I am in Durham today because I was debating at their Union last night for the proposition that ‘Things can only get better’. Their debates are formal in British Parliamentary style, people wear black tie, and the chamber is modelled after the House of Commons. Wonderfully British. The Union committee and president took us speakers for dinner beforehand, and we had drinks with the students at their union club after. It was unadulterated fun. I loved debating in a make-believe setting. I miss living in the test-run world of university. I adored speaking to the students. I don’t feel broody looking at babies, but every time a teenager strung along a complete sentence and even managed to slide in a joke, I had to hold myself back from acting out my inner football mom. YOU TELL EM HENRIETTA!!11! ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK EDWARD !!!11!
I have been feeling pressure these past few weeks because things are changing at my work. I am planning my next move, and there is a girl around my age from adjacent social circles who has been using me for her Grift project on Twitter. She is not the only unpleasant person with eyes on my back, but she is the most public one. Her USP is that she ‘exposes’ how left-leaning people are funded to run their campaigns or found their organisations. I am an employee of a charity (non-governmental), and on the side, I do my media stuff. My bosses are supportive, but they are separate things. She keeps on conflating what I do in my non-work time - being a Labour adjacent political pundit - with my day job - working for a criminal justice and youth service provider, which was, in fact, founded by Conservatives. People keep tagging my employer and she keeps taking screenshots of my media appearances to make fun of me.
It is not my brand to get defensive publically; I prefer being a victim in my long-form writing; if I have to speak up for myself in 240 characters or 90-second segments, I lean on my strengths: my wit, my style, my ego. Officer, if being smart and pretty is a crime, you know what to do with those cuffs in my drawer.
I called Dad before the debate last night because he is the man I turn to when I need a sympathetic ear from someone who thinks the sun shines out of my ass. But Dad removed a brain tumour a few years back, which left him deaf in one ear and with debilitating vertigo whenever he is in a noisy place. He was in a restaurant when I called him to vomit the insecurities and fears I had been carrying with me around interviews, panels and work meetings all week. He grew impatient because he couldn’t hear me, and he tried to wrap up the conversation quickly. I lashed out, still bitter he betrayed me with his disability when I needed him to remain at full capacity for a few more years. A decade extra, maybe. Let me age to adult++ before you become an old man. I talked to him this morning while walking around lovely Durham, and he was sad and sorry, as was I.
Perhaps I wouldn’t need Dad to be so boundlessly supportive if the men I come across weren’t so mean.
Seasoned observers of my online presence know my brand is a left-wing woman who speaks to the right. I am looking for converts, not fans, so I am stoic about the challenging social engagements I subject myself to for my political education and personal development. I am curious about the immigration sceptics that have become fashionable in the last few years. There is a broad spectrum of opinion within them, from blue labourites, close to my politics, to garden variety ethnonationalists.
I am immigration neutral. Immigration is neither good or bad, it is a fact of life. The person who benefited the most from my migration was me, the person who suffered the most was my mother. My pilgrimage barely touched the rest of you. Though factually, current demographics and the existing pension Ponzi scheme we have in the West mean we de facto need immigration and need to find a way to make it work.
British people don’t want to become care and construction workers, because British people for years voted in governments that devalued working-class professions. Curiously, while British people now acknowledge that it is a major problem that we don’t value these essential professions enough, they are eager to devalue the ‘low skilled’ immigrants willing to do them.
Much to the amusement of the Very Online community on Twitter, I have been publically teasing one of the Main immigration sceptic Characters for a few months now (HE STARTED IT). We met in real life a couple of times, too, when he was visiting London and the second time at the Tory conference.
I would describe my attitude towards the Neo-racist tribe of immigration sceptics he belongs to as generous, like a mom waiting for her teen to grow out of his bullshit. Some of them are intelligent people with empathy and morals. In my opinion, they are obsessing over the wrong issue.
At the Tory conference, I hung around with him more, and he invited me to an event he was speaking at in London.
I had another meet-up on the day of his event, with people from Tyler Cowen’s Emergent Ventures programme which I was looking forward to attending, but they were simultaneous and on opposite sides of London. I prioritised going to my right-wing friend’s panel because he would talk about his new research, which he told me was his life’s work, and I wanted to show my support.
On the night I rushed from a work conference to make it there on time. It was held in one of Tufton st’s dark money dungeons. He greeted me with flustered cheeks. I asked how he felt, and he said GREAT, I have already had 4 pints! He held an empty glass of red wine and headed for the plonk buffet. Throughout the panel, he continued chugging. He used 2 of his 5 allocated minutes to make his opening speech; all the other panellists used their full allowance. The chair picked me first to ask a question from the audience and the new Tory MP on the panel gave a gracious answer. I enjoyed the discussion. At the end of the event, I went up to him, and he blurted out, ‘Are you ready to be deported? You are ALL getting deported!!’ Charmed, I branched out to other guests. The crowd was 98% 18-25 year old white boys in chinos. Despite sticking out like an old boy’s stitched initials on a uniform lapel, I enjoyed the opportunity to refresh my anthropological research into the British tribes.
At 8:00 pm sharp, the event organiser asked us to leave the premises because they had to lock up. I assumed people would go to the pub as they usually do after Westminster piss-ups, as the boys call them, and I would tag along on my AlcoholicsWatch©.
I turned my back to pick up my bag and coat, and by the time I made my way outside, the man who invited me and for whom I missed an event that could have been meaningfully helpful for my career had disappeared. I looked around, and far away I could see some teenage boys turning a corner.
My life is not a Disney movie, and our man baby is not a Princess, so I did not run after them. I texted him, did you leave without me? and started walking home. He said he loudly announced he was leaving. He went to the pub with the teenagers, but I was ‘welcome to join’. I gave myself a hug and texted my flatmate, on my way home.
I like flattering people, men and women, with my presence and my interest. If I like them, why not? I want people to know I am fond of them and to remember when they are feeling shame or fear that I, a Grecian Amazon who is loved by many but by no one more than her own self, saw them and believed in them, even if for a brief moment. If a social equation has to claim a bruised ego, I always volunteer mine. I trust my cockroach levels of emotional resilience to deliver me to the next friend or lover, still soft and subtle like a baby’s bum.
But there is something in the grins and smirks of British right-wing men I indulge that scares me. I humanise them by playing down their weaknesses and justifying their biases, but there are some inescapable realities. It is a bit like when you are a young woman, and you question aspects of modern feminism, but then you start dating men, and you realise that, no, sexism is a real thing. Similarly, you can be left-wing and say immigration sceptics or right-wingers or whoever are not all racist or xenophobic, but then you spend time with them, and sooner or later, the small part of your brain that pushes you to acknowledge reality even when it is inconvenient asks, ‘would he behave like this to an English woman’.
I recall what my English ex told me years ago, Stella: men like me experiment with women like you when we are young, and then we settle down with an English rose. My mom said the same thing, and I was determined to prove them wrong. So far, I’ve failed.
My Greek friends often complain about the meanness and coldness of the English and I jump at their defence like my toddler is being bullied in the sandbox. But looking at their obsession with immigration I wonder, would they do the same for me?
Seems like you’re engaging with a group that is famously low on empathy and finding that your empathy towards them is unreciprocated. You may be able to find a couple who buck the trend but it’d be tough for sure.
I wish there were millions more like you, but I fear you may be one of a kind.