• TootSweet@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I have a friend who recently moved from the poorer side of the town I live in to the richer. (I’ve always lived in the latter, richer area.) And he was talking about how striking it was to him that on the richer side, strangers would go way out of their way to avoid interacting or making eye contact or anything, but the moment you forced the issue and start actually talking to them, they’re the nicest people ever. The other side of town, interaction wasn’t avoided the same way, and they wouldn’t necessarily be quite as nice in their interactions.

      • TootSweet@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        More like “nice-in-quotation-marks”. Maybe “polite” would have been a better word. They smile bigger – exaggerated and insincere. They try to satisfy whatever you’re wanting so they can conclude the interaction as quickly as possible. They keep an air of superior self-righteousness while being nice… defensively.

        Mind you, I do even put “polite” in quotes on purpose. The more stuck-up folks can very “politely” cut you straight off at the knees in a way that preserves some semblance of plausible deniability where poorer folks (on average, very much a generalization) may be more real/authentic in general and can be more direct about calling you an asshole.

        Mind you, this friend of mine who made this observation didn’t say any of what I said in this comment. That’s just my own editorializing.

      • fartographer@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Yes, did you not go to American public school? Poor people are both lazy, and secretly rich because of how hard they work to game the system. You know, the system that literally doesn’t exist.