What high school did you go to?

I went to Go Fuck Yourself High.

That's the response I want to give to every single native St. Louisan who asks me this question.

Should I be that annoyed by the question? Probably not. But I am. And I think it's for two reasons:

1) St. Louisans take a ton of pride in asking and answering the question, like it's what makes St. Louis "unique". Like asking and answering the question is some secret handshake. Guess what? I don't want to learn the handshake. Nobody does. Except for you douche bags, of course.

2) Basically when you're asking the question all you're really asking is, "How rich are you and your family?"

See, in most cities when you meet someone new the conversation goes something like this:

A: Hey, I'm A. Nice to meet you.
B: I'm B. Nice to meet you.
A: You from around here?
B: Yeah, I grew up in Suburb X/Part of City Y.
A: No kidding? I grew up in Suburb Z/Part of City W.
B: That's cool.

And that's pretty much it. But here the conversation goes something like this:

A: Hey, I'm A. Nice to meet you.
B: I'm B. Nice to meet you.
A: Where did you go to high school?
B: I went to High School X.
A: I went to High School Y.

Then they stand there judging each other.

Why do they ask the question? No one really seems to have much of an answer for that, so this is my best guess:

A lot of people here seem to go to private school. So the question is really, "Could your family afford to send you to private school? And if so, how much of a private school were they able to afford?" Really the question is a status thing. You're trying to find out either a) you could afford a private school, and thus your family probably has money, or b) you went to public school (poor) but now I'll know what part of the city you grew up in so I'll know just how poor you are (in theory).

That's my best guess. Every time I ask someone here why they ask the question they just kind of hem and haw and say "It's a St. Louis thing." I think they do this because they are embarrassed of the real answer, which is, "We're a very segregated city, both by race and class. We know what race you are by looking at you (unless you're Asian, in which case we just assume you're Chinese), so the high school question helps us figure out what social class you are."

And yes, I understand to some extent that in other cities when you ask a question like "what part of the city are you from" you use that information to start filling in some holes and making judgements about people, but the "high school" question seems more blatant, and thus, more annoying. I think with the "part of town" question you tend to make less assumptions, and less judgements, because the answer doesn't really tell you much other than what part of town you grew up in.

Maybe I'm wrong about the whole "high school" thing. I'd love someone to give me a halfway decent explanation.


But until I get one,

St. Louis, You Are a Joke