What is it about people who claim that they are experts in the field of *everything*?

My parents owned a jewelry store for a long time. Quite often, we would get customers who would roll in with their faux fur-collared pleather coat and bedezzaled talon nails. They would ask to look at several rings, and after choosing the largest and most filagreed, ornate, blinged-out piece, they would ask us the price. After hearing our reply, they would look at their friend, smile and say, “I have great taste.”

Whoah lady. Whose meter are you checking? Mr T’s? Liberace’s? Because by my less-is-more meter, that shit is straight-up Classified A Fugly. (I know, it was my parents’ store—why the hell were they selling it in the first place? All I can say is, I never claimed to like everything they had in there and if people were willing to buy the gaudy shit, we had to give them the gaudy shit.)

Gold is priced by weight. So choosing the largest, heaviest piece will, yes, usually command a higher price. But that does not always equal GREAT TASTE. You don’t see Martha Stewart walking around, blinged out like Mr. T claiming, “It’s a good thing, yo.”

Then again, that is my taste. I don’t claim to have great taste; I have my taste. But, I also don’t go around making silly claims like “I have great taste.”

…And if given a choice, I would say my taste is better than Mrs. Fugly’s taste.

Another hall-of-fame claim:

I had a friend—actually, an ex-coworker whom I don’t speak to anymore, not for any specific reason, except that we lost touch after we both left the company. She constantly claimed that she was a ‘good judge of character.’ The first time she claimed it, I tolerated it. The next 146 times she claimed it, I wanted to throw her out the window. Why? Because who doesn’t want to believe that they are a good judge of character? At one point, at an effort to stop the self-importance placed on her very methodical judging test (which—no joke—was either that she liked you or she didn’t), I passive-aggressively tried to tell her that most people do, in fact, think that they are good judges of character—they can’t all be right. She paused for a moment, and then continued on, saying that, no, she really was a good judge of character.

Good argument.

Our friendship was doomed. I don’t typically have much patience for people who make arguments like that i.e. no argument whatsoever. Not even a single story to back herself up. I wanted to remind her of the many assholes she dated who treated her like Queen Crap. But, I’m passive-aggressive, just not that passive-aggressive.

Don’t get me wrong—she was and is a very sweet girl (as long as she thought you were a good person, of course). But… I already had some really great friends, all of whom are sweet and good people. And those are some friendships that are worth massaging. I think post-company life, we both knew that ours was not one worth massaging and we both let it float away with some ease.

I, myself, can admit that I do occasionally lapse good judgement. I’ve had some low-grade boyfriends, trusted people I should not have trusted… am I the only one who has had a bad experience after trusting someone? I think the people who are ‘good judges of character’ are really suffering from selective memory loss.

However, it makes me wonder… what idiotic things have I thought or said about myself? Although I have strong opinions of people who say such assanine things, I am pretty hypocritical and there’s a likely chance that I’ve made some equally idiotic and self-important claims. For example, if anyone tells me that they have great taste… Well, I’m sorry, but I think right about now is when we’re going to have to break up. It’s not you, it’s me. Because you see…

I am a really good judge of character.