People who lie about where they're from

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was born in one place, grew up in another state, moved to a third for college, a fourth for law school, and now live in DC. All of those cities/states were in different regions of the country. When I am asked "where are you from" it is 100% true that different people mean different things by the same question. Some mean where were you born, some where did you spend most/all of your childhood, some mean where did you move to this place from. I'm not giving my autobiography on command so I just have a quick stock answer that omits two of the four places.

I also strongly disagree with people who say you should name the suburb instead of LA as an answer. I don't know LA suburb names. If someone said they were from LA I would have an immediate understanding of what part of the world they mean, while if they say "La Anyplace, CA" I don't know if that's by San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Sacramento. If they said LA to a Los Angeleno in LA then it would be strange, but if you're living in DC you can say you're from Seattle or LA or Cedar Rapids to get the point across even though you grew up one town over. Who cares.

It says a lot more about OP being obsessed with trying to clasify people by where they lived.

Huh? Are you always this defensive? DP here. Clearly socializing is not for you. If someone is pulling you. from your home involuntarily, to attend a social event, you need to reassess. Really, learn to get alond with your fellow humans. Not everything is about you. Some people are just trying to be civil.

A lot of the people on here are very socially maladjusted and awkward. They take offense to literally everything, and get flummoxed/enraged by even the simplest of questions and social interactions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, have you been kvetching about this for 14 YEARS?!

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/63137.page

There was another one within the last 3-4 months too.

This person starts the topic and then repeatedly argues with people with such self righteous indignation.

I think there’s some undiagnosed mental illness or something. No one normal can possibly care about this.

It’s such a bizarre thing to get hung up on. It’s like the transplants who get bent out of shape and report to Overheard in DC, if someone who grew up on the MD side of Takoma or Chevy Chase tell people in Europe they’re from DC when asked. This is only a thing for people who moved from middle of f’ing nowhere Nebraska or something to the “big city” and think they have to create an air of exclusivity.

When people ask the question they’re wondering about geography only. They don’t care about your life story, they don’t care about your podunk town. They’re wondering what closest landmark you’re from. For example, if I had the misfortune of being from South Dakota, I’d simply say I’m from near Mt Rushmore. No one has any earthly idea where Rapid City is and they don’t care to look it up. I grew up within 2 miles of DC. I say DC because no one gives a shit and DC gets a giant unmistakeable star on every map made in the last 200 years.

[Anonymous]

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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?

It’s not totally absurd. I lived there for a while as a teenager. I don’t have Tunisian passport or permanent resident visa. Saying I’m Tunisian would be incorrect from a citizenship point of view and it wouldn’t fully answer OP’s question. I would be lying, according to OP.

Was is during your formative years? Formative is deifned to be some abstract age range known only to OP and the definition varies according to context.

NP here. You tell me. Born in Country A (citizenship), moved to Country B at age 2. Moved back to Country A at age 10. Moved to Country C at 13.

Where am I from?

Why not name all three? Is that hard?

Who does that? No one answers this question with a Dickensian narrative.

[Anonymous]

The only reason a Petty Patty wants to know truly where someone truly “is from” is to judge them. For the love of the ancient gods, that information is so inconsequential when making small talk. You both currently live in the same city. Talk about restaurants, real estate, schools, museums, transit, your jobs, hiking trails, biking trails, and the like. This isn’t hard.

[Anonymous]

I was born in Manhattan and lived in the city till I was 12.

I always find it funny when a 22 year old in a walk up sublet in Manhattan from the Midwest is from NY but I am not.

[Anonymous]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential…. Where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, have you been kvetching about this for 14 YEARS?!

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/63137.page

There was another one within the last 3-4 months too.

This person starts the topic and then repeatedly argues with people with such self righteous indignation.

I think there’s some undiagnosed mental illness or something. No one normal can possibly care about this.

It’s such a bizarre thing to get hung up on. It’s like the transplants who get bent out of shape and report to Overheard in DC, if someone who grew up on the MD side of Takoma or Chevy Chase tell people in Europe they’re from DC when asked. This is only a thing for people who moved from middle of f’ing nowhere Nebraska or something to the “big city” and think they have to create an air of exclusivity.

When people ask the question they’re wondering about geography only. They don’t care about your life story, they don’t care about your podunk town. They’re wondering what closest landmark you’re from. For example, if I had the misfortune of being from South Dakota, I’d simply say I’m from near Mt Rushmore. No one has any earthly idea where Rapid City is and they don’t care to look it up. I grew up within 2 miles of DC. I say DC because no one gives a shit and DC gets a giant unmistakeable star on every map made in the last 200 years.

Yeah, there's something really off about OP. She has this really weird belief that when someone from Rancho Cucamonga tells a stranger at a party that they're from Los Angeles, they're somehow trying to pull a con job. The reality is, the person says they're from LA because they know that the asker doesn't know where Rancho Cucamonga is, doesn't really care about the accuracy of the answer, or both.

