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?

I don’t have an opinion on EE people as a group. My opinions are only ever on individuals as, well... individuals.
Are you sure that your nationality plays a part here? I’m English, and have had similar experiences making friends/ not making them.

I don't understand why you lump all EE together as though all people are the same, to be honest. You also seem to think all English women are exactly the same. People are individuals and it's a little insulting to assume every English person acts the same towards 'foreigners '.

Why not just call us all racist? If you are genuinely interested then my opinion of the very pleasant Polish woman I know is very different to my opinion on the obnoxious Lithuanian man I know. But none of that is because of their nationality or because they are Eastern European...

@SchrodingersImmigrant. Yes them tshirts! As i said before quite a few of my friends are feom different parta of Eastern europe and are quite different as people generally are. Theres only the one woman i know who has basically cut herself off from anyone whos not from her country which seems a bit sad to me as she only has 4 friends and she has so many people in the family wanting to engage with her and welcome her. No idea but to answer the op british people use lots of sayings like lets meet for a coffee they dont really mean. You can also invite people with a firm time and date if you really want to hang out. Maybe try that and see if they want to go.

@formerbabe

notesfrompoland.com/2019/10/27/in-2018-poland-issued-more-residence-permits-to-non-eu-immigrants-than-any-other-member-state-again/

I don't understand why you lump all EE together as though all people are the same, to be honest.

For many we simply are. So I think it is actually a fair question. And I am Central European, for many in UK simply Polish... I've never been to Poland. I have it on my planner though!

@Shaniac it is quote sad. I am the opposite in some way. For most time I didn't have any friends from my native country. I have some British friends now. Basically it's the ones who stuck with my being "odd" and actually use the "blunt" feedback and even ask for it. And the fact that when I say "let's meet up" I mean it. Yes. I say date straoght away so they can't back up now😂 It's nice yet annoying how English try to be too polite. Cut to the chase, people😁

This post made me think about a stint I did in events/hospitality for a very large venue. One day a customer came in and spoke to a colleague in Polish. She isn't Polish but he thought she was via her looks. She was so angry and unleashed a torrent of derogatory remarks when he'd gone. Yet he'd been so polite, apologised for his error. At which point, so many agreed with her. Cue lots of comments about Polish. Which then turned into nasty comments about Eastern Europeans.

I was taken aback as I hadn't realised it was such an issue. Other incidents elsewhere (once on tube in North London where some people complained 'too many EE's around here does anybody speak bloody English anymore?').

I'm not White or British and wise enough not to necessarily believe the mostly 'oh it's alright there aren't any issues you're all fine' type of responses' always. I'm away for 3 months of each year (grounded by Covid now) I couldn't be asked to live here if not for that.

Go if you feel the need to. But you sound as if you have a good network of friends here so maybe, focus on that more? It's not you, it's ignorant people - If you were unlikeable you wouldn't form friendships.

@SchrodingersImmigrant i am guilty of this. Someone has to say come on lets get coffee now or i will put it off.

Re my earlier comment about my EE heritage (my other half is White British). I was just remembering what my DSis shared with me during the EU referendum. Unlike me, she does speak about being half Czech. A friend actually said to her that luckily for her she was allowed to remain in the country. Our DM is fully British and we don't even speak Czech (which is a shame really but this is to show how ridiculous it was).

So yes, there really is prejudice against EEs, which was really stoked up by the Vote Leave campaign, as was seen by the murder of a hard-working MP who fought for the rights of refugees.

I had my child in the north of England where there was a largish Polish (I do not want to assume where about but of the information I gathered at the time I am under the impression they were Polish people & not other area of Eastern Europe but I could have been wrong on that) so when I went to lots of baby groups there were English people a lot of mix with others (including myself) and at the baby stage were all a bit dazed and confused so we did small talk mainly for ages, there were some get have coffee with people but it felt like an effort with a small child.

I took it all to be it takes a while to get to know people feeling and unless specific plans for coffee made it was not something that happened always due to being busy rather than a specific problem with a particular group.

Generally though even if you take my son aside even me by myself (or with DH) is I am not a hard plan type person whether you are from Blackpool, Bahrain, Budapest or Belize it is nothing personal!

I was a member back then with the WI and I was happy to do small talk with the members there on the nights but I did not get to the 'come over/go out for coffee' faze much except for a couple of people I met there, for me it takes a while

I grew up within one ethnic group. This fact didn't make me a racist but my parents also didn't talk bad of other skin colours. They didn't talk about skin colours at all.

I am English and I think a lot of English people are very insular and racist. I worked in health centres where the staff had little patience with people whose first language was not English and openly supported UKIP and said disparaging things about Eastern Europeans. This was not all staff but a large minority of staff who were racist. I have friends who are German and Spanish and they think that things have got worse since Brexit.

I personally would be happy to be friends with any nationality of person so long as they are not an arsehole!

@FredtheFerret I didn't say all English were racists or all English women were the same. I'm just recounting my own experiences. I've no idea whether it's because of my nationality or some other reason. Hence asking on here.
But it's true that I feel I don't belong, and other immigrants have said the same on this thread. Are we meant to pretend otherwise?
I've also acknowledged some of the bad traits of people of my nationality, so it's not like I think we're perfect and the English all bad.
In my experience most British people do lump EEs together. Most wouldn't know the cultural differences between a Serbian and a Latvian, for example.

@ColdOopNorth Hah, yes I've been spoken down to a lot by healthcare staff, who see my very obviously foreign name.
Then, when during small talk they find out what job I do, their whole demeanour changes and they start being super nice. (I don't want to be too specific but my job has some influence over their jobs. Not that I would use that against anybody.)

[quote tellmehowitis]@ColdOopNorth Hah, yes I've been spoken down to a lot by healthcare staff, who see my very obviously foreign name.
Then, when during small talk they find out what job I do, their whole demeanour changes and they start being super nice. (I don't want to be too specific but my job has some influence over their jobs. Not that I would use that against anybody.) [/quote]
To be honest, I'm British and I've felt like hcps talk down to me, especially during pregnancy, birth and as a mother. I remember asking for advice from a HV about vitamins for my baby...I wanted to know about what was best nutritionally. She continually asked me if I was on benefits and spoke to me like I was struggling teen parent...I wasn't, I was a grown up, degree educated, reasonably articulate woman. So I'm not sure that it's necessarily because you are foreign. They seem to speak to everyone as if they are the lowest common denominator.