When do standards become snobbery?
Find a Conversation
When do standards become snobbery?
| Sat, 04-29-2006 - 12:50pm |
Where do you think the line is drawn between simply having standards for a mate and being a snob about who you'll associate with?

Pages
Hmmm...interesting question. I'm not sure that they ever do...IMO everyone is entitled to their preferences, whether we agree with them or not. Of course, having certain preferences will mean that your dating pool is extremely limited but if that's what the person chooses to do, who am I to say that their standards are wrong, just because they are different from mine?
Sheri
I think your answer and akt's answer combined explain what I'm talking about.
When someone imposes their standards onto someone else and looks down upon them when they don't agree, that's snobbery.
Ah, yes, that's ridiculous! Whether someone else agrees or disagrees with my standards, I don't really care...but don't try to talk me out of mine or into yours!
Sheri
I totally admit that I am a snob when it comes to beer drinkers who want to spend the whole evening belching and farting.
And so I don't keep beer in my fridge. Recently, when a guy came over, he showed up with his own 6-pack (not abs, but beer) and belched and farted until he left. He hasn't been invited back.
So now, when a guy is a beer drinker, I am watching his behavior and if he doesn't measure up, I "snob" him. At least I don't expect him to change his behavior for me, right??!!! :D
I think of snobbery as someone who won't even assiociate with someone else because they don't drive the right kind of car, or make enough money, or things like that. I think snobbery applies to how judge people in general and who you are friends with.
When it comes to who you want to date...I think it is ok to be picky as far as I am concerned. I know that when I run into a woman who is picky and may not think of me as her type I do get offended and I think most people would if they found out they weren't someones type...it's just how most people react but to be fair, a person should be picky about who they potentially want to spend the rest of their life with, it only makes sense to me.
If someone rejects A LOT of people because they dont feel a certain feeling for them theres nothing wrong with that, but if it gets to a point of dating someone because you want that person to make you look good, or because they have money they would spend on you, etc etc that gets into the realm of snobbery. Just being picky isn't bad though I dont think.
I think that if a person has a set of standards when it comes to the people they date, then it should only be toward their potential dates. You know when a person is a snob if they completely close themselves off to everyone they come across--male or female. With me, I know I have a set of standards for the men I'd consider on a romantic level, or who I will allow to pursue me (such as being ambitious, confident, etc.) but I'm still open to meeting many different people, just to make new friends.
Hope this made sense =)
That'a a good question, Shy. When thinking about this, I always go back to Aristotle. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he states the belief that we should always aim for the middle in our moral virtue. It is a vice to expect too little or too much but virtue lies in the center. When it comes to the notion of honor, too little is undue humility and too much is empty vanity and right in the middle we have proper pride.
Proper pride is a great notion. It is just as morally corrupt to expect too little as it is to expect too much. It's an important balance. Of course, proper pride is not the same in every individual because we all have different things to offer. What might look like vanity or snobbery to one person could just be proper pride in another.
So - I think that it is important to expect from a mate as much as we have to offer them, without undue humility or empty vanity.
Edited to add: lest I sound like a snob, I don't remember much else about Aristotle but this really struck a chord with me and is one of the few things that I learned in college that I have taken with me as a life lesson.
Edited 5/2/2006 9:16 am ET by auntjules
Pages