What is your honest opinion of Eastern Europeans?

[tellmehowitis]

Name changed for this.
I've been in England for nearly a decade and have tried to integrate but so far the friends I have are other Eastern Europeans such as Polish, Latvian, Romanian etc. and also a few Spanish, Portuguese, Italian.

My experiences of English people (women especially) have been as follows:
-seeming friendly and saying things like "we should go for coffee/drinks" but not actually meaning it.
-most locals already have a social circle and don't seem to want to add to it (or don't want to add me specifically).
-if friendships do develop people will at some point suddenly decide they don't like me anymore for no reason (well there obviously is a reason but they don't say what it is).
-people blank me or act condescending. A woman on a course I was on actually turned away and looked at the ceiling when I said "hi, how are you", even though the previous day we'd had a perfectly pleasant chat. I couldn't think of what I could've said to offend, it was all general small talk like where we're from and what uni we went to etc. This has happened a few times with different people.

Maybe I'm just not likeable...but then there are no problems with people of other nationalities. I think I'm "normal" and not some weirdo, I speak English, have a job and am not here to "sponge" or any of the other stereotypes.

It didn't used to bother me too much but now I'm considering my long term future...even though materially speaking I have a nice life here I'm thinking of moving back home to settle down, because feeling like an outsider takes its toll emotionally.

I'm just curious though, what is it about me that locals don't like...is it my personality specifically that doesn't fit here, or is it because of my nationality? (It was the same before Brexit, so can't blame that).
If you're EE do you have English friends? And if you're English, would you be friends with an EE person? What do you honestly think of us as a whole?

Wow this thread is huge

Your OP reminded me of this poem

matildalitjournal.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/australia-ania-walwicz/

Although it was written about Australia.

I am a bit distracted because the amazing poet passed away in September, which I found out when I looked for the poem. Anyway...

The 'fake nice' thing is something I noticed when I moved to the USA as well. Only sometimes the fake-nicer someone is being to you, the more annoyed they are. It is creepy if you're not used to it.

I am Scottish rather than English. Also the only form of child care my parents could afford was au pairs from Central and Eastern Europe so I grew up eating Hungarian and Czech and Polish food etc and met lots of lovely people from various countries through knowing those people and their acquaintances.
I knew for eg an English professor from Prague who was whip smart.
I also had a Polish pen pal.

Plus also I'm autistic and I think I quite like a bit of clarity in my communication.

I feel happy to live in a town where retail, care and agriculture work because people from Eastern and Central Europe contribute both as consumers and as workers. I love the deli with Polish and Lithuanian food. It never sells out of flour and it has cheaper cordial and herbal tea. And friendly service.

But I also know eg a software designer from Lithuania or a psychotherapist from Poland. I know that while there are some sectors it's easier to find your feet in, people from Eastern Europe have a wide variety of academic and professional backgrounds.

I know people from Bosnia, Serbia, Kosova, Bulgaria, Estonia and I'm now bored of the list but I could go on. Some are friends and some are not. I'm fairly convinced that there is a breadth of personality and skills etc that can't really be defined by putting people in boxes based on nationality.

I also actively support anyone near me who is looking for support to apply for pre-settled or settled status via volunteering because I'm so annoyed about what Brexit is doing to families and businesses where I live.

I'm not particularly friendly though - to anyone.

Sorry for ramble.
Tl:dr the poet agrees with you

I got called a middle class tory because I said I enjoyed going to an opera as a teenager
I had an English colleague who could not believe that I read Dickens (after someone else using "dickensian" in conversation). He tried to turn it later into some sort of a running joke, but the initial disbelief was palpable... and very unpleasant.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction
Apologies for using your post, but let me pick up on this, just as an example:

I knew for eg an English professor from Prague who was whip smart.

You probably will immediately see what's wrong with it if you substitute "from Prague" with, say, "black" or "female" (or any other stereotyped minority).

Yes, what is wrong is the "null hypothesis" being that they are thick, and then proving your point by contradiction.

Not that it is a massive issue as with more overt forms of bias, but it gets quite tiring always being ready to present yourself as a counterexample.

@LaVitaPuoEsserePiuBella Yes I did my degree in England.

This thread has struck a chord and started me thinking that I too don’t really have English friends.
I was born here but my family are from Eastern and Central Europe/North African and a branch from the West Indies.
I have one friend who is English but have always ended up with people who are more like my heritage.

I must admit it hasn’t ever crossed my mind before but now I think about it the English people I know I just can’t connect with. I do find I have to watch what I say and I do notice the back handed little digs about things.
Been burnt too many times. If you don’t like opinions that don’t match your own then don’t ask for it.

