HowTo:Understand and deal with pretentious people

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The hat solidifies everything

Pretentious people overstate their style, value and opinions. They believe that anything below them should be pitied and ridiculed. Their opinion is gospel and they give out that opinion a lot. The pretentious accomplish nothing but comment on everything around them. Their way is always better. They drain the liquid plasma out of everyone's circulatory system, one unwelcomed fact and opinion after another.

Boringness pervades every fibre of the pretentious animal. That overdressed elitist who would rather die of thirst than drink wine from a box... he's a pretentious bore. You're not the only one who noticed. Stick around, your white cell count will reach near fatal levels.

Expel such people from your life. For those that must stay (i.e. your eldest son) there are solutions. Deal with them by ignoring them, challenging them and if this fails, by destroying them.

UNDERSTANDING pretentious people

A pretentious person pretending to doubt his own opinions.

Step 1: Assess what the person is trying to prove

Pretentious dicks want to impress anything that moves. They won't stop until everyone knows how clever, important and fresh they are. Also unabashed, vivacious, recondite, plucky and didactic. Ironically, no one who possesses these qualities ever needs to convince anyone of it.

Case Example 1: Have you ever discovered how many languages someone speaks before you've learnt his name?

Self importance is the key here. Pretentious people are not important. Important people don't have time to tell others how amazing they are before having an actual conversation. Turn around and slowly walk away as they're telling more about themselves.

I can taste the Queen in there somewhere.

Step 2: Assess if you are the victim of pretentious people

Pretentious people don't talk about someone else without a final conversation destination in mind. Something sinister always occurs. The point is to quickly and confusingly steer the talk back to themselves. No one realises this until it is too late.

Case Examples 2-4:

A woman compliments another woman's purse while flashing her own with an enormous price tag dangling.
A friend asks another friend how their Stephen King book is while they prepare their oratory on 16th century Italian poetry.
A secretary asks a fellow secretary how they manage their tasks and then tells them what's wrong with everything. Then how to do it better. Apparently... without her... the company would fall apart.

Their own insecurities are so ingrained they must validate themselves to everyone, all the time...especially people they've just met. If that person is you... know how to get out of a pickle before your brain bleeds.

Intrinsic spatiality..something like that.

Step 3: Assess all the different ways people are pretentious to you.

The pretentious animal knows that it is bland, unoriginal and fearful of reality. To escape this it attempts to inflate its worth to those above it or to demean and bully those around it, bringing them down to its own gruesome level.

Case Example 6: A pseudo artist updates his blog with minimalist blank images of lonely lighthouses in an empty sea with the text: a commentary on the meaninglessness of intrinsic spatiality in both 'temps' (French for time) and temporalism (sensible in no language). By sporking someone else's image and putting it on his blog, it makes it seem like the image is somehow his and thus demonstrates his cleverness and worth, propelling the pretentious up to the real artist's greatness and acquiring a better like rate. By writing incomprehensibly - but seemingly meaningful words - underneath the original work, the pretentious person confuses the couple people who read the blog, making them doubt themselves and feel less intelligent than they really are.

DEALING WITH pretentious people

Step 1: Ignore them.

A rarely used but successful classic tactic: smile and ignore. Without a reaction the pretentious buffoon will feel even more insecure. It will have to find a new victim. While silence can be awkward for both parties, rest assured the pretentious baby will feel far more distressed than you. Silence is the most potent poison for the pretentious and you should ignore its pants off.

Pretentious people chase a good wine with your nose. Real wine tasters know you have to swill the stuff in your mouth for the true test.

Step 2: Ask questions.

Always ask "why"? Multiple times. It never seems to know why it thinks what it thinks.

Case Example 6: A friend of a friend talks about a trip to Canada with its clean wholesome socialism. She simply wants to go and live there forever with its safe streets, polite shop attendants and lovely colourful money. Everything is better than here she says and how she truly belongs where things are better than home.

Now, ask her "why are you talking about your trip to Canada, I barely know you?" While this may seem tactless, the directness of the question brings our pretentious animal back down to earth and it helps you set limits. The friend will go find a new victim.

Case Example 7: A friend of a friend has bought a suave pink business shirt from an expensive place by a famous designer. He doesn't stop talking about it.

Now ask him: "Why is this shirt so important? Why should I care about another man's shirt?? Why are you talking to me??? Why would you pay $700 to look like a fag???? And in what straight bar would you ever pick up a chick wearing that?????"

This is a very rude tone but the pretentious animal doesn't understand rude. It is rudeness personified. Trust me.

If your colleague mentions Canada again ask her "Why don´t you go move there already?" She never will. This will wind her for a short moment.

Step 3: Go along with everything.

Think about where to lunch and blue cheese. Especially blue cheese.

If the pretentious goblin is your boss you have to bite the bullet. Pretend you're listening. Think about where to do lunch. Recall the fun days of youth. Imagine screwing his wife.

Step 4: Violently attack the person.

After the twelfth time some guy expresses shock that you've never tried Lobster Tortellini you will want to destroy him. Sucker punch him. He will feel even more insecure with his nose in a splint. He will look extra ridiculous while quoting Proust or Camus. If she is a woman, trip her down the stairs and blame it on her $2000 high heels.

Nailing the guy's wife every week will do.

Step 5: Sex.

Nailing the guy's wife every week will do. His wife will ride any stallion even if you are poorly endowed. If you smile and listen to her she will get wild and naughty. Give her flowers or a compliment... she hasn't heard one in decades. She will smile like never before hurting those face muscles that haven't worked in years. When your boss talks about his Mediterranean cruises, the waiting list for his unborn kids' preschool or a new cheese at Twenty pound a Kilo, you can picture his wife doing very exotic things with you. It helps.

Step 6: Murder the person.

You only live once.