People who lie about where they're from

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

Not OP but didn’t you literally just do that? 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not aware of anyone I know in DMV lying to me about where they are from … and even if they did m, I would not know or care. I have a few friends who grew up here but most of us come from other states or countries …

The locals rarely mix with the unwashed masses.

It's so gross that anyone could even think of doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are some very strange people on this thread. The combo of insisting that they're the ultimate social beings who just love a good conversation and then devolving into ANSWER ME HONESTLY! NOBODY CARES WHERE YOU WERE BORN BUT BY GOD YOU HAD BETTER TELL ME WHERE YOU LIVED WHEN YOU WERE AGES 4-17 RIGHT THIS MOMENT, STRANGER AT A COCKTAIL PARTY! I CAN SMELL YOUR SHAME! is really . . . something.

And "I am going go double check your answers to make sure you aren't lying."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

Not OP but didn’t you literally just do that? 😂

So the U.S. military brat poster who spent some early formative years in various Central European countries is "from" Germany and Poland? I think the Germans and Poles would disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

Not OP but didn’t you literally just do that? 😂

So the U.S. military brat poster who spent some early formative years in various Central European countries is "from" Germany and Poland? I think the Germans and Poles would disagree.

Sure. And feel free to preface it with “I was a military brat” in case you’re afraid that your accent and countenance won’t give you away as firmly American (I suspect that won’t be necessary 😉)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone I don’t know asks me where I am from and I think they mean where did I spend my childhood, I will say Buffalo. Most people know generally where that is. I did not grow up in Buffalo but in a farming town near Buffalo. Neither place is cool and I have no shame about where I grew up, but saying East Hayseed, NY (for example) is pointless since the follow up question to “where is that” is simply “near Buffalo.”

I assume most people don’t really care about the answer and are just being polite. In the case that it turns out the other person is also from “near Buffalo” we have a good time narrowing down our answers and seeing if we know any people/places in common.

Claiming to be from Buffalo or Detroit or Chicago or LA on the East Coast is not a weird flex. It’s just easier to give a basic geographic marker and let the person ask follow up questions if they are actually interested.

Correct, and answering the original question with “a town outside of Buffalo” seems a little needy, suggesting that you want the person to ask you for its name, and answering the original question with “East Hayseed, a small farming village a little east of Buffalo” seems weird too.

Maybe a previous poster thinks that suburban Detroiters have a particular obligation to confess the name of their fancy town — one not shared by any other metro area — because the contrasts are so great there between city and suburbs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What, OP, you didn’t get enough engagement last time you started this thread?

Get over it, my obsessed friend.

Exactly this, except strike the “friend” part

[Anonymous]

I think people who are so strident about answering geographically specifically and exhaustive temporally mistake their asking this question for creating some obligation for me to give an F whether they’re satisfied with the completeness or subjective “accuracy” of my answer. I’ll tell you what I want to tell you and if you don’t like that, I don’t care. I also don’t care what little bullshit suburb of some 2nd tier city you hail from. Wherever it was that you learned this sort of pedantry is relevant or necessary is a boring place filled with nothing to do all day but analyze the claims of 3rd parties at cocktail parties. Get a life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

But where did I grow up? I was in NYC from age 11. So its there, right? Or London before it up til 11. Please help me out.

Yeah, I would say both. NYC and London is fine to list, so long as it's accurate and truthful. Just "I grew up in NYC and then London"

London is pretty vague. I would need a specific neighborhood. And NYC could be Staten Island. You know, those people.

Ok well, Chelsea and the Upper East Side. But not everyone, especially people from places like Maryland, know those areas.

Why are you so triggered by having to specify?

Do you even know anything about either of those places?

Yes, most people do. Why does it bother you?

Wrong. Very few people could name 5 facts about either Chelsea or the EV. I doubt if you can.

[Anonymous]

I can name 5 facts about Chelsea. No idea what the EV is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

But where did I grow up? I was in NYC from age 11. So its there, right? Or London before it up til 11. Please help me out.

Yeah, I would say both. NYC and London is fine to list, so long as it's accurate and truthful. Just "I grew up in NYC and then London"

London is pretty vague. I would need a specific neighborhood. And NYC could be Staten Island. You know, those people.

Ok well, Chelsea and the Upper East Side. But not everyone, especially people from places like Maryland, know those areas.

Why are you so triggered by having to specify?

Do you even know anything about either of those places?

Yes, most people do. Why does it bother you?

Wrong. Very few people could name 5 facts about either Chelsea or the EV. I doubt if you can.

Aw, did you think you were special and had lived in some unknown far flung part of the world?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

Wait isn't this the second time you've asked this and you were already answered? You really think your background is something special, huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

Not OP but didn’t you literally just do that? 😂

Would you say I’m from Tunis because I lived there for a while in high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A more interesting question than asking someone where they are from, is "what do you think about x or y currently in the news?" or "which book have you read recently that you'd recommend"

I lived in a lot of different places. I have an English accent and spent 20 of my 50+ years in London. I'm not "from" London but that's how people would like my existence to be framed, and I'm happy to oblige. If I've also lived in NYC for 20 years, am I not also from NYC??

No, you're not. You're "from" the place you grew up, as I suspect you well know. Why do people love to play dumb on this issue? So very strange.

France/Lebanon/Zimbabwe/Vietnam/DC/Colombia/Tunisia poster here. Can you tell me where I'm "from" please? Using your assertion that someone is from where they grew up.

Not OP but didn’t you literally just do that? 😂

Would you say I’m from Tunis because I lived there for a while in high school?

Why are you acting like that's absurd statement?