Fake People

I’ve spent my fair share of time surrounded by people who I consider to be pretentious.  I have gotten in many of argument with my friend Ben who apparently thinks that everyone is just acting how they “are” and that nobody is really “pretentious”.  Maybe I am in the wrong.  Maybe I am the one who is not giving humanity the credit it deserves for all of our individual differences. But anyone who knows me knows that I have a hard time with being wrong.   So I will let you read my below examples of what I have found to be pretentious behavior in my friends and you can make your own judgments. 

A lot of my friends will purposely order expensive, disgusting food items at expensive restaurants and act like they enjoy eating them:  I’m often looked down upon by my friends when I order a filet and they have ordered something like “sweet breads” (Sheep Brain) or a whole pigs head for dinner.  Now I find these situations hilarious.  Because someone with a steaming, severed pigs head sitting in front of them is actually giving me shit for ordering what has been widely agreed upon as the best piece of meat on any market.  I mean, entire religions have denounced pork in general, let alone eating the god damn things head for dinner.  Or how about a guy sitting there smearing a sheep’s brain onto a cracker who actually thinks they have a more sophisticated pallet then I.  Why? Because I get to go to sleep tonight having paid less money, for better food, while not risking a staph infection?   For the life of me, I cannot understand why my friends do this.  How can you justify paying over a hundred dollars for a meal consisting of things that a goat would refuse to eat?  And all the while, fancy yourself as some kind of sophisticated individual?  I might be over-simplifying the situation, but I don’t see a sophisticated person sitting across from me, I see a desperately pretentious person who enjoys wasting money on horrendous food.  Does anyone really enjoy eating a pig’s head?  And even if they say that they do, isn’t that kind of a problem in and of itself?

 Here is what I think is going on with them, and of course I could be completely wrong.  Somewhere along the line with them, what they enjoy eating took a back seat to… “What can I order that will impress my friends?”  So it’s not about what they WANT to eat, more so, what can I order that will make me look creative and free-spirited and sophisticated?  I’ll bet that if some chef came out with an entree that consisted of people snorting ants off of a popsicle stick, some of my friends would be lined up to sample just such a dish. 

How come everyone at any wine bar knows so much about art?  The answer is simple, they don’t.   However, the atmosphere within any wine bar is generally artsy and peoples incessant need to constantly be speaking to one another about anything that they can muster, leads to them discussing art with each other.   You can have one guy who works in a machine shop and a woman who works as a debt collector talking to each other as though they curate Picasso’s in their basements in their spare time.  To me, people who are “artsy” and who are not artists are some of the most pretentious people you can find.  Now they will generally say things like “You don’t have to be an artist to appreciate fine art”.  And I agree, but if you could do it, or have ever even tried to do it, then your opinion would be of value to me.  But the vast majority of my friends have never painted anything short of a wall or two in their apartments, nor do they work in any sort of a capacity that involves art in any way.  Am I to believe, that in their spare time, they took it upon themselves to study fine art to a point where they have enough knowledge of it to carry on a two hour conversation about it, at a wine bar?  You’re really not just talking out your ass about art to each other?    The answer is simple, they don’t know shit about art, but the atmosphere with which they have found themselves in encourages a more sophisticated level of conversation.  It’s not cool to talk about football at a wine bar.  God forbid someone overhears you speaking of something where you know what the hell you’re talking about. 

Men in a wine bar are a farce to begin with.  I smile when I see a guy struggle to order a glass of wine off of an enormous list, of wines with names that he can’t pronounce.  Because at least that guy isn’t acting like he has heard of any of them.  At least he isn’t pretending to know the difference between Razor’s Edge Charraz and Porte Blac le Canfior dry.  You know that that guy isn’t going to try to strike up a conversation about art with you later.  It’s the guys who walk into a wine bar, look at the list, order something, and act like they are completely within their element that concern me.   Gay guys are excluded because gay guys know wine.  The problem is, there really are some straight guys who know a lot about wine.  And they are the ones who ruin it for everyone.  Because for every one of them, there are a about a thousand pretentious assholes who wouldn’t know Merlot from Grape Faygo showing up at wine bars and trying to start conversations with people about art.

Pretentious people are some of the most close minded individuals on Earth:   Now this is counterintuitive to hear, but in my opinion absolutely true.  By nature, a pretentious person will usually be artsy and maybe make his or her own clothes, and act free-spirited and accepting of others.  However, this is not the case.  From my experience, pretentious folks want nothing to do with anyone who doesn’t share their own pretentious opinions.  If you don’t believe me, ask an “artsy” person, in as friendly a manner as you possibly can, what they thought of the game last night.  And see what kind of response you get out of that person.  99 times out of 100 they will bite your head off about how they not only didn’t watch the game but could care less about any sport because of how artsy and pretentious they are.  If you’re extra lucky, they will even take the time to let you know the underlying reasons for their sports hatred.  To me, this is strange, on the outside they seem like they would be such outgoing, accepting folks. They seem like they would be open minded enough to see someone trying to strike up a friendly conversation with them and at the very least, respectfully decline.  But on the inside, there is a storm a-brewin.   No pretentious person has ever respectfully declined a conversation that they aren’t interested in, after all that would be the sensible route.  Instead they must crush the person in front of them for asking such a ridiculous question about a sport that millions of people watch every day. They must, at any cost prove to this stranger that they aren’t interested in anything normal or main-stream.  And they generally accomplish this by acting like a complete asshole to you. 

Sometimes they will even take it to a point where they laugh at you when you talk about your opinion of music that they disagree with.  Usually the pretentious crowd will refuse to acknowledge any sort of music that could possibly have ever made it onto any sort of a radio station.  What they like is generally some combination of Indian music, trance, and industrial.  Now to most people, this music is horse shit, plain and simple.  But to them, it is all that is, and ever has been, in the world of music.  And they are passionate about it to a point where they will laugh out loud at you when you tell them you like The Doors or Korn or Nirvana.  Because, they, in their own heads, have made themselves so sophisticated, that they couldn’t even fathom listening to anything but what they believe to be good music.  These people take this attitude towards just about everything in their lives.  They are basically just dead to everything outside of their box.  And this is our problem, because we just aren’t advanced enough in our lives to possibly understand the level of sophistication that they have reached in theirs. 

Generally pretentious people will hide behind the “you just can’t understand me” excuse.  “You just can’t understand me” is a very convenient explanation for someone who has no fucking idea what they are trying to talk to you about.  Who couldn’t understand you is more like it.  What’s to understand?   You love art; you’re extremely hostile towards people who don’t, yet you have no practical art experience and you work in a factory.  You love a certain kind of music that most people think sounds like an Indian version of daft punk remaking Nine Inch Nails songs, and you like to eat food that the FDA likens to medical waste.   Is that about the half of it?   Are there any more layers to this complex onion that is you?  Maybe you’re not as original as you fancy yourself?  Maybe you’re just a bitter, pretentious weirdo?  

Or maybe I’m just a close minded boob.  Either way it’s funny.