The Iron Yuppie

Name dropping is one thing, but there’s another behavior that annoys me much more.

My fiancé and I were in a bar recently and we happened upon a guy I'll call Johnny McStoryteller. We were sitting around listening to this guy and something struck me. It wasn't just that he kept dropping names, cause he generally didn't (though he must have mentioned at least three famous people in ten minutes). What he really kept dropping was proper nouns (a super set of just name dropping).

For example: the right way to start a story –

"I was recently in a bar late at night in NYC and I was talking to a girl with no-arms...”

Wrong way –

“I was at the Tunnel on the Lower West Side of Manhattan having a Mojito and I was chatting up this girl in a Chanel blouse who had no arms…”

I mean I understand the whole thing about setting the scene, but this is too much. I think I suffer from this a little bit as I always reference magazines or books I was reading by name when I mention passages or articles, but I’d like to blame that on my academic upbringing (always mention your sources) more than anything else.

I must give credit to my fiancé on this one for being a significant part of naming this behavior. We’ve agreed to call it “Proper Name dropping”.

D