“Signalling”

I'm not well educated, middle class or middle England. I was dragged up in difficult circumstances. What we have (which isn't a fat lot) we have worked for. We've never inherited anything. I have never felt that I had anything to boast about.
However, we have been lucky enough
to have had some lovely holidays. A while ago we were talking to someone who was thinking of going to Venice. We have been a few times and I was telling them how wonderful it was.
Afterwards my DH said that it sounded like I was boasting. I was mortified. It certainly wasn't meant to be boasting. Sometimes it comes over differently to how it is intended.

Boasting to me is really going out to impress.
An acquaintance once said to me, our ambition is to buy a house on X Avenue which is the best road in our town, at the moment we only live on the second best road.
She also said that on meeting new people ,instead of asking what the H’s job was!! in her circle it was which schools do your children go to?
Another one said her H had just bought a book called The World’s 100 best Hotels so that he could check how many they had stayed at.
That to me is boasting.

When we were moving here and house hunting, we rather liked one house in a village and the seller said "this is the nicest village around here, T***** is the second nicest village!"

We didn't buy a house in either of those.

Yes that is boasting Ann. My sister made me laugh a while ago. We were listening to someone telling us about their marvellous life. When this person had gone, my sister said. 'Still going out in a box like the rest of us'.

Sorry annsixty, I meant to type Hip replacement,
not knee. ?

It's hard not to boast if you are not trying to be objective. Boasting about the long duration of your marriage is boasting unless the info is to illustrate an objective point you are making.

I don't think I have seen anyone boasting on any of the threads I have read.

Hopefully not me as I haven't bought anything or been anywhere for months and I don't have a garden.

I do like seeing gardens in full bloom and hearing about exotic holidays.

I think I am happy with my lot so even if people boast it doesn't bother me.

Well, the only reason I have a big garden is that it goes down to the railway line, houses over the other side of the road have much smaller ones, the downside is that it comes with a little house, and no way could I afford something bigger with same size garden locally, in fact most houses have much smaller ones. Having space outside has made up for it, and in lockdown being able to garden has been good for my mental health.
As for things I possess, I will try and find something good quality on eBay, ends of lines,sales or from a charity shop rather than something cheap and cheerful sometimes, so I do have some reasonable quality clothes, when 've bought new sometimes I do resent it, if you buy something secondhand then all the bobbling on a jumper for example has been done, I've been disappointed sometimes when buying new, so I really don't have much that is fashionable, but things are only fashionable for a year or so
This helps me buy things that are worth investing in that will last me a while, which will last. As part of redoing my garden I have invested in groundworks that will make it easier for me as I get older, and some items that have enabled me to do things that I might have needed to get someone else in to do, so not only have I had the things done but I have the tools for another time. I've been lucky to have had free labour too , if I'd had to pay, couldn't have done all that. I've been lucky.
I've never had a new car, but that's fine by me, getting low mileage second hand has worked well. I hope eventually when I get the pension that I got as part of the divorce settlement I might be able to go on holiday somewhere a bit more exotic and maybe do some short breaks to parts of the country i would like to get to see. I have to do some work on my house, again out of my divorce settlement, when that's done I should be ok for a long time
I do know people IRL who drop into conversation about their next holiday or how they went on a cruise, or etc, to boast, and that doesn't make me think better of them, but if it's just talking about it to share interesting things they saw, or wonderful places, that's ok, I like to see them
We all spend on different things, I don't smoke or do lottery, and rarely drink, so sometimes splash out a bit on other things, and I don't criticise anyone who does those things.

The bigger the garden, the more to weed.

I did take some artistically composed photographs of my stunningly beautiful garden, artfully avoiding the weeds and the scraggy lawn but hadn't a clue how to post them on here!

Boast about my garden? Moi?

I feel a bit bad now posting a pics of my very large (but extremely unkempt) garden. Would hate people to think I was boasting.

We got this place over 20 years ago as a ruin, empty over 2 years. It came with more land than we'd wanted, but it was the only place with opportunity that we could afford., everything was so dilapidated We lived in a terrible mess for years whilst OH gradually did it up.

