Snobbishness

How do you decide whether you are a snob or not? Certainly nobody wishes to be thought one but can you ever tell whether you are.

Last weekend we went to a birthday party on Saturday for the mother of someone we know but we had not previously met the rest of them. They are workling class, would probably be described these days as chavs, swore every other word and we had few points of reference to hold conversations. I got on well with the lads that were there because we played pool and it gave us some commonality. I realised after the event, what I didn't like was the amount of swearing from the women. Now this was the first time we'd met, there was no shortage of alcohol. they did make us welcome.

On sunday we had lunch at a vicarage with a group of people who I don't know well, or in some cases not at all, but we talked throughout lunch as we had shared interests and were, I suppose of the same social grouping as ourselves.

Was I looking down on the Saturday group as they were "common, vulgar people" or just not in a situation that I could relate to.

If I was snobbish I surely wouldn't have gone into business with Kev who is "council house" through and through. I have also been in a similar situation the other way where I have been with people I felt uncomfortable with, not I suspect because they were richer than me, but because their lifestyle was dramatically different and again we had few points of commonality between us.

It seems only to come out in social situations as I have had customers from both ends of the social scale and I have never treated nor thought of my customers as anything differently to each other.

So, were my reactions snobbishness or was there just too much of a social divide and shared experience for me to feel emotionally part of their group?