Expats

Hah. That's what I am, supposedly, but I have so little of the English left in me, except the language, that I've never heard the term applied to me.
I mean, seriously.
I don't like British food and groan the rare times my mother brings out mince pies, christmas pudding, mint sauce and all that stuff (luckily, she's just about given up on it)
I don't like McDonald's.
I don't understand British girls walking around half-naked, and I find British boys shy.
Stephen Clarke makes me laugh, but I often find his views caricatural.
I don't like British people complaining that the french never pronounce English names properly (although it does sometimes set my teeth on edge) when their attempts at pronouncing French names are at best risible, and most often non-existent.
I like eating meat rare and not overcooked as my aunt, uncle and cousins do.
I find many Brits either overly reserved or terribly loud.
I still have a British sense of humour which can be quite confusing if associated with the french one (this often leads to my laughing all by myself)
I don't have the problem of pronouncing my name in a different language since it's easy in both. It's impossible to tell from my accent whether I'm english or french. A frenchman could tell that I live in the south of France, an Englishman might be able to tell that my family originates from southern England.
I never have to wonder about the gender of an object.
All this puts me pretty far from the usual expat concerns.


Now, I don't like expats much. I'm sure they're all very nice people, but in my experience (which is mainly that of my parent's friends, etcetera) a lot of them, while often marrying french people, pretend to stay quintessentially english. Which is absolutely impossible.
Take my mother, who unlike my father, my brother and I, isn't quite such a mess and is English born and bred. Even she thinks that she doesn't have much in common with english people after fourteen years of living here.
And all the expat moaning gets me down. Go back to England, or the US, or wherever, if it's that bad, and quit moaning.
The only expat friend I have is JC. He's English, looks impossibly like prince Charming, and hates England for a set of reasons i have not yet fathomed.
And out of the thousands of English or english speaking students in our town, I'm the only Brit he talks to, and the same goes for him.
we're a pair of weirdoes.