We certainly are not as well off as most here. Cannot afford holidays. Just enjoy where we live, and have been very grateful for it during lockdown.

Don't apologise!

I'd given our gardener a day off hence the weeds. He'll be sent to bed without any supper next time.

Callistemon If you want to attach a photo to you post, you just click on the attachment symbol below the message box ( the paper clip thingy).
If you’re on your phone You have the option of directly taking a photo, or going to your photo library, where you just select the image you want, then insert it into your message, by clicking ‘done’.
The process is similar on a desktop.
You can’t post an image by itself, you have to compose a message as well. Sometimes it takes ages for the photo to appear so don’t panic if nothing happens for a bit.
Try it!

seacliff and anyone else ......don’t feel guilty about posting pics, that was the whole point of the garden/open garden threads, seeing lovely plants and gardens in general.Am sure lots of posters liked seeing them, I know that I did.?

Don’t worry seacliff about being proud of the hard work you’ve put into your garden - not being gardeners ourselves, I love and appreciate others efforts and delightful results in theirs!

Our ‘thing’ is travel and is what we’ve chosen to spend our earnings on over the years and we don’t regret that. We do have comments from folks who don’t ‘do’ holidays but live in really posh houses in the ‘best’areas though! Why do they do that?

Others change their cars every two years and they’re always £20k+ whereas we’ve never spent more than £10000 on one and keep them til they drop!

I grudge no one their pleasure, extravagant or not, and don’t understand the mindset of folks who do it.

janeainsworth thank you

I have managed to do this on my PC quite successfully but for some reason can't manage it on the newish tablet I use now.
I need to go back to the instruction book.

If at first you don't succeed etc

This is a crazy topic because we all signal all the time. The way we dress, the car we drive, the house we live in, the way we furnish it, the care or neglect we give to our garden. We also say we support BLM, welfare, environment and a dozen other good causes it’s all signaling.

So will someone tell me what the difference is showing photos of a garden or anything else you have created

Never entered my head about 'wealth' signalling

I love to see people's beautiful gardens. And it's nice to read about acquisitions or new Lamborghini's or whatnot.

Now there's plenty of virtue signalling to be found here but I do my best to ignore it

I love looking at pictures posted on GN. I never think of it as boasting.

Trying

I can share them (and have done) with anyone except Gransnet!!

Oopsminty

Never entered my head about 'wealth' signalling

I love to see people's beautiful gardens. And it's nice to read about acquisitions or new Lamborghini's or whatnot.

Now there's plenty of virtue signalling to be found here but I do my best to ignore it

Now there's plenty of virtue signalling on here but I try to ignore it

Sage advice, Oopsminty

Davidhs, I do agree and wish I'd thought of that!

Now there's plenty of virtue signalling to be found here but I do my best to ignore it

Except when you "virtue signal" that you are not of that group Oopsminty. Or perhaps it can only ever be done by "other people".

GGumteenth

^Now there's plenty of virtue signalling to be found here but I do my best to ignore it^

Except when you "virtue signal" that you are not of that group Oopsminty. Or perhaps it can only ever be done by "other people".

Nonsense

How can one expressing a fact that there's a lot of VS going on here be VS?

Makes no sense

I am in no group on GN

You carry on regardless though

Lots of interesting thoughts and opinions on here.

A while back someone referred to a post where someone said they spent more on flowers in a week than another spent on food.

Isn’t it possible the comment was a joke? This is the problem with saying something here (as well as text messages) that even if comments are accompanied by exclamation marks and a smiley face, it’s not always possible to tell if it should be taken seriously or not.

If we become too worried that we may come across as boastful then people will be reluctant to share any thoughts about how delighted they are with their new car, or excited about a forthcoming foreign holiday, and that would be a great shame.

I think that is a really good observation Davidhs.
We do “signal” all the time, in the way we show our status to ensure we are socially acceptable? Jobs, cars, houses. Which school/university we went to and so on.

At a more basic level physical appearance and attractiveness. A human response because I guess we all want to “fit in” and am sure evolutionary psychologists will have an explanation for it.

I think the term has been reinvented as a term of passive rebuke. ?