I grew up with lovely British movie icons... I've loved black and white movies since I was a kid, raced through Hitchcock's stuff so quickly I know my Mom was concerned it would affect my mental development, and then the oh so charming Hugh Grant (early years) came through, followed by Rupert Everett (that also would fall under a gay man gripe) and more recently Colin Firth, Clive Owen and Daniel Craig - gosh there are so many more, just pick a name... but the idea I'm getting at is the concept of British men being oh so popular and honorable and do the right thing eventually, with eventually being soon enough so they haven't truly done anything unforgivable, and they're charming and intelligent and well mannered and quite possibly a little emotionally repressed with a more subtle sense of humor (or humour, I suppose, if you're British).
Maybe they are. Maybe all the ones who are have stayed in Britain.
The ones here - every single British guy I've met in the past, wow, 18 months, has moved here following a girl. (I know that doesn't negate any of the potentially positive and/or endearing attributes mentioned above.) Actually, almost every male expat I've met here came or stuck around, if they came for school, for a girl. How lovely, how romantic, how devoted, how... I think I'm gonna puke and not just cause I'm sick right now. It would be, but without fail, every British guy I've met here either is cheating or is trying to cheat or has tried to cheat or is talking about cheating on their significant other. Without fail. And for that, they suck. Except one and he was here for a short term work assignment and is already happily back home in England.
That may be a rather infantile summary, but it's also succinct. My illusions have been shattered. Maybe what I'm used, being American men, is just a certain level of underhanded sneakiness about issues like this - maybe it's a different approach. Maybe men all over the world think nothing of having their wives at home and multiple mistresses - maybe women all over the world find nothing wrong in being the mistress(there is definitely a high level of compliance with the women here - I'm astounded by how many women knowingly enter in to relationships with married men... actually that's another gripe too). Maybe I'm being shown a cultural norm or something... Maybe all of this is true.
And if it is - I have an answer for that...
It may all be true, but it's not my truth. I don't have to live my life according to what other people have determined to be right for themselves. I am not interested in being someone's milenka. (I had to look that up actually, it sounded so much like Lenka, a common name, that I thought it might be another diminutive or something... I was wrong, sort of.) And I don't want to be in a relationship where one of the parties is searching for another lover.
2 comments:
Hey, I'm a British guy who's been living in Prague for 3 years, have never cheated on a Czech girl, did not come here following a Czech girl (I had had a Czech girlfriend in London but we'd split up 2 and a half years before I moved over), I had another relationship shortly after I moved over which lasted for 8 months, I'm now single and still happy here. I live here because I love it here, I think most people are just uncomfortable with giving the simplest (but truest) reason for something, especially since Czech people often gawk at me saying I like their country, but they get it if there's a girl involved.
Perhaps this is a case of the exception proving the rule, but I don't think what you've written here is entirely true, just saying. And it's definitely not exclusive to British guys, or indeed guys.
Mr. Anonymous British Man, I seem to have unintentionally struck a nerve. I agree with you that my experiences are not an accurate depiction of all British men, and that theses circumstances are not limited to British men only (or even just men - points that were also addressed in the original writing) but as far as being truth, there we differ - what I wrote is an accurate depiction of my experiences at the time of writing, and so yes, it is true. Just not a universal truth.
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