I know quite a few, all through university, from a variety of countries (Slovakian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian, Estonian). I would say I'm close friends with two, both Bulgarian. In general, the Bulgarians were keen to invite you along and include you in things they did, but it might just be the ones I knew spoke very good English and were outgoing.

They all tended to have hobbies to quite high levels, most of the girls had done dance or ice skating. Not so many played wind or brass instruments though.

I did find the lack of please and thank you, and general softening, difficult when I did group projects or worked on committees. But then, apparently they sometimes found me insincere at first, so it was just a cultural difference I think. We all got used to each other!

Where you're from definitely wouldn't stop me making friends with you if you seemed nice!

Oh, I meant to say, I dated somebody second generation(ish) Polish (both sets of his grandparents came here in the resettlement after the war), and I found his grandparents very different to the younger Polish people I knew.

I presume that's a mixture of generational, and them having lived here for a long time.

It seems pretty straightforward to me that if you go and live in another country, you want to integrate with the locals.

Well, absolutely, if a bit simplistic. Think about it for a moment. It seems pretty straightforward to me that if you go and live in another country, you want to integrate with the locals.

However. It's often much, much easier to make friends and acquaintances from other people who are open to the idea of making friends. People who are new to the area will all be in the same position, with their social networks disrupted and certainly open to making friends.

People who have not moved very far already have their circles of friends and family relatively close by. They have smaller capacity for acquiring new friends.

Over my lifetime, I have been lucky enough to get to know loads and loads of people, many of whom are immigrants who know what it is like to be friendless in a country or place. Some have turned into friends, some of those happen to be English born and bred.

If I had waited to get to know exclusively English people, my life would be a lot less rich and I would have spent more time feeling lonely. How can that be the behaviour expected from me as a bed comer from those who are already surrounded by friends and family ?

Sorry not quite on point but I really felt that point which might sound very reasonable needed to be addressed.

@formerbabe I’m interested wear you found for comparison statistics on movement with the former USSR, it’s something I’m genuinely interested in. Many people in my family were affected, in particular I remember uncles etc coming home in the early 1990s again once they were able to. Could you share what you found? It was a big feature in the industrialised areas I grew up near to, whole towns appearing and then emptying even. My own father I remember was away for many years.

Im sorry @oeliil

What post of mine is your question in relation to?

@tellmehowitis I haven’t really encountered it in ten years, I see it as a period of history and a lot has developed. Many more and larger waves of people have moved and attitudes have shifted a lot.

@formerbabe you keep speaking of the immigration to England as something large and unusual, and dismissing that I have already encountered huge levels of movement in my lifetime. You have now spoken of statistic, without giving any other for comparison. Why are you so confident that other countries have not seen immigration of a significant scale and can’t relate to the feelings of the British? Why do you ask me how I’d feel if it happened in my country, without acknowledging I’m from somewhere that might have seen a lot of movement?

I’m not Polish, and times have changed now as well. In my lifetime though I have seen huge numbers of people being moved huge distances, including immediate family.

Makes no difference to me where anyone comes from, it's how you treat people that's important in life.
I have friends family and associates from all over he world and living in the UK.

[quote Oeliil]@formerbabe you keep speaking of the immigration to England as something large and unusual, and dismissing that I have already encountered huge levels of movement in my lifetime. You have now spoken of statistic, without giving any other for comparison. Why are you so confident that other countries have not seen immigration of a significant scale and can’t relate to the feelings of the British? Why do you ask me how I’d feel if it happened in my country, without acknowledging I’m from somewhere that might have seen a lot of movement?[/quote]
I looked at the statistics of the last decade. The UK in the past decade has had net migration figures at over half a million a year some years. It's quite significant and has had a serious effect on wage levels as the supply of labour increased.

I'm not doubting there has been migration to EE countries but the statistics I saw for the past decade (I picked Poland as it was as good example as any) showed net migration to Poland at about 15k a year.

I don't know how EE react to immigration from other EE countries to be honest. You tell me.

But let's say a country in EE saw hundreds of thousands of immigrants arrive from an African or Asian country in the space of a few years. Are you honestly saying they'd be welcomed with open arms?

I'm not doubting there has been migration to EE countries but the statistics I saw for the past decade (I picked Poland as it was as good example as any) showed net migration to Poland at about 15k a year.

That doesn't sound right. There is over a milion Ukrainians currently working in Poland. A lot of of them are staying.
The mass migration is relatively recent not unlike EE to UK. It has accelerated post 2017 after visa free entry was granted.
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/18/whole-generation-has-gone-ukrainian-seek-better-life-poland-elect-president

I’ll answer in the same way, maybe that’ll work somehow...?:

In the UAE well over 80% of the population are immigrants. Let’s say this happen here, would the British allow this?

