The Frog etiquette guide: Speaking to your former teachers in the pub
It’s probably a familiar situation for many a young man and lady in Britain: you’re 25, in the pub and a few ales in. Your ex-teacher walks in and you make eye contact. How on earth do you address them?
Despite leaving school nearly a decade before, the chances are your first instinct will be to slip straight into how you used to speak to them: the simple sir or miss.
In the real world when you’re now both adults, however, that’s fucking dumb and you’ll probably make yourself look like a bit of a tit if you do say that.
So what to do? We’ve put together a few suggestions, some which are definitely more useful than others.
1) Go straight in for the first name
Pros: If done correctly, it can immediately level the hierarchy — real or perceived — between the two of you and quickly dismantle the teacher-student dynamic that always has you at a disadvantage. To get it right always use the full version of their name rather than the contraction: they are NOT your friend. Likely to be the preferential tactic if you had some sort of relationship with the teacher outside the school setting: perhaps a former team coach or family friend.
Cons: It may be perceived incredibly inappropriate if your delivery is overly familiar. While leveling the power dynamic is a must and using a first name is the quickest way to achieve that, it can go horribly wrong if you naturally come across as arrogant or a piss-taker. How pissed you are can really make or break this option. Have too many beers and you’re likely to stray into being obnoxious but stay the right side of legless and you’ll likely find the right formula of formality and the usual respect you’d afford any other human being.
2) Pretend you’ve forgotten who they are even though they probably humiliated you at school and you still carry that resentment
Pros: To your unsuspecting teacher you might appear like you’ve become something of a high-flyer since completing your GCSEs and A-levels, meeting so many people along your journey that you no longer remember anyone from you school days. If they do buy the ruse then there’s a good chance you’ll really turn the tables on them and make them feel very small, they are only human after all.
Cons: The chances of them falling for this is pretty slim. Not only will you probably be in the pub drinking with the exact same group that you were mates with at school, the teacher in question will likely not be a cretin. Plus you’ll also likely be dressed in an old t-shirt with crusty white armpit patches, tatty jeans with frayed bottoms and grubby trainers you’ve put through the wash several times — hardly the look of someone who is too important to remember their old teacher.
3) Entirely avoid using names at all
Pros: The safest course of action. If you never use any sort of term to address them — whether that be their first name, mate, love, buddy, pal, babe — you will entirely avoid any sort of embarrassment and the whole confrontation will likely go by without any sort of controversy. If you’re quite happy for the status quo to remain unchanged, this will be the option for you.
Cons: Awkward. It’s natural for properly conditioned human beings to use names to address people and the lack of them in conversation can come across as robotic. If your teacher suspects that you have been using this incredibly popular guide to work out a way of talking to them, the whole illusion will quickly come crashing down.
4) Attempt to seduce / chat them up
Pros: Instead of just levelling the social status, there’s a very slim chance you may even leave with them or, at worst, a little phone number. The option with the greatest risk-reward ratio: get it right and you’ll have a lovely evening with an older lady or gentleman. Get it wrong and your mates will have a great laugh at your expense.
Cons: It’s most likely that you’ll humiliate yourself in front of the whole pub and your teacher will now not only think you’re a sad loser, but they’ll also assume you’re a certain breed of sex pervert. DO NOT attempt if the teacher is married or has a family. We may suggest some morally questionable things in this guide but we won’t go as far as tearing families apart. It’s the kids that suffer after all and end up knifing people in London.
5) Fight them
Pros: You get to lay a flying headbutt on a teacher you’ve probably always wanted to scrap and have known that you could have beaten up since you were in year 11. The satisfaction of laying a right hook on that arrogant cunt of a maths teacher will definitely be worth it.
Cons: Probably not actually worth it once you’re sober the next day. You’ll be banned from the pub and you might expect a visit from a Bobby the next morning if the battered teacher is feeling particularly — and perhaps justifiably — litigious. There may also be the chance you lose the fight if you’re not much of a scrapper.
6) Show them a YouTube video about flat earth conspiracies
Pros: It’s the ultimate ice breaker. “How crazy are these people who believe in the flat earth right?!” They won’t know that you actually believe it though and before you know it they’ll be questioning horizons, flight paths, how water sticks on a spinning globe and whatever the hell is going down in Antarctica.
Cons: Lots of people aren’t ready to know that the earth is flat. Nor are they ready to accept that we probably didn’t go to the moon. Like have you seen the state of that lunar landing module? It’s made out of tinfoil and we’re supposed to believe that survived in the vacuum of space? Plus their excuse for not going back is that they’ve destroyed the tech from the last landing so they can’t go back. There’s some serious sneaky nonsense going on here.
7) Challenge them to throw a copper kettle over the pub
Pros: Everyone knows that this is the best way to establish where you stand on a hierarchy. If a copper kettle isn’t available or throwing over the pub is impractical, a simple throwing contest will suffice. Best employed if you’ve just lost at a quiz and all the questions were about war.
Cons: A long piece of material that can be tied to the kettle will be required to create some sort of a slingshot. A tie or shoelaces will be the best and most likely implement you’ll have to hand for the task and so if you’re wearing velcro or slip-ons you might be struggling.
