General Etiquette > Life...in general

Dinner w/high school buddies

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Verruca:
Yay!  I have a story of my own to tell!

My husband Wart and I have just moved back to the East Coast after several years in Ohio.  He managed to find and get in touch with a couple of close friends of his whom we hadn't seen since our wedding almost ten years ago.  They all went to high school together, and his friends have kept in touch with other high school buddies as well.

Last night, we went to Dave and Angela's house for dinner and to watch the Eagles game.  Dave invited Jethro and his fiancee Roberta as well - it was the first time Wart would see Jethro in years, and we hadn't met Roberta at all.  Jethro is the group "rock star" - he plays part-time in a couple of different cover bands.  I confess that I had a certain amount of very catty curiosity about Roberta - my husband and his friends are all in their early 40s.  Roberta is 18.

Ages aside (except that in this case, I think Roberta's youth excuses her to some extent), I was not impressed.

1. When Wart heard that Jethro had gone to their 20th high school reunion, he asked if Jethro had seen a mutual friend there.  Jethro said, "Naw, man, I heard that she skipped the reunion because she blew up and weighs like 900 pounds now!"  He repeated that sentence at least twice more.

2. While making conversation, Roberta asked Angela, "So do you work, or are you a frau?"  When she found out that Angela is a homemaker, Roberta continued to call Angela a "frau" for the next five minutes of the conversation.  I don't entirely blame Roberta, as I heard Jethro referring to another mutual friend as a "frau" earlier on.  At no point during the evening did I hear either of them use the word "frau" in a way that made me think it was not pejorative.

3. Angela has a little bit of a classic North Jersey accent (think The Sopranos, or a much milder version of Mike Myer's "Coffee Talk" character.)  She, Roberta and Jethro were talking at the breakfast table behind us while the rest of us were watching the game. 

Angela started telling a story about her daughter, but pronounced it "my dawwwteh."

Roberta jumped on it and immediately started mimicking Angela - "My dawwteh!  My dawwteh!  Oi'm gonna drink sum cawwfee with my dawwteh!" 

Angela laughed weakly and tried to continue the story - "Anyway, my dawwteh -"

"Oh my gawd!  My dawwteh makes me so vehklempt!"

At this point, Jethro interrupts - "We're into accents, it's our thing, we do it all the time.  She does a great Cockney accent.  Do your Cockney accent, hun!"

And Roberta DID.  She started talking in a Cockney accent, with Jethro laughing and applauding her.  Angela laughed, too.

I am willing to think that this was Jethro's ham-handed way of trying to make his fiancee STOP MAKING FUN OF THE HOSTESS, but I'd respect him more now had he not asked her to do her Cockney accent and instead brought the conversation back to Angela's story, which she clearly wanted to tell.

To be fair, I don't think any of what they did or said was meant maliciously - it was just as if they didn't know how to have adult conversation that involved not mocking people. 

And in the end, I have the feeling that Angela probably liked them better than she liked me, as she and I don't have a lot in common, and Roberta and Jethro give off distinct "cool kid" vibes - the kind where your high-school self would have put up with pretty much anything because you want them to like you.  It all probably bothered me a lot more than it bothered her. 

Fortunately Roberta and Jethro live three hours away, so we won't be seeing them often.  As I've gotten older, I care a little less about what random folks think of me, so I would fear for my own ability to keep my mouth shut. 

Hawkwatcher:
By the age 18, one should know how to behave in public and mocking another person's accent or career choices is not how to behave in public.  I suspect if the shoe was on the other foot and someone mocked Roberta for marrying a man who was old enough to be a her father, Roberta would not have been so amused.  As for Angela, she may not have liked them but may have that she felt that she had to go along with their behavior to be a good hostess.

sammycat:
Roberta sounds rude and immature.  Even at 18 I wouldn't have mocked someone's accent, especially to their face.  If she thinks doing things like that are supposed to make her seem mature, then she's really got the wrong idea.  Jethro sounds very insecure (as well as rude and immature).  A 40ish "man" dating/marrying an 18 year old - what is he trying to prove, and to whom?  It sounds like he is trying to hang onto his youth and is terrified of growing old, or growing up.

Was your husband disappointed in finding out that his friend hadn't moved on from the mentaility of high school?

Verruca:
Those are good points about 18 being old enough to know better - I was trying to give her a pass because I knew I wasn't being especially charitable or open-minded about Roberta in my head.  Really, though, Sammy and Hawkwatcher, you're both right - she was rude regardless.

I think Roberta acts this way because, even if her parents have taught her better, Jethro isn't encouraging her to act better.  He was the one who was shallow enough to denigrate an old classmate who'd gained weight.  He was the one who started the "frau" comments.  Even if she was fairly well brought-up, she's in a situation now where her much older boyfriend is rewarding her for being funny at others' expense, and for parroting his own "funny" remarks.

It's very judgemental of me, I know, but I also couldn't help being amused when Roberta introduced herself, "Hi, I'm Roberta, the wife."  It was like when I was a teenager and I couldn't be my actual age - I had to be "thirteen and three quarters" or "almost sixteen"...

Wart was also amused more than anything - apparently this is par for the course with Jethro.  The impression I get is that Jethro is the group's Peter Pan and they're not going to judge him for acting according to expectations.  They don't see each other often, and they're not very close.

On a brighter note, Jethro's 11-year-old daughter (by his first wife) was impressive.  Very friendly, well-spoken, polite, and mature.  She did much better at being the only child in a room full of adults than I ever would have at her age.

Chivewarrior:
I'm still stuck on the "guy in his forties married an eighteen year old" bit... there has to be something wrong with that...

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