired by the life surrounding them to write.

The glamour, the tastes, scandal and gossip, opulent aristocrats, blossoming middle classes, monarchs, decadence, the celebrity culture, the drugs and drink (minus the rock and roll); it was a celebration of youth culture and of course the fashions. The Regency era was an age of exuberance and creativity, but also of excess and deprivation.

The Dandy – Dress Etiquette and Suit Style

Amid all of this was there was rise of the ‘Dandy’, a fashion etiquette and new wave of style.

How is this important? Well, the ‘Dandy’ shunned traditional elaborate aristocratic styles of the time; wigs, breeches and powder were replaced by simplistic elegance. In short, this was when the plain black suit and ‘tie’ became the epitome of the male wardrobe; embracing masculinity and not femininity.

The person responsible for introducing and establishing this modern men’s suit, and fashion necessity was the infamous George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840).

Beau Brummell became an iconic figure in Regency Britain. The arbiter of men’s fashion, and also a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV; this friendship enabled Beau to entrench what might have been dismissed as an insignificant, and fleeting fashion faux pas into mainstream culture. Beau’s ideas were propelled; taking root in society, they had substantial influence.

Brummell was responsible for making a generation rethink their style choices, and ingrained a fresh sense of what fashion was. Men had never before embraced the understated. Perfectly tailored dark coats, polished boots (with Champagne of course), and full-length trousers rather than knee breeches and stockings, and above all immaculate shirt linen with an elaborately knotted cravat; a must of the ‘Dandy’.

The Beau Brummell ‘Dandy’

Beau’s personal habits were as fastidious as his fashion choices. Attention to detail was a prerequisite for any ‘Dandy’, and it was claimed he took five hours a day to dress. Cleaning his teeth, shaving, and daily bathing were part and parcel of achieving the style, just as much as the clothes.

Brummell’s dictum eventually exerted an influence upon the ‘ton’. The ‘ton’ a term used in reference to Britain’s higher echelons of polite society during the Regency era. The word is derived from the French word meaning ‘taste’ or ‘everything that is fashionable’. The full phrase is ‘le bon ton’, meaning good manners or ‘in the fashionable mode’; the characteristics which epitomised the ideals held onto by the British ‘ton’.

Once the ‘ton’ had adopted the style it then became the must for every self respecting fashion conscious man. Brummell’s niche fashion etiquette then became global; making an impression on all fashion from that day to this.

Bronze Statue of Beau Brummell in Jermyn Street, London

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Ambition Drives The Wheels Of Success.

Or does it?? Maybe ambition can hamper success, depends on what you aim to succeed at. We are all encouraged to do something that people themselves have a knowledge or experience in. What if you want to be something different, out of the norm? How do you succeed at a profession which sometimes has no written formula of success? What happens is that one day you wake to realise you are never going to be that rock star, astronaut or ballet dancer, and then life sucks! How can anyone settle for less than their hearts burning desire?

I would love there to be some education into actually helping kids discover how to become what they truly want to be, however off the wall it may appear to be, then maybe there wouldn’t be so many mid-life breakdowns!

Some things are nothing to do with ambition, but the application of it. How do you ever know you are applying it correctly when people in general don’t seem to have the answers you may require??

After years labouring in one direction I have now chosen to turn away from a ‘career’ path I thought I should pursue; again living up to other people’s ideals of a life. Now I am left wandering in the darkness wondering how to make what I truly want to achieve happen! How do you become a rock star?? How do you get a golden ticket in life?? Does one exist or are we all labouring under some false delusion instilled by the fairy tales we watched and read as children?

One final thought; I’d have found career services in school/college/work far more beneficial if they hadn’t just focused on the academic careers.  I was led to believe that I’d get no-where pursuing my creative side, and now I haven’t a clue how to truly forge a path into that working environment.

Maybe it is all luck or again that elusive and un-quantified term, FATE.

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.