American Social Classes: a Cri de Coeur

You can’t intimately relate to someone of a different social class.
I said “intimately”.
If you try it, someone is going to get hurt. Real bad.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s probably going to be the person(s) at the higher level. They will have invested more, and they will have had less conflicted motives for initiating, or responding to overtures to develop, the relationship.

If any of you dear polymaths have any experience with what I’m talking about, I would love a bit of commiseration.

If not, good night,pleasant dreams.

2 Likes

What is the sample size for your hypothesis?

Or can you relate one recent example?

2 Likes

There isnt any “sample size”, I had one such experience, now I’m in the painful throes of another. I wondered if anybody could relate.
Oh: an example: my BMD and I became very good friends with a young man who was a “friend of a friend”. Of working class, or “blue collar” origins, handsome, personable, fun. I was happy because he shared my BMD’s interests in guns and shooting, and was politically aligned with us. We included him in everything. Loved him! What was not to like?
At what i’da thought of as the very pinnacle of our friendship, just last week, he’s suddenly “ghosting” us. And— we are suffering.
My other experience was of longer duration and more personal to me. It ended at the death of the person involved.
Were these cross-class relationships? Before anybody accused me of “classism”, let me tell you that other people who knew the parties involved were always commenting on the class difference.
I’m flashing on Oscar Wilde’s phrase, “feasting with panthers”, to describe his forays into sexual adventures with young men of the …ah,”demi-monde”.

2 Likes

I don’t fully understand the question. What do you mean by intimately? How different is the other party: social class only or also culturally and ethnically? How is one or both parties hurt: disappointment, betrayal…?

Marriage between members of different social classes is not uncommon. Hypergamy is the norm. At least in that context, it seems to work out okay.

Addendum: Since I wrote this, @hypatia has filled in some details.

2 Likes

Since there are only two cases, it’s altogether possible that these disappointing outcomes were not related to the class gap. Was there any indication that this was the cause? For example, there was also an age gap in the first instance.

Any difference can lead to friction; the more differences, the more likely to be trouble.Social class often correlates with other factors: interests, attitudes towards money, education. Maybe you didn’t have enough in common; guns & politics may not have been sufficient to sustain the relationship.

My own experience is that divergent interests is a more important factor. Many people have spectator sports as a common interest: football, baseball, etc. These easy things to talk about and can form an important part of the foundation of a friendship. Since I have zero interest in following professional or college teams, I often don’t click with folks for whom that is important. On the other hand, if the other person is interested in mountaineering and hiking, we have a common basis. Same goes for taste in music or culture (high or pop). Sure, these things somewhat correlate with social class but it’s not that rigid.

3 Likes

.
Mmmmm… yes I’da thought that too, before these experiences. For the first one, I blamed ( if that’s merited, because of the other party’s truncated life) myself. (Okay no it IS merited, I own that.) But in this present episode, which primarily involves my BMD, with me as the hostess of their friendship, I can’t find any reason to blame us. We were acting as our education, our socialization, dictated.
I’m just sad about it.

1 Like

Not being up on the current patois, I am guessing that “ghosting” means that communication has suddenly and inexplicably been cut off. I have heard of situations like that – which turned out to be car accidents or heart attacks.

If, on the other hand, it was a conscious choice by the other person to cut contacts, then all one can do is shrug and move on. Disappointment is part of life.

Congratulations, by the way, on your & your BMD’s willingness to entertain a friendship (some of us think of that as being different from an intimate relationship) with a person of a different social standing. I say that as a person who lives at the bottom of every social hierarchy, and I really appreciate those who are willing to reach down and see other human beings as real people.

3 Likes

@Gavin, I fail to believe you are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. You display a level of education inconsistent with that.
This is a very difficult, elusive thing to talk about in America. But think: back when we had sitcoms and dramas which everybody watched on tv, we never saw working class characters except on the genre shows: cops, nurses— and the comedies: Roseanne, Who’s the Boss… and when we did see them,if they became popular, they always ended up going back to school to get a degree of some kind! You weren’t allowed to be working class in present day America. Or rather, you werent supposed to be content with that.
I thought it was simply a matter of …hospitality. I did it all myself, I worked to entertain, feed, house these friends. I worked a LOT. But I reckon that never proved my bona fides: I was always just Marie Antoinette at Trianon.

1 Like

Thank goodness for drinking and real estate

edit: and Ricochet

2 Likes

Archie Bunker was a blue collar Republican living in Queens (or Brooklyn?). I forget the borough.
He was the forgotten man that Trump appeals to, ahead of his time. Though Norman Lear is a left wing lunatic who has nothing but contempt for the white working class, screw that guy.

2 Likes

Hyp - my experience is that when friendships/acquaintances come to and end, it may, in reality, have nothing to do with the party abandoned. Life is complex, as you know, and there are many demands on our attention. Some things simply fall away. It may not be related to the reason you posit. I have made this error many times - usually wondering what I have done wrong.

4 Likes

No, of course you’re right dear CW. But this was SO abrupt. It’s only a week tomorrow that the young gent in question brought a friend of his to our house for dinner, and he and I sat talking by my fireside. He was supposed to come to my Burns supper tonight. Sent me an email just saying he couldn’t make it after all. I reckon it’s like a breakup: you think to yourself, “I just want to know WHY!!” But do you really want to know……? and you’re right, maybe it has nothing to do with social class. It’s just that the two experiences I’ve had have involved such morganatic relationships.

Still I do wonder if any polymaths have had a long, sustained, intimate friendship with a member of the working class.

1 Like

In the British version of All in the Family, the curmudgeonly dad was the villain, or at least the butt of the jokes. To Lear’s surprise, Americans LOVED Archie Bunker. Golly that was some good ensemble acting! Carroll and Stapleton were wonderful. Of course it seems to hve ruined Rob Reiner’s life; he never outgrew his “Meathead” rôle….

1 Like

Well, I married one. Does that count? Of course, I married one of the opposite gender. Does that show my class origin? :grinning:

The best insight I have ever benefitted from was a gentleman who told me “People are People”. That fits my experience. Join your local volunteer fire department, for example, and find yourself among people of varied backgrounds – including people without much in the way of educational credentials who are highly insightful and can get things done.

What is “class” anyway? Even in drab old England, social class in its traditional sense has obviously largely wasted away. In the American sense, “class” has a lot to do with income. Certainly, anyone with friends who have less money has to tiptoe carefully on occasion to avoid causing offence. No bitching about the poor service we got in that 5 Star hotel on the Adriatic coast!

3 Likes

I thought that too. But now I don’t. There is still “a great gulph fixed” IMHO. But I do agree that even one generation of a LOT of $$ can bridge it.

(I’d be very interested in any details you feel you could share about your marriage, how you met, etc…but it probably isn’t a comfortable forum…)

My brother, a doctor, married a nurse the first time. They he a beautiful suburban house, and he was on call pretty much 24/7 ( and in cardiology that means a LOT of calls). It turned out toward the end of the marriage when they were in counseling that she had always resented and hated the fact that he didn’t do the lawn work. He wanted to hire someone of course but she said, no, I’ll do it myself—but she was just trying to shame him into doing it. Thats what the man DOES! This was sump’n that came as a surprise to all of us in my family.

And yes of course “people are people”, and we Americans all mix well,on a fairly superficial level at least. And we wouldn’t dream of avoiding a person’s company just because he or she wasn’t “PLU” or “OKD”. And I know it’s hard to talk about this without me sounding like a snob for even noticing. But I HAVE noticed.

2 Likes