How To Be Pretentious: Dinner Parties
In the pursuit of warding off pretentious people, becoming pretentious yourself is one option. One way to do this is the dinner party. Step 1 is the dishes.
For hosting, it is important to be natural. Therefore, purge your cabinets of your normal microwavable plates and bowls. From now on you use china for everything. If possible, get two or more sets (with tea cups and saucers), so that you can use, "the less formal set". A good place to get china is thrift shops. Anything pretty that says "royal" on the bottom should be good. Once you have these, you should be ready to be a hoity toity host at a moments notice.