More With Honey
It was an article in Cosmo. Circa... ooh, '95? '94 maybe? Featuring very flirty, so-many-men-so-little-time type girls that, at age 15 or so, I was very keen on becoming (actually, at age 27 or so, I still wouldn't mind, but anyway... ) One in particular caught my eye, a Canadian girl who mentioned that her accent was a conversation starter. Her advice included always wearing your hair loose if it's long, and there was a photo of her dancing down a West End street with gorgeous men whirling round in cartoon-ish double takes. I was ever so impressed and decided then and there that when I grew up, I wanted to be Canadian. And in 12 months or so - if all goes to plan - I will be, well, a permanent resident of Canada at least. I'd feel daft with a different coloured passport and have no desire to grow a goatee so won't be going for citizenship, but, close enough, anyway. I am very pleased about it except for one thing: am I going to have to start being nice?
Probably around the same time as reading the article that left me terribly enamoured of those who have a national pride in alarming enthusiasm for winter sports, I had my heart broken for the first time. Can't remember the bloke's name now, but I can tell you that he drove a green car and had a very gorgeous best friend - the best friend being the one I was after when I ended up with the green car man. It didn't take green car man long to cotton on and unceremoniously dump me. Which wounded my ego no end (I'd worn my hair loose and everything!) so I whiled the best part of an afternoon away sobbing in a heart broken manner on my bed hoping that people would bring me cups of tea. However no one did, and I was just on the point of giving up and going downstairs to watch a bit of telly when my dad popped his head around by bedroom door. "Fan-dabby-dozy," I thought, "here we go with the tea and sympathy." I wasn't entirely thrilled to notice that he'd arrived armed with a screwdriver. He sat down on my bed and solemnly informed me that he was going to teach me to change a plug as "it didn't look as though I was going to have a man to look after me."
When this is how I was raised, can you blame me for being completely useless at the glossy have-a-nice-day-ness of the North American continent? I get so stressed by my attempts to smile constantly at strangers that I often end up snarling which doesn't go down terribly well at all.
However, in the grand scheme of things, being nice to strangers is actually the easy part. Where I come from, giving your nearest and dearest a hard time is a sign of affection. In fact, I am so adept at being rotten to those I like that I am sometimes mistaken for Australian. An Australian friend recently commented about a mutual friend that "If I didn't loike him I'd be noice about him!" (I realize that as this was commented in an email it's even less necessary to type in a terrible approximation of an Australian accent, but I can't help it. I am sorry) a sentiment that I thought quite brilliantly summed up the Aussie attitude. In fact, I even wonder if this means I am moving to the wrong part of the Commonwealth. If I was more of a fan of startlingly large spiders, I might reconsider.
