I gained only one British friend while in Oxford who was not involved in my academic life. This is a tragedy, I know, but since it is the truth, I am happy to say that I would not trade Ruth for a hundred different British friends. She lives in Headington, the same area of Oxford in which The Vines bustles. I met her first when one of my housemates, Scotland, invited me to go with him to “the pub” one night to meet his friend Ruth and a friend of hers who was visiting from Canterbury.[1] As always, eager acceptance was my response, despite the growing pile of unread books on my desk. That evening, I knew that Ruth and I would be fast friends. Her quick wit and perpetual storytelling were attractive to me and the fact that her stories generally involved some exotic country and antics performed therein was an added bonus. When we arrived back at The Vines, I thanked Scotland fervently for the connection.
A few days after this particular pub night, Scotland and I were invited to a dinner party hosted by Ruth. We both beamed with excitement as our jealous housemates verbalized their longing to attend a truly British dinner party. We were the chosen ones and it was lovely. The party was not for a couple of weeks, so there was adequate time to fuss about what I would wear. I just wished I could pretend that I wasn’t an American. Of course if I tried, I would need to avoid Ruth all night and maintain a convincing fake accent. This was a temptation to which I succumbed every day in my interactions with the locals. Their disdain for Americans was not well hidden, and I had mastered simple words and phrases in the local dialect so as not to expose myself. It is wonderful how easily a quick “sorry” or “thank you” delivered in a fake British accent can gain a foreigner acceptance away from home. Despite this truth, I knew that my skill was not yet developed enough to hide my nationality for an entire evening and that I would no doubt be almost instantly exposed as an American, and a fraudulent, shameful American at that.
Days before the awaited evening, Scotland discovered that he had a schedule conflict and would not be able to attend the party. This was bad news. I was already anxious about meeting what I imagined to be an intimidating hoard of young British idealists, knowing that they would immediately hate me for being American, but also having decided that hiding it was not an option. Could I face them alone? Perhaps it was the American in me, but I refused to shy away from this confrontation.
When the night finally came, I selected a trendy, yet sophisticated-looking outfit, walked to the end of the road and waited in the dark. Ruth had offered to pick me up on her tandem bicycle and I had accepted. The cold, dark and unknown route through Headington was not welcoming and certainly not to one traveling alone. When she arrived, it was a bit of a spectacle. She rode the two-person bicycle alone and while wearing a giant, yellow ski-jacket. I stifled my laughter as she greeted me and explained how, exactly, to mount the tandem. Riding as a passenger on a two-person bicycle was far more frightening and much less quaint than I had expected – rather than singing “Daisy, Daisy . . .” I was trying to decide which part of my body I should sacrifice to the pavement if I fell off. Ruth instructed me not ever to lean, which was counter-intuitive, but I did my best not to topple us. I certainly questioned my decision to accept this mode of transportation, but when we arrived at her house, and were not dead, I appreciated the experience.
I was hours early - I had agreed to, in return for the ride, help prepare the meal. Fortunately, preparation of the vegan-friendly meal consisted almost entirely of vegetable-cutting. We sat in the kitchen, chatted, and cut vegetables. She offered me some tea, and I nodded and smiled. Tea had become one of my favorite aspects of life in the UK. She assumed I took milk and did not offer me sugar. I learned later that at least some British people consider sugar in tea to be a practice of the lower class, a member of which Ruth was not. This amused me. I imagined Ruth’s reaction if she were ever to taste the famed and aptly named sweet tea of the American South and decided that Americans, in our general addiction to sugar, must all appear to be lower class citizens. Perhaps this was another reason they found us to be uncivilized. At that moment I learned to drink my tea without sugar.
Eventually, the guests began to arrive, each with a bottle of wine in hand. I hadn’t thought to bring anything and felt out of place already. One person even brought dessert wine, something of which I had never heard. Ruth introduced me to fifteen British twenty-somethings that night, and at each introduction I did my best to appear confident, aware and informed. She included my nationality every time, making me glad that I had decided not to try to hide it. Contrary to my fears, they did not look on me with disdain, but rather with intrigue. I actually became a bit of a novelty. Perhaps my acquaintance with Ruth meant to them that I was not the type of American they despised. I was relieved and happy to answer their friendly questions.
One of the guests offered to drive me home so that Ruth would not have to take the tandem out again. I was grateful as the temperature had dropped and the contraption still frightened me some. After an embarrassing incident in which I began to open the driver’s side door rather than the passenger’s side, and a hearty laugh from my companion, we were on our way. By the time I reached my small sanctuary of Americans, the sound of my own voice seemed strange to me. I had heard nothing but English speech for hours and the sound of my American utterances and those of my housemates seemed much less musical than those of the conversations from which I had come. Other than this small oddity, I was glad to be home. I was asked by many to recount the events of my evening with the locals and did it gladly, laughing at my own fears of rejection and remembering the kindness I was shown.
That dinner party gave me a new respect for British people. I realized that my assuming that they would judge and reject me instantly because of where I was born was just as ludicrous as if they had actually done so. I harbored the very prejudice I feared, but once I allowed myself to be surprised, I enjoyed a lovely night of good food and the sparkling conversation of good people who just happened to be British.
[1] I find it interesting that when British people, or acclimating American people, say “the pub,” they could actually be referring to
any pub in the whole of Britain.
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