I don’t think you understand the history of the USSR in the years we were both alive (I presume you are not under 30, but maybe that is the gap?) so you aren’t understanding my point and are googling recent Polish immigration as a vaguely related fact (like mine above!). I presume sometimes people have knowledge of the USSR.

Heads up though it included Central European and Central Asian countries, not just ‘other EE’ ones. Even those have pretty distinctive characteristics. My mum’s family for example are Kazak, my dad’s white EE (my Nationality). Kazakhstan is around 20% ethnically Russian, the immigration population of the UK is about 14% in total. There are many many countries with historical wave after wave of people moving from Asia-Europe, including in our lifetimes. I’ve been to areas in Germany and Italy with huge huge numbers of immigrants as western countries.

So to ‘would they be welcomed with open arm?’... I’d say we’ve not been without experience

Yes @LenaBlack, quite recently when Ukrainians were given the right to travel and work the numbers leaving were almost unbelievable. They reckon Ukraine’s population is to decline by a fifth over the next few decades.

I just looked it up. 1.7 million short term work registrations were given to Ukrainians in Poland in 2017. 1.3 are working there... legally. @formerbabe you must think a little on this?

@Oeliil

Yes *@LenaBlack*, quite recently when Ukrainians were given the right to travel and work the numbers leaving were almost unbelievable. They reckon Ukraine’s population is to decline by a fifth over the next few decades.

I just looked it up. 1.7 million short term work registrations were given to Ukrainians in Poland in 2017. 1.3 are working there... legally. @formerbabe you must think a little on this?

I honestly don't see your point or what you're trying to get at.

I don't have an issue with EE migrants...I do have an issue with the ones who racially abuse my family...well, I'd have an issue with anyone who did that obviously, but I've only experienced it from EE people. That's my experience.

I have no idea how EE people in their countries react to immigrants hence my question...however, based on what I've observed in the UK, I'm not sure it would be widely embraced.

[quote LenaBlack]I'm not doubting there has been migration to EE countries but the statistics I saw for the past decade (I picked Poland as it was as good example as any) showed net migration to Poland at about 15k a year.

That doesn't sound right. There is over a milion Ukrainians currently working in Poland. A lot of of them are staying.
The mass migration is relatively recent not unlike EE to UK. It has accelerated post 2017 after visa free entry was granted.
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/18/whole-generation-has-gone-ukrainian-seek-better-life-poland-elect-president[/quote]
Yes but perhaps net migration means that the number of Polish people leaving counteract the number of Ukranians arriving? Not sure...I googled the stats and that's what I had found. Happy to be corrected

Two of my best friends are Lithuanian, both smart, attractive, together women who make me laugh. A lot. They are both separated from their original partners now though and one has an English boyfriend - when they were married they didn’t tend to mix much and mainly socialised as families.

There are good uns & bad uns like there are anywhere.

Among my close friends at different times of my life have been: Slovak, Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian. A relative lived in an eastern European city for a bit and I visited, it was lovely.

DH grandfather was eastern european, I never met him but presumably he was fine

Ok, I’ve only ever had difficulties with British people as their attitudes towards my family. Making assumptions also of other countries and then not being remotely interested if the ‘facts’ are disproved. Not all. But there’s a fair few.

We have immigration, we emigrate. We are people. Just like the British, some bad, some good but at least respect we aren’t one mass sitting in a racist backwater having never met an immigrant. I’m trying to explain you cannot just presume we are one, act as one and don’t have similar experiences to you. You are citing one Central European country and making all these assumptions of a massive number of people in Easter Europe and how we would react.

‘I’m not sure it would be embraced’ IT HAS HAPPENED. People move to other countries. Not just Britain 🤦‍♀️

Also I can’t answer for all these lumped together countries. It’s like me demanding you answer for Germany and the reception Syrian refugees are getting in some areas. It’s not a simple answer. It’ll vary country by country, area by area. I mean Muslim Albania or eastern Ukraine will be different to Estonia for example for a Muslim woman moving from Nigeria. What answer do you expect?

You do @formerbabe seem to be hung up on Poland. No idea I’d you are focusing on there for an answer. I’ve only ever travelled though, don’t speak Polish, don’t go to the same church and don’t really know that many Polish people closely. I’d be speculating as much as you.

I have quite a lot of EE colleagues, some now friends; also a variety of EE neighbours who I'm getting to know.

I find that E Europeans are generally: friendly;
honest (sometimes very blunt like all other people except for Southern English people where I live);
attractive to look at;
hard working;
smart with good hygiene.