Dinner w/high school buddies

[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...

[Verruca]

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

Oh, there's a LOT wrong with that, but I was trying not to be too snarky about it.  My husband (correctly) thinks I have a tendency towards being judgey, so as far as his friends are concerned, I'm trying really hard.

In fairness, though, Jethro probably couldn't get any woman who's been out in the world, holding down a job, paying bills, etc, to date him seriously anyway.  He's just not enough of a grownup.  Wart and I joked that it wasn't a question of her being a very mature 18 - it's a question of him being a very immature 42.

Jethro does have a steady "real" job in a professional capacity, and his children don't seem to want for anything, either material or emotional.  It's ideal - since there doesn't seem to be any tragedy involved, just some massive lapses of judgement, I don't have to feel so bad about wanting to break out the popcorn and observe.   

[LifeOnPluto]

It seems like none of these people have moved on since primary school, let alone high school. I also have to question where Dave was during all this, when Roberta was mocking his wife?

Some general thoughts about reconnecting with high school friends: in my experience (and I've only been out of school for 9 years) sometimes it just doesn't work. People just don't mature and move on. I don't see my closest friends from high school any more. In fact, we went our separate ways pretty soon after graduation and I only see them infrequently now. But I happen to know that THEY all keep in regular contact with each other, best buddies, just like high school. Sometimes when I think about it, I feel hurt. Then I remind myself that whenever I see them nowadays, they bore me silly.

[Verruca]

I also have to question where Dave was during all this, when Roberta was mocking his wife?

Dave was watching the game with the rest of us (which was the reason for the gathering in the first place, so he wasn't being rude), so he probably wasn't paying any attention to the conversation.

Some general thoughts about reconnecting with high school friends: in my experience (and I've only been out of school for 9 years) sometimes it just doesn't work.

Very true - even with one of my old college friends, I found that we just don't have much in common any more. 

With my husband and his buddies, though, it seems to have worked out pretty well - but they all seem not only to have the shared history and the old interests in common, but also to have grown into the same types of values, life outlook, etc.  Not that surprising, since they all came from similar types of families, but it means that their friendships can continue to evolve.  Jethro seems to be the exception; he doesn't seem to have grown out of the "Wild Child" stage that they all went through together.

[ganjin]

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

This is one of the BEST Freudian typos EVER!!

[sammycat]

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

This is one of the BEST Freudian typos EVER!!   

oops, I had to reread that several times before picking up the mistake.   Guess my proofreading skills aren't as good as I thought.  LOL

[hobish]

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

This is one of the BEST Freudian typos EVER!!   

oops, I had to reread that several times before picking up the mistake.   Guess my proofreading skills aren't as good as I thought.  LOL

LOL, so did i. That is a great slip, though!

  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.

I think that is a good point, too. You never know, Dave might have been in the same awkward position.

[Lisbeth]

Roberta's age might explain why she likes mocking people so much (she's still an adolescent) but that's not an excuse for it.  I don't think etiquette does excuse mocking other people.  It strikes me as very rude and immature.

[Verruca]

"Mentaility"!  ::sniggers::

Those were just the highlights, really.  The whole evening Jethro and Roberta seemed kind of awkward and uncomfortable.  I don't know how to explain it - it all just seemed kind of off, you know?  As if they weren't good at talking when the conversation wasn't about them.  Just weird.

I would have liked to have had the presence of mind to interrupt the accent mocking thing, but I was a combination of appalled, amused, and lazy - in retrospect, since I wasn't in the conversation and was ostensibly part of the group watching the game, it probably would have seemed like I was butting in. 

Not to mention that I'm now thinking that my efforts to make "frau" seem less derogatory were a little misguided - when Roberta wouldn't shut up with the "frau", I commented, "I'd love to be a frau, but that's just not going to happen."  My intent was to imply that there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker, but my fear is that it sounded more like I was being all, "Look at me, the indispensable working woman."  Happily I'm fairly sure that my comment got lost in the general noise and no one noticed.

Wow, I really suck at good comebacks.  But the suggested responses to passive-aggression would have worked really well here.  I'm going to practice saying wide-eyed, "What do you mean?" and "I don't get it."  The great part about it all is that I don't care if Jethro and Roberta think I'm stupid.

It's bad that I'm kind of hoping to see these people again, isn't it?  ::rubs hands together evilly::