Normal people don't care about this, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

It’s not totally absurd. I lived there for a while as a teenager. I don’t have Tunisian passport or permanent resident visa. Saying I’m Tunisian would be incorrect from a citizenship point of view and it wouldn’t fully answer OP’s question. I would be lying, according to OP.

Was is during your formative years? Formative is deifned to be some abstract age range known only to OP and the definition varies according to context.

NP here. You tell me. Born in Country A (citizenship), moved to Country B at age 2. Moved back to Country A at age 10. Moved to Country C at 13.

Where am I from?

Why not name all three? Is that hard?

PP here. Yes, in casual conversation it's rather absurd to respond to "where are you from" with a discourse on the state of my childhoood. Do you really think anybody cares that I'm basically "from" three countries? That's why people often, depending on context, just pick a place. It's not always as cut-and-dry as everyone would like to make it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

It’s not totally absurd. I lived there for a while as a teenager. I don’t have Tunisian passport or permanent resident visa. Saying I’m Tunisian would be incorrect from a citizenship point of view and it wouldn’t fully answer OP’s question. I would be lying, according to OP.

Was is during your formative years? Formative is deifned to be some abstract age range known only to OP and the definition varies according to context.

NP here. You tell me. Born in Country A (citizenship), moved to Country B at age 2. Moved back to Country A at age 10. Moved to Country C at 13.

Where am I from?

Why not name all three? Is that hard?

Who does that? No one answers this question with a Dickensian narrative.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The details of my life are quite inconsequential…. Where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

But where are you FROM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP will hate me.

I was a military brat and we moved to a new base every three years. The bases were mostly in Central Europe, so that was fun, but the actual housing was nothing fancy *at all* as any military family can attest. My family was, and still is, solidly upper lower middle class.

When people ask me where I'm from, I just say "I grew up in Europe," which is 100% true, and seem much more glamorous than I actually am.

I hate to break it to you but everyone will be able to tell you're a military brat and that's why you "grew up in Europe". The vibe between a military brat type person vs someone who grew up at a German boarding school because theyre parents are wealthy is extremely different. No one is going to buy you went to Institute le Rosey, my friend. Everyone knows that military brats exist and they give off the same blue collar vibes as if theyd grown up in Alabama. That's like saying "I'm from Maryland" and just assuming people will think you're from Chevy Chase when you grew up in Hagerstown. People aren't fools and they can tell the vibe

Jesus.

And this is why nobody wants to talk to you at parties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The details of my life are quite inconsequential…. Where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

So where do you tell folks you are from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP will hate me.

I was a military brat and we moved to a new base every three years. The bases were mostly in Central Europe, so that was fun, but the actual housing was nothing fancy *at all* as any military family can attest. My family was, and still is, solidly upper lower middle class.

When people ask me where I'm from, I just say "I grew up in Europe," which is 100% true, and seem much more glamorous than I actually am.

I hate to break it to you but everyone will be able to tell you're a military brat and that's why you "grew up in Europe". The vibe between a military brat type person vs someone who grew up at a German boarding school because theyre parents are wealthy is extremely different. No one is going to buy you went to Institute le Rosey, my friend. Everyone knows that military brats exist and they give off the same blue collar vibes as if theyd grown up in Alabama. That's like saying "I'm from Maryland" and just assuming people will think you're from Chevy Chase when you grew up in Hagerstown. People aren't fools and they can tell the vibe

Jesus.

And this is why nobody wants to talk to you at parties.

Plus military / state dept “Brats” often attend international schools and are quite sophisticated with parents who are committed to larger public goods.

I would not care about the opinion of anyone who look down on others because their families made sacrifices to serve their countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was born in one place, grew up in another state, moved to a third for college, a fourth for law school, and now live in DC. All of those cities/states were in different regions of the country. When I am asked "where are you from" it is 100% true that different people mean different things by the same question. Some mean where were you born, some where did you spend most/all of your childhood, some mean where did you move to this place from. I'm not giving my autobiography on command so I just have a quick stock answer that omits two of the four places.

I also strongly disagree with people who say you should name the suburb instead of LA as an answer. I don't know LA suburb names. If someone said they were from LA I would have an immediate understanding of what part of the world they mean, while if they say "La Anyplace, CA" I don't know if that's by San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Sacramento. If they said LA to a Los Angeleno in LA then it would be strange, but if you're living in DC you can say you're from Seattle or LA or Cedar Rapids to get the point across even though you grew up one town over. Who cares.

It says a lot more about OP being obsessed with trying to clasify people by where they lived.

Huh? Are you always this defensive? DP here. Clearly socializing is not for you. If someone is pulling you. from your home involuntarily, to attend a social event, you need to reassess. Really, learn to get alond with your fellow humans. Not everything is about you. Some people are just trying to be civil.

A lot of the people on here are very socially maladjusted and awkward. They take offense to literally everything, and get flummoxed/enraged by even the simplest of questions and social interactions.

X100000

This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The details of my life are quite inconsequential…. Where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

"Laser"