I do not know if it is true of all British males, but at least around university it seems the middle-class males are groomed to avoid two behaviors that I enjoy immensly but have ceased while being here.
These guys do not really swear--which I, like some alcoholic in need of a morning drink, get started with as soon as I wake up. Even my poor mother has to listen to me swear when we stay at their house; I'm all F-this and F-that and that person is a jerk, and scr*w them, and that is just for breakfast, while my wife, daughter, dad and mom just look at me. i have a problem, i am a middle-aged male, come on, somebody must relate to the growing contempt i have for ignorance, and i cannot even imagine what I will be like when I am in my 80s. phew!
And, these guys don't spit. Since I got here my allergies have been all over the place. So today I could not get my nose cleared--you know where this is going but you will keep reading, because you have to. So I snorted up a nasty loogie. For the 'properly mannered' in the audience, a loogie is a big slimy glob of snot, waiting to be projected at least a good ten feet from one's mouth by rearing back and spitting. So, reflexively, I loogied up one, and just as I was about to "let it fly" as they say, I suddenly remembered, nobody around here spits. What am I to do? I panicked, then decided wrongly to carry the loogie around until i could get to a garbage can or something, which now made me want to throw up. So i just swallowed it. Oh, god, yes, I know. that is disgusting.
I also noticed that men around here push the baby strollers and helping out with the kids. That is something you definitely do not see in the states--but, I could not find any statistics to support my anecdotal observation, so at the macro-level I could be wrong. Anyway, the only other place I have seen men engaged in such a high level of childcare is in Scandinavia, particularly when we were in Copenhagen.
And, of course, all the Brits queue perfectly.
But, I will tell you, Brits will just as soon push you to the ground then get out of your way when walking--come on now, laugh, we are having fun; I am not in any way serious. Still, case in point. I was walking along the river today as two women, from opposite directions, approached one another. Nobody else on the path and yet they walked right at each other. I could not understand it. Any American or European where I have visited, with sense, would move to one side of the other. Not these women, they just barreled on, almost slamming into one another. And yet, as the Brits display everywhere, they were nonpulsed by the whole thing. I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. "Why do they do that?" I asked myself.
And I see it everywhere--Brits missing each other within inches of their lives. I even watched two mates walking a path with an old women coming along, trying to manage the cobblestone walkway with her cane, and they just barreled right along, she getting out of their way.
Honestly, I think it all has to do with the Brits driving on the wrong damn side of the road. It confuses them and so, when they walk, nobody knows what side to take. And you see my frustration in the eyes of other foreigners, as they try to figure out which side of the lane to take, with the Brits just accosting them from every direction possible. With all the frustration you would think someone would swear or spit or run their baby cart into someone else. And yet it does not "go down that way" as they say. Instead, it all seems to work, except for me. I want to spit and swear. But, I do not. I am in the UK and I am trying to learn. Some lessons, however, are harder than others.
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