How to tell my friend who lives in Saudi to stop bloody patronising me!

[SomeLikeitSnot]

My friend lives in KSA with her family and LOVES it. Loves having a live in maid, pool on site, glitz and glamour. Great- v happy for her! Shes in the UK over summer visiting and we are seeing her a lot and shes driving me INSANE.
Shes taken on this real 'aw poor you stuck in UK its sooo hard here' mentality and I find it so grating. I have no inclination to move to Saudi/the middle east and her acting like Im jealous of her life is becoming so tiresome.
When we are chatting she will keep saying 'sorry I'll stop going on about the sun and lifestyle it must be hard to hear!' when I honestly couldnt care less. Sounds great for her and I love the stories- I also love the UK countryside/weather/culture/all our friends and family. I think she feels me prickling and thinks is jealousy.
I remember from visiting friends in the UAE everyone is v anti-UK and thinks its a shithole and theres a real feeling of people 'escaping' to the ME but I really don't mind it here and I want to say something to cut out the comments.
She is a friend so I wont want to make a sarky comment about womens rights/death penalty etc just a 'please stop feeling sorry for me, I dont want your life'!

I’d just laugh at her and say I’m too much of a wino to live there😀 She must be thrilled that women got the right to drive there 7 years ago…JFC some people…

This is so common.

You also get it with people who've moved to Australia. They can't fathom why you wouldn't want to go there too.

Yes, I'm delighted you're happy there! I can completely see that the climate & lifestyle suit you.

No, I am not remotely jealous ...I love England. The climate, lifestyle & culture here suit me to a tee and I would never want to move a long distance from family.

I assume you aren’t talking about gay people, or non-Muslims, or women?! Perfect human rights there…

I'm not sure your distinction makes sense. You're an immigrant in the new country and an emigrant from your country of origin.
Most Brits in the middle east are economic migrants, much like Polish communities in UK (until recently at least!) who may well not remain long term.
"Ex-pat" is, whether you like it or not, a term used by people who for whatever reason don't feel inclined to say "yes I was part of the British migrant/immigrant population in Spain" or whatever.

I am a British Immigrant living in NZ.

Its very exciting and stressful for the first 3 years... but because it is different you want everyone to feel as "free" as you do. You also feel a little rebellious becasue you are living under different rules from what you are used to. After 3-4 years it just becomes normal life and you settle into the same patterns you had at home.

It doesn't suit everyone because not everyone is excited by change and adventure.

I wouldn't swap my experience for anything, I still miss M&S food, decent free-to-air televison, good driving being the norm, and propert central heating. I could see how it wouldn't work for everyone now though. Its like getting misty-eyed about how wonderful children are, and how even though its is hard, you wouldn't swap them in the end.

Expat is used for people in ME wherever they are. The fact that Brits missuse it in Spain is not related. Though maybe they are not really missusing it since they most likely are there just temporarily. Not sure how many plan to die there...
Using it the correct way simplified, expats are temporary, immigrants are for ever. Migrant is basically anyone who moves.
You emigrating from country an immigrating somewhere doesn't mean you are immigrant in the correct sense of the word.

But nobody ever uses "emigrant", outside an academic context perhaps. You would have to pronounce it super-carefully so people didn't hear "immigrant", and then a lot of people would have to have it explained.

I spent several decades outside the UK and I have literally never heard or read anyone saying "I'm not an immigrant, I'm an ex-pat, totally different, not like them <insert slur here>, hur hur hur". It seems to be a myth in the imagination of a certain type of person who likes to police the speech of others in the hope of catching a real live racist one day, and I wish they would do something more productive about that instead.

Ex-pat is fine, everyone knows what you mean. I grew up in country X, I still identify with it, I live in country Y right now. That applies to pretty much every Brit in KSA and the vast majority in Spain, including those who do speak decent Spanish and don't drink Carling. Kemi Badenoch said the other day that she no longer identifies as Nigerian, fair play to her, and I know Brits in France/Spain/NL who basically want nothing to do with the UK, but it's quite rare.

Yanbu, I wouldn’t live there for all the money in the world. Definitely say something next time she starts with the ‘poor you’ stuff. Polite but firm “look I know you love it but it’s not the life for me so there’s really no need to pity me, I’m very happy where I am”.

I would be telling her. This is a country I will never visit as it has little regard for human rights and exploits with modern day slavery.

@Claxon "expats are temporary, immigrants are for ever. Migrant is basically anyone who moves. You emigrating from country an immigrating somewhere doesn't mean you are immigrant in the correct sense of the word."

Not really. Migrant means you moved. Immigrant means you moved "here" (from the point of view of the person speaking) eg "some Greek immigrants on my road opened a bakery.
Emigrant means you moved "away" eg "my uncle and his family emigrated to Australia and we never saw them again".

