Does anyone else get asked if they’re foreign?

[Areyouforeign]

I’m english/Irish for generations.

Even if one great great grandparents were ‘foreign’ they’d be enough other English/Irish for me not to always be asked ‘where are you from?’.

Especially when people are drunk I’m guaranteed to be asked and then people like to have a conversation ‘I think she looks greek...’ ‘must be some Spanish in you somewhere’ ‘are you sure you don’t have a black grandparent?’ ‘She’s definitely Maltese’

Other family members get this, including aunts and uncles therefore it can’t be because someone had an affair.

I’m white with very slightly olively skin, dark curly hair and I get bored sunbathing.

Does anyone else get this all the time? I’m getting really bored of it and people think I’m ashamed of my ‘real’ heritage

Me.

I’ve been asked

‘Where abouts are you from then?’
‘Have you got some ‘black in you’
‘Nah your not Pakistani you don’t look pakistani’
‘Why do you have an English name if your Pakistani’
‘Why you not Muslim then?’

I am half Pakistani, fairly Caucasian features but quite tanned skin - similar in colour probably to jameela Jamal but blue eyes which I think confuses a lot of people.

I very occasionally get this. To be fair I am foreign. I’m also not ethnically English. Tbh I’m surprised that I don’t get asked more often.

@ConkerGame

Am I your friend?! 😃

My lovely Dad had black hair and the sort of skin that if he went out to cut the grass on a sunny day came back with a 3 week tan. He had German Jewish roots on one side.
Did any of his 3 kids inherit it. Nope pasty white skin that burns and turns white

I’ve been asked in more than one occasion if I’m German. I lived abroad and and German was always the first guess before British.
I’m very pale with dark hair and blue eyes - I think I look quite Celtic, and my family have been British for literally hundreds of years as far as I know. But interestingly I had my DNA tested with one of those 23andMe sites and its 60% British but 40% German.

I have a friend with light olive skin and she gets it quite a lot. Like people assume if you're not light skinned you're not British.

My husband, kids and I are all fair-skinned, very blonde hair, blue eyes. We get comments fairly often like 'there must be some scandanavian blood in there somewhere' and when on holiday people often speak to us in German. It doesn't bother me at all, they're just making conversation.

Mimishimi
98% European and only 1% Iberian (so no Spanish)
Air Iberia is the name of the Spanish national airline.

I'm Irish - very very pale and blonde - I get called the "Swede" all the time - people are like oh you have to be Scandinavian!! No I think I know where i'm from... wtf - so weird!!

Yes because my surname is very European sounding, we think Italian but dont know for sure. I'm also dark haired and olive skinned.

@Mimishimi You do know where Iberia is, right!?

I meant it's a miniscule amount

I'm usually assumed to be Irish. Particularly Irish Traveller.

I don't give a shiny shit - except when people are being dicks to me on that basis.

Yep, I’m Jewish. Mostly get asked by immigrants where I’m ‘really from’.

Worse - I get asked if i am a Geordie!!
I am but haven't lived in Newcastle for over 20 years!! Twang still there apparently!

When I worked in Germany someone asked me if I was Italian. So weird. I am typical fair haired, blue eyed English/Irish person. Maybe it was my accent ?

I was once told "you've got a bit of foreign in ya, ain't ya" by the mail room guy. It's hazel eyes and brown curly hair, that's all.

But mainly welsh and irish ancestry

God, the comments people make. I have non-matching eye shapes. My eye is heavy-lidded on one side, and one that is squintier with a lid that is barely visible on the other. I was told as a child that "my mother had been surprised by a Chinaman."🤔

The most annoying thing is when we (used to, before DD) go away to European countries and both be handed the Greek/Croatian/Portuguese menu, and then have to embarrassingly admit that we don’t speak the native language. DP is part Maltese but no idea about me!

Not quite the same thing but when I worked in a cell centre the amount of people who would bellow "ARE YOU ENGLISH?!" down the phone before actually saying hello was ridiculous.

Ive had it for years, but only recently realised people were after a different answer from 'Sheffield', as it always puzzed me when people would dig further, 'no, where are you really from' and Id start telling them the specific part! Always slighly bemused they were so interested!!!!

My English grandfather was from Salisbury, 100% English, he was brown haired, brown eyed and tanned in five minutes. He was always asked if his ancestors had fallen off the Spanish Armada. His daughter married a Spaniard, so I'm 50% Iberian, 50% British. I get asked if I am French by Spanish people, and I am obviously Spanish to English people. Well I am my mum's spitting image in looks and colouring, so technically I take after someone who's 100% English...but the English don't see the look as English, weird...

I used to get asked a lot, but only when I was on holiday elsewhere in Europe, if I came from Denmark or Sweden

I did a dna test thing and expected some Italian/Spanish, I have dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, tan easily (husband says I have a latinesque temper 😂) my results...93% Irish, 7% Scottish/English/welsh...

I was once in the GP’s surgery a few years ago when I bumped into my Grandma. She is not overly elderly or infirm fwiw. Anyway, she was going to walk past me without even saying anything until I tapped her and said ‘Hi Gran!’ She told me she thought I was a foreigner and didn’t realise it was me...

She is French ftr, as was my Grandfather making me half French and also making her technically foreign . I have olive skin, dark brown thick curly hair and tan very easily so yeah, people tend to think I’m foreign. They’re also Jewish so my Dad’s side all look quite dark. I have green eyes though so have been told I look Iranian in the past.