Why Should I Carrie

Anglophilia

Ok, I am prepared to admit it, though anyone who knows me will know that this is true. I am an anglophile.



This doesn't mean that I wish I were from England...it just means that I love all things English.
What is curious about this particular ailment of mine is that it was latent for so many years. Of course, I have always loved English things. When I was very young, I used to sneak into my parent's room to watch tv while they were downstairs. I would turn on their crappy 12 channel tv and the only channel that had anything on other than the news was PBS...and what did PBS have on? Benny Hill. Now, I can get shot in England for saying I love Benny Hill...but I do. His show was so stupid and funny I just loved it. Perhaps that is where it all started. We may never know.
Then came a few years later when my mom taped a Fawlty Towers marathon. I would sit with her watching those episodes all night. I loved John Cleese...which prompted my mother to make me watch anything Monty Python related. It seemed that more and more I was being exposed to the greatness of England. Well, at least the greatness of their tv shows.
So this built and built throughout my teenage years. And then, lo and behold, the summer before my junior year at NYU, a young woman named Polly moved into the house on the corner where I grew up. We became fast friends, and then that fall I took my first trip to England. It was amazing. I loved every minute of it, but I was a tourist the whole time. It was shop shop shop sightsee; shop shop shop sightsee. But it was wonderful...and as it turns out, I love the accent.
So, when I turned 21 and went away to work in Cape Cod for a summer, I met two young English lads. One I fell madly in love with, and the other became a great friend. Both had a very dry wit and appreciated my sarcasm in a way that no one ever has...except perhaps my parents, and they have to. It was like finding a whole new side of me. The side that appreciated that humor and attitude...I even came to appreciate the way they say vit-A-mins, or Al-U-minium.
I decided to move there. I was determined to do it...so I did. And that, too, was wonderful...though it left me penniless and homesick.
I am now in the beginning stages of my adult years and it hasn't waned at all. In fact, of the online dates I have been on in the last few years, at least 5 of the men have been British. They haven't worked out (my own issues) but it doesn't stop me from actively searching for them online the way some people search for things to buy on Ebay. And it doesn't stop there...I found myself an English/Irish roommate online. How obsessive is that!
So now that we understand what Anglophilia is and where it came from in my case, a decision must be made: Do we cure it...is that even possible? Or do we let it continue until I do something stupid like move to England and become the Talented Ms. Ripley...English accent and all!!
Well, no cure for now. But maybe there is a 12 step program for me...

Hello. My name is Carrie. And I am an Anglophile.

posted by carrie @ 1:53 PM Comments: 0