Pretentious? Vail? C'mon...
I was talking with someone from Breckenridge recently and she asked me if people in the Vail Valley are as pretentious as she thought they were.
Well, I never really thought about it.......Pretentious? In Vail? No.
Could it be true?
To tell you the truth I'm not even exactly sure what the hell it means to be pretentious so according to some dictionary on the internet the indisputable definition is as follows:
pretentious
adj 1: making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction; "a pretentious country house"; "a pretentious fraud"; "a pretentious scholarly edition" [ant: unpretentious] 2: intended to attract notice and impress others; "an ostentatious sable coat" [syn: ostentatious] [ant: unostentatious] 3: of a display that is tawdry or vulgar [syn: ostentatious, kitsch]
I think my acquaintance from Breckenridge was referring to the first definition where pretentious means to basically think your more important that you actually are - an inflated ego, if you will. Hell, why not call it down-right uppity.
Now, I'm not too into making huge generalizations about groups of people that are all significantly different (and special of course), but I can give you an example of how pretension may have crept into this lovely Valley of ours.
In an effort to avoid having bad episodes of 20/20 and Nightline consume the entirety of my Friday evening, I decided to make a trip to the infamous Gore Range Brewery with my roommate.
I've had people tell me that the Gore Range Brewery is "crazy" on Friday nights. I've even heard them go as far as to say that it is "dope", "sick", "killer", and (this is the best) "off the chain". With all this vivid description running through my mind, I was expecting a barroom filled with people swinging from chandeliers, grinding on tabletops, and blowing shots into torches and having it make a big flame like they do in cool college parties that I never went to. My thinking was wishful, but given the lofty description of this place, certainly justifiable.
We walked into this perceived pinnacle of Vail Valley living and ordered a couple of drinks. Unfortunately, high hopes of rocking out Dennis Rodman style turned into hopes that we could finish our drinks before we got run out of the place. I felt like I was at a bad high school party that I wasn't invited to. Dennis Rodman would not have put up with this.
I know that I can't expect people I don't know to graciously invite me into their conversation and immediately include me in their circle of friends, but I was getting a vibe that was hard to explain, but definitely not comforting.
We were about to head home and blow some shots into flaming torches when we saw a couple of ladies we knew. Ahhhh, we wouldn't have to stand around like a couple of wanna-be Dennis Rodmans - we could have casual small talk with these two chicks we already knew. Right? Wrong.
These humble women put up a force field like that impenetrable shield around the planet that Darth Vader lived on in Star Wars. Wasn’t that called the Dark Star or something? Without saying a word they told us to stop right where we were, drop our light sabers, put our hands behind our head, and slowing step away from the women.
Now, could my ramped imagination be blowing this situation somewhat out of proportion? Perhaps, but I will tell you that this feeling was more unpleasant than the aforementioned bad high school party that you weren't invited to.
I understand that women up here tend to be extremely cautious in social settings like this. Why that is, I'm not exactly sure, but it is certainly the case. Probably because of some skewed male to female ratio you hear about all the time, or the presence of lots of aggressive male ski-dudes. Regardless, I'm not expecting women to grind on tabletops (well, not anymore), but can we at least behave like adults? Is that too much to frickin' ask?
In my years in this World I've realized that asking adults to in fact behave like adults is too much to ask. We grabbed our light sabers and got the hell out of there.
If you can get your nose out of the air for long enough to look at your keyboard, email John Poole at poolejohn@gmail.com
Well, I never really thought about it.......Pretentious? In Vail? No.
Could it be true?
To tell you the truth I'm not even exactly sure what the hell it means to be pretentious so according to some dictionary on the internet the indisputable definition is as follows:
pretentious
adj 1: making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction; "a pretentious country house"; "a pretentious fraud"; "a pretentious scholarly edition" [ant: unpretentious] 2: intended to attract notice and impress others; "an ostentatious sable coat" [syn: ostentatious] [ant: unostentatious] 3: of a display that is tawdry or vulgar [syn: ostentatious, kitsch]
I think my acquaintance from Breckenridge was referring to the first definition where pretentious means to basically think your more important that you actually are - an inflated ego, if you will. Hell, why not call it down-right uppity.
Now, I'm not too into making huge generalizations about groups of people that are all significantly different (and special of course), but I can give you an example of how pretension may have crept into this lovely Valley of ours.
In an effort to avoid having bad episodes of 20/20 and Nightline consume the entirety of my Friday evening, I decided to make a trip to the infamous Gore Range Brewery with my roommate.
I've had people tell me that the Gore Range Brewery is "crazy" on Friday nights. I've even heard them go as far as to say that it is "dope", "sick", "killer", and (this is the best) "off the chain". With all this vivid description running through my mind, I was expecting a barroom filled with people swinging from chandeliers, grinding on tabletops, and blowing shots into torches and having it make a big flame like they do in cool college parties that I never went to. My thinking was wishful, but given the lofty description of this place, certainly justifiable.
We walked into this perceived pinnacle of Vail Valley living and ordered a couple of drinks. Unfortunately, high hopes of rocking out Dennis Rodman style turned into hopes that we could finish our drinks before we got run out of the place. I felt like I was at a bad high school party that I wasn't invited to. Dennis Rodman would not have put up with this.
I know that I can't expect people I don't know to graciously invite me into their conversation and immediately include me in their circle of friends, but I was getting a vibe that was hard to explain, but definitely not comforting.
We were about to head home and blow some shots into flaming torches when we saw a couple of ladies we knew. Ahhhh, we wouldn't have to stand around like a couple of wanna-be Dennis Rodmans - we could have casual small talk with these two chicks we already knew. Right? Wrong.
These humble women put up a force field like that impenetrable shield around the planet that Darth Vader lived on in Star Wars. Wasn’t that called the Dark Star or something? Without saying a word they told us to stop right where we were, drop our light sabers, put our hands behind our head, and slowing step away from the women.
Now, could my ramped imagination be blowing this situation somewhat out of proportion? Perhaps, but I will tell you that this feeling was more unpleasant than the aforementioned bad high school party that you weren't invited to.
I understand that women up here tend to be extremely cautious in social settings like this. Why that is, I'm not exactly sure, but it is certainly the case. Probably because of some skewed male to female ratio you hear about all the time, or the presence of lots of aggressive male ski-dudes. Regardless, I'm not expecting women to grind on tabletops (well, not anymore), but can we at least behave like adults? Is that too much to frickin' ask?
In my years in this World I've realized that asking adults to in fact behave like adults is too much to ask. We grabbed our light sabers and got the hell out of there.
If you can get your nose out of the air for long enough to look at your keyboard, email John Poole at poolejohn@gmail.com
posted by John Poole at 8:32 PM
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