Do Pretentious People Know They Are Pretentious?

I have met a lot of pretentious people in my life--and I apologize if I've ever given off the pretentious vibe --and I wonder if they realize they are pretentious. I met a boy in college who thought he was the pooh, but he wasn't. He was unkempt with greasy hair and grungy clothes, and he liked to give his opinion when it wasn't warranted.

One time I was talking to one of the teachers (an adjunct who had a Master's and was accepted to a graduate program) about fairy tales, and I guess you can say he had first hand experience with fairy tales because he used to live in Germany, the land of fairy tales--Grimms Brothers, Neuschwanstein--and the pretentious undergrad rudely butted into our conversation and inisted that the adjunct was talking about a fable. A very different sort of story (although, they are both included in the folk tale category) and a very specific type of storytelling. Yes, fairy tales have morals like fables, but they are implicit not explicit like fables, and besides, since when has Cinderella ever been a dog? They kind of went back-and-forth for a while (really, it was ridiculous and the pretentious fool should have just shut up when he had the chance). After the room was cleared, the smug pretentious jerk looked up fables on-line and found out he was wrong, but never owned up to it like a pretentious fatherless child would do. I only know that he looked it up because after he left the room I looked up the history of the computer that he used and he googled fables. I felt pretty good after that.

That was then this is now, and I ran into another pretentious person the other day, and she was offering me unwarranted advice. I am older than her, have had cooler experiences than her, and I know what I am doing. Anyways, I did look up her suggestion, and maybe she was right, but that doesn't  mean I have to listen to her . . . because she is pretentious.