It's The Climb: Of Social Climbing and Social Climbers

According to an entry in a famous online dictionary, a social climber is someone who “seeks advancement to a higher social class, especially by obsequious behavior”.
Social climbing is such a crime to mankind; and I cannot imagine of a more miserable existence than that of the social climbers. So while you are worrying about which projects you’re going to do first the next day, or whether your husband from overseas is really going to call, somebody not far away is thinking of what to wear tomorrow just so s/he can impress the people around him/her.

Everything, really, about social climbing, boils down to one thing: acceptance. People climb the climb because they want to be accepted. They are not contented of what they have or who they really are and they aspire for something that they view as higher forms of beings than themselves (richer ones, smarter ones, more popular ones). Some can be as mild as stretching stories and some can be as severe as committing crimes like stealing and deception.

Although it’s sad that some people can really have these forms of existence(s), we really cannot change the way some people view the world. For me, I am contented of what I have and who I am. If there’s something I want to achieve, I work hard for it and I don’t take credit for what I did. If I know someone who is exactly like me in terms of financial, intellectual and physical capacity BUT sees the world in a different way (“there is always someone better, I have to be like that”) then life is nothing but and endless climb.
The truth is, what led me to writing this article is that I recently became acquainted with certain people who went through lengths just to keep up with the crowd. One person stole from the company he’s working at, another went from rich lover to a richer lover, in search for the best shoe/bag/make up/allowance provider, and another simply told lies about his affiliations. Sad. Sad. Sad.
So I wore a keener eye on such people and found that they may be classified into three different categories:

The Exaggerator

These are the kinds of social climbers who may or may not earn big or know people of impressive affiliation; it’s just that they are fond of stretching stories. For example, she adds another P5,000 to her monthly income, says she went to a more expensive salon after you compliment her hair rebonding or perhaps says that s/he got this designer something at full price when in fact, it’s just a bargain from the internet or from ukay-ukay. They exaggerate everything and they get their fix from the wonder that you innocently show in your eyes once another story impresses you. If you spot these people ASAP, it’s easy to please them. Just act like you’re impressed. They feed with your wide-eyed wonder for the rest of the day.

I Know Who

Now these kinds of social climbers are not like the ones who are fond of shiny things and good looking assets. They are the ones who claim to know key people in a certain industry. For example, in the local writing scene, some writers claim that they personally know Ms. Editor in Chief and Mr. Hotshot Novelist even if the closest that they got to them was through a seminar and they barely even spoke. They act like they’re also part of the crowd-to-beat in a certain industry. They spend their mornings trying to impress people with the other people that they know and they spend their nights scouring Facebook for the next famous person to add.

See My Tag

These kinds of social climbers are filled with nothing but brands and tags. They get their fix from owning things which are beautiful and up-to-date. I know certain people who own really good looking cellular phones but then again they always ask me to text somebody for them. There are other people who even have plasma TVs in their living room sets but then they are not sure where they’d get the next tuition fee of bunso. Tsk tsk tsk. This is social climbing that is anchored on materialism and people from this category may not really need your impression, they just wanted something shiny under their noses.

So that’s it for social climbing today. I hope that all the social climbers out there will find something better and more worthwhile to do. (What are the chances that they might be reading this article?)

And, on a different note, I recommend the book “Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber” by Adele Lang. I just remembered reading it months ago and it was one hell of a fun ride.

Email me your thoughts about social climbing—live_out_loud@ymail.com. Or you can follow me via www.bitchvarsity.blogspot.com