Dinner is tea lols

It happened not long after I moved to England - I realised most other immigrants annoyed the hell out of me. Their blogs annoyed me, their Facebook updates annoyed me, their regales of their first {insert British Experience here} annoyed me and perhaps most of all, the conclusions they have come to based on their limited experiences made me want to gouge my eyeballs and eardrums out. My new country seems to have its fair share of new (and even a "veteran") ex-pat who think that they have sorted out everything about the UK and it's natives based on their own life in Yorkshire or Blackpool or Glasgow or even London. Surely, I am not the only American who learned about the slippery slope that is stereotyping. The classic example is Americans who move to the North of England, hear their Mother-in-Law invite them to 'tea' and then upon their return from what actually turned out to be a meal in the evening, report back to their family and friends that "British people call dinner 'tea' lol." Ugh.

The actual fact is that some people in England, mostly in the North of the country refer to their evening meal as 'tea'. All British people (I can speak for most of us in the South-East) certainly do not and as unimportant as it is, it is spreading a fallacy and aggravates me.

Luckily for them (and me), their stupid comments never leave their blog pages, forum posts or Facebook, but a few days ago, this article was brought to my attention... I will leave you to read and make that finger-in-mouth-gag-me motion if necessary....

Are you kidding me!?! She is actually attempting to make a generalization about London - one of the most diverse cities in all of the world!? What men has she been meeting? She makes them all out to be do-gooder chaps who bow at the feet of women. That certainly hasnt been my experience (especially not in London). She should go up to Dizzee Rascal's hood in North London and see if she's still up in the clouds with this dreamy idea of all men being Hugh Grant.

I feel a twinge of guilt when I say this, but seriously, other American immigrants irk me.

My unsolicited advice: Its should go without saying, but don't assume your small circle of friends/family/coworkers is representative of an entire nation.