Why Worry? We All Get Snubbed Sometime

Been snubbed lately? Been sniffed at like so much suet by someone you thought you knew? Been stashed at a Z table when you paid the same $300 per-person the folks at the A table paid? Been tossed a hello that was as warm as January?

Welcome to the club. Snubbing, that nose-in-the air phenomenon synonymous with slighting and brushing off, is on the loose in Orange County.

And no wonder, says Jerome Kirk, professor of sociology, anthropology and psychology at UC Irvine. “Orange County is modern. New. Twenty years ago you could stand on a hill at night beside UC Irvine and not see a light. Now, you stand on the same hill and how many cities do you see?”

Our growth has programmed us to deal with strangers, Kirk says. “People who don’t seem to come from anywhere. People who don’t belong to any tradition.”

And strangers spell social insecurity.

“Virtually everyone in Orange County is a social impostor in the sense that just a few of us were born to the social position to which we aspire,” Kirk says. “And we only have so much time to get ahead. So we spend it trying to maximize our own acquaintance with someone of higher stature.”

That puts higher-ups in the position of needing to snub those who want to crash their circles. And it puts the small fry in the position of needing to snub the smaller fry. “So just about everyone is getting snubbed,” Kirk says.

Emma Jane Riley remembers a friendlier time.

“When we came here 25 years ago, everybody knew everybody,” says Riley, wife of Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley. “You didn’t feel any social competition.”

Now, she says, she sees a tendency toward “grouping.” “Certain folks are adopting attitudes toward people not in their group. Their values are totally material. They think status symbols are the most important thing. I was raised to think good manners was the most important thing.”

The most blatant use of snubbing, says Riley, can be found on seating charts at local charity galas.

“I’ve actually seen people change their table numbers because they think there’s so much involved in seating at a party,” she says. “They feel a bad seat is a snub. And sometimes they use a bad seat to snub,” she adds. “The job of seating chairman is one I’ll never take on. I’ve nearly seen murder!”

A frosty “hello” is also a snub-on-the-move, says Gayle Anderson, president of the Orange County Protocol Foundation. “There’s the hello-with-feeling that includes your name. Then there’s the cool hello said in a monotone without your name. It means: ‘I really don’t want to be bothered.’ ”

Looking beyond a person and avoiding eye contact are other popular ways to snub, says Susan Bartlett, daughter of Laguna Beach philanthropist Barbara Steele Williams. “I’ve seen a lot of that. People look toward you, then look way beyond you. They refuse to recognize the fact that you’re there.”

Failing to recognize someone is the most basic snubbing technique, Kirk says. “If I recognize you, it also means I acknowledge that you exist. When you read etiquette books, you see all kinds of cautions about acknowledging someone who might take advantage of you.”

If a person has the potential to hurt you, he says, you’re put in the position of actually recognizing but not recognizing, of knowing but not acknowledging that you know.

What constitutes a social threat can be different things to different people, Kirk says. A poor person may threaten a wealthy person. A young person may threaten an older one. A social climber may threaten someone already at the top of the heap.

Often, snubbers are people deathly afraid of being snubbed, says psychologist Linda Algazi of Corona del Mar. In effect, they’re saying: “If I’m snubbing, I can’t be snubbed.”

Algazi says she’s never met a snubber who was “particularly valuable.”

“I mean, snubbing isn’t something you read about when you read the biographies of great men. You’re more likely to read about someone who is nicer to busboys than they are to presidents of countries.

“The point is, if you’re really superior, all of this snubbing business becomes nonsense. It’s only when you have to hide behind make-believe criteria that any of it becomes relevant.”

Arden Flamson of Newport Beach thinks people often mistake shyness for snubbing. “Look at Nancy Reagan,” says Flamson, wife of Richard Flamson, CEO of Security Pacific Corp. “She was criticized because she didn’t go out of her way to meet people. People thought she was aloof. But we’ve been to a number of dinners with her and found her basically very shy. A woman in that position has everyone wanting to talk to her, to shake her hand.

“All any of us can do is try and talk to as many people as possible. It’s sort of human nature to go to people you know and talk with them at a party. That’s why a lot of us prefer small parties, so we have an opportunity to visit everyone.”

People who snub have a lot to learn, says Athalie Clarke, mother of heiress Joan Irvine Smith. “Why should anybody ever get to a point where they have to act like they’re better than somebody else?

“Probably because they haven’t reached the true esteem they want for themselves,” says Clarke. “And that esteem comes from evaluating life and realizing that you’re here for one purpose: to do good for others.”