Duration has nothing to do with it. Many economic migrants in the UK are temporary, esp from EU when we were part of that. Refugees are classic (largely) temporary migrants too, see Ukrainian population in UK.

Maybe expat means a bit more temporary to most people but it's not actually got a distinct meaning from immigrant. There is no "incorrect" sense of the word immigrant. If you're living (not just on holiday) in a country other than your own, you're an immigrant there.

She sounds lacking in tact and emotional intelligence. It sounds like she's not really your cup of tea. I'd just see less of her. She should be easy to drop if she lives in a different country.

Sometimes you grow out of people or they change.

Goodness I would use it as an advantage. Since you live so lavish when are you taking me out in when you come to the UK?

Ask her where the maid lives and if the maid looks after her own passport.

I wouldn't keep a dog in most of the outdoor ' maids rooms' . Some maids are from shanty towns- so they work to pay the agency, and support their family. They don't have much of a choice, really.

Some only go out once a week, to church. Still, working for a Brit is considered good.

Your mate doesn't have to cone back to the UK though, does she? She could stay out there, how is her Arabic coming along?

Pretty crass of you to share this story of this woman's death in this context.

Agree with you on the pronunciation but emigrant isn't often used anyway (even correctly). The issue people take with the term "expat" isn't that it's explicitly used by people who say "we're expats not like those awful immigrants", it's that it's an interesting sign that some groups of immigrants (such as Brits in Saudi) wouldn't think of themselves as immigrants. Despite that they have a lot in common with eg Bulgarian immigrants in UK (often coming at age 25/35, stay a while, better paid job, hang out largely with people from their home country, still consider the other place "home").

You said "I grew up in country X, I still identify with it, I live in country Y right now." That sentiment would apply to the vast majority of temporary economic immigrants in the UK, too. But many people (I'm not saying you, you seem perfectly nice!) who call themselves expats when abroad wouldn't think they are in a similar situation.

Not sure what Kemi Badenoch has to do with anything, she's never been an immigrant - she was born in Wimbledon!

I agree!

Kemi Badenoch is a very interesting case. She was born in the UK in 1980 and so qualified automatically as British, but her parents did not have settled status (her mother was in the UK for medical treatment, or as Reform would say, "a medical tourist"), and if she had been born three years later, after the entry into force of the British Nationality Act, she would not have qualified. (I wonder if the law then would have allowed her mother and father to apply to stay on the basis that they were now the parents of a British citizen with right of abode, thus making her what the Trumpers would call an "anchor baby"? I suspect that this is one of the things that the British Nationality Act was precisely designed to prevent.) According to Wikipedia she spent her childhood in Nigeria and the US, and came to the UK at age 16. At that point she will presumably have entered with her British passport, but I suspect that the great majority of people would consider her an immigrant on the basis that she had never set foot in the country other than a week in the maternity hospital.

Pro-immigration people (of whom I am one) would argue that she has integrated extremely well and would absolutely not begrudge her her UK citizenship had she needed to qualify like her born-in-1983-doppelganger would have had to, but as a minimum her case illustrates that "These things are complicated", I think. 🙏

Also from Badenoch's Wikipedia bio: During her parliamentary maiden speech Badenoch stated that she was "to all intents and purposes a first-generation immigrant".

Hope you're not too disappointed, @FrodoBiggins!

☝Exactly this.... I would feel I was selling my soul if I were to keep quiet about the lack of women's/civil rights out there. It's everything I abhor.
I would have to ask her who she was trying to convince and would be unable to disguise the derision.

I lived there fo a short time. Our shipping container was checked and they threw away our books and Christmas tree, anything with a Christian link. It was not for me. And yes it was early 2000s. None of the women were able to work and to be honest living in an inferno, surrounded by the same people day in and day out got very dull.

This

Presumably the day to day treatment of a maid is mainly due to the employer. Local employment laws set minimum standards

I suppose it's a matter of how close a friendship it is, and whether you hope the friendship will last.
Personally, I'd have no problem with saying, "I'm glad you're enjoying the glitz, but for me, no amount of glitz would compensate for being stuck in a repressive, misogynist, authoritarian country."

Ugh, you couldn't pay me enough money even to step foot in Saudi Arabia. As many PPs have said, your friend may not really like the life there but is trying to convince herself she does. Or perhaps she genuinely loves the lifestyle and her role in exploiting various people. But she sounds like a bore. If she's truly a good friend, I'd try to ignore her OTT gushing and do my best to change the subject every time. She sounds insufferable, though. Are you questioning your friendship at all?

While I agree that this woman sounds insufferable, I'd just like to point out that people aren't divided into somebodies and nobodies. Jobs, income, and status don't give us value as human beings.