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" My buddies at work and I formed a boys&amp;#039; club called DWI (Distinguished, Wealthy, Intelligent). It&amp;#039;s our spoof on super cultured rich guys that we jokingly strive to be. Whenever I hear that first verse of Carly Simon&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re So Vain,&amp;quot; I want to be like that guy she&amp;#039;s singing about. She sings &amp;quot;you walked in to the party, like you were walking on to a yacht...&amp;quot; He is rich, cultured, obnoxious, and confident...&amp;quot;and all the girls dream that they&amp;#039;d be his partner...&amp;quot; Despite my parents&amp;#039; careers as physicians, our household was not highfalutin and full of pictures of foxhunts, or expensive wines-actually my parents prefer box wines. My sisters and I were part private school preppie-- they excelled in lacrosse, part blue collar (my mom grew up in a blue collar household)-- we loved the Ocean City, MD boardwalk with the horrible funnel cake and make your own T-shirts. I&amp;#039;m not that cultured, so sometimes I feel like Julia Roberts in &amp;quot;Pretty Woman,&amp;quot; when I&amp;#039;m around cultured people. Here are some areas where I need improvement:  Wine Knowledge  At a wedding a few weeks ago, I was sitting next to a girl I&amp;#039;ve been wanting to makeout with forever. I targeted this wedding as my time to shine, but I think my wine ignorance did me in. My glass was almost empty, so a waiter came around and said: &amp;quot;Would you like more Merlot?&amp;quot; I said: &amp;quot;No that&amp;#039;s OK, I&amp;#039;m actually drinking red.&amp;quot; The girl looked at me with that record scratch awkward look. Later that evening, she was chatting with this sophisticated looking guy who was wearing a scarf. I think they spent the night together. There&amp;#039;s no doubt in my mind that guy knew that Merlot is red. Honestly, most wine tastes the same to me. All I know is that I like red more than white. On dates, I&amp;#039;m up front about knowing nothing about wine as soon as the menus are handed out. This isn&amp;#039;t such a sin because many women enjoy picking out the wine when we go out.  General Knowledge/Manners  I&amp;#039;d probably fail a fancy dinner manners quiz. I didn&amp;#039;t get too much Manners 101 growing up. My dad would tell me to keep my elbows off the table, but to this day I still don&amp;#039;t understand how one can eat or sit at a table without putting their elbows on that table at some point. I have enough discipline not to eat until everyone gets their food, but I don&amp;#039;t understand this rule-- I wouldn&amp;#039;t care if people started before me. No matter how hard I try, I never remember what utensil to pick up for each course-I think you&amp;#039;re supposed to pick them up from the outside and work inward?  On dates, I must concentrate intensely to dine &amp;quot;correctly.&amp;quot;  There are many cultural things that I don&amp;#039;t know. For instance, at that wedding a few weekends ago, the &amp;quot;whole bridal party&amp;quot; was summoned to pose for a picture. I didn&amp;#039;t budge. I thought I was in the &amp;quot;groom&amp;#039;s party.&amp;quot; Apparently the &amp;quot;bridal party&amp;quot; means both bridesmaids and groomsmen. I need to learn those little nuances-women seem to know these nuances naturally out of the womb. Even those fancy French cuffs and cufflinks gave me trouble: it was truly an epic battle getting those things on correctly.  Arts &amp;amp;amp; Politics  I&amp;#039;ll never be one of those people who can quote Hemingway, though I wish I could. I know books and art that I&amp;#039;m interested in, but I don&amp;#039;t learn about stuff I&amp;#039;m not interested in. I like Art Deco more than French Impressionism, but seems like I&amp;#039;d be more cultured if I knew French Impressionism. I know stuff from the CNN homepage but I&amp;#039;m not in to politics, and I try to stay out of political arguments. Whenever someone gets in my face and says: &amp;quot;do you know that so and so is happening in country X?&amp;quot; I say: &amp;quot;no I don&amp;#039;t, and I don&amp;#039;t know how to solve it.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m looking for a girl who is somewhat cultured, but still loves her box wine, because she&amp;#039;ll be very much like me. However, I&amp;#039;ve definitely been attracted to super preppy girls who triple my cultural knowledge. It&amp;#039;s easy to find people that are too cultured, or not cultured enough. Deep cultural knowledge can give you the appearance of being wealthy, but obviously there&amp;#039;s no real correlation-- anyone can learn how to be &amp;quot;cultured&amp;quot;. Are any of my three deficiencies above deal breakers? Do you find yourself going for super cultured guys, or less cultured guys? Do you think a guy looks wealthier if he&amp;#039;s cultured? What bad manners are pet peeves for you? Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/richravens "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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