How do you know you’ve successfully integrated into the country you decided to move to, years or decades earlier? Some may say it’s a feeling that’s hard to describe, and never quite comes to you as an epiphany. It’s such a deep, complex topic – how to decide, for certain, that the place you emigrated to has changed you for good? It’s just easier said than done.
Well, it probably is for some. I wouldn’t know how they feel. Last week, I, a foreigner, recorded an episode of The News Quiz on Thursday evening then, on Sunday, went to the shop to pick up a paper, in which I had a column about county cricket. Oh, and on Saturday I had a boozy picnic on the grounds of Windsor Castle, while watching some more cricket.
As far as I’m concerned, I should be allowed to send the paragraph above to the Home Office and gain access to this famous blue passport I’ve heard so much about, no questions asked. Still, my especially British week made me think. In what ways have my 15 years here reshaped both my innate and learned Frenchness? In what ways am I still, in essence, fresh off the Eurostar?
It turned into quite a fun game, and I made a little list for each side. Here are my results:
Too British to ever return home
In the first column, I started by adding… well, what I’ve just told you about. I watched cricket twice in a single fortnight, of my own volition. It wasn’t even glamorous, glitzy T20: I really did sit there and watch players do not much at all for hours on end. I told my mother about it and her reaction made it sound like I’d just mentioned a quick, casual trip to Mars and back.
Another important change is that I’m now unbearably, comically polite. I apologise to lampposts not only if I walk into them, but even if I happen to merely brush past them. I had an interaction with a woman in the gym the other day which essentially consisted of us apologising to each other for a full minute. If interrupting a stranger in a public place, I will make sure to say “sorry” at least seven times, in a wide variety of ways, before getting to my point.
A third, perhaps critical shift is that – God, it hurts to even type – I now prefer British drinking hours. I moved here and was baffled by this habit of getting to the pub exceedingly early, having a full night out, then being in bed by 11pm. It went against everything my Mediterranean roots craved. Still, over time, I got used to it. I even… started preferring it. Who wants to go out at 9pm then get home in the middle of the night? I want to get sloshed and I want to wake up some time before noon, thank you very much.
I’m sorry, je ne parle pas anglais
Listen, I’m not judging. We’re just different. That’s fine. All I will say is that what I think of as a “going out” outfit is not what women here think of as a “going out” outfit. My dresses will never be short enough. I will never show enough cleavage. I will never wear heels high enough. No amount of make-up on my face will ever be enough. I have made my peace with that.
Similarly: a fact that has often amused my friends is that I have never, in my life, bought a supermarket meal deal. I consider lunch to be a proper meal, on par with dinner. I refuse to eat at my desk, and I want to eat something substantial, and preferably warm. I believe you’re cheating yourselves when it comes to lunch. Give it the respect it deserves.
Oh, and speaking of which: I will never have dinner before 7.30pm. I take dinner time so seriously that pals will message me when eating at 6pm, purely because they know it will enrage me. It always works. I hate the idea of early dinner so much that merely imagining it, as a concept, makes me angry. No amount of time spent here will change that.
Tea, on the other hand, is something I’m mellower on. People are allowed to enjoy it. It’s a free country. I just don’t think it’ll ever be for me, though: I’ve tried it black and milky, with and without sugar, and I just don’t really get the point. You can yank my single espresso out of my cold, dead, shaking hands.
This is where my list ended, though I knew it could have gone on – and on, and on. I really enjoyed writing it, because it made me realise that some parts of my personality are thoroughly malleable, when others will clearly never change, no matter what happens to me. I don’t know that, 15 years ago, I could have predicted any of those shifts, or lack thereof, and that’s a good thing. Maybe I’ll do another one of those lists in another decade and a half, see who I am then. I look forward to it.
