In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “I Pledge Allegiance.”

“Are you patriotic?” asks the Daily Post today. “What does being patriotic mean to you?”

Hmm. My initial reaction to this would be to say “no”, but on a bit of reflection it’s a little more complex than that. I mean, I don’t consider myself patriotic in the sense that I’d be willing to die for my country or anything, and I have no desire to go into politics or the military or any other field that would allow me to represent Great Britain on the world stage.

But I do kind of like being British, even though there are things I hate about it and there are things about it that I am ashamed of. For a lot of outsiders — particularly Americans — stereotypical Britishness (such as that which I have a tendency to exhibit) carries with it a certain air of respectability and even authoritativeness, and that’s quite a nice feeling. Plus supposedly girls find British accents sexy, which is not something I’m particularly concerned with now I’m married, of course, but again, it’s quite nice to know.

Really, the thing I don’t like the most about being British is the fact that thanks to the international nature of the online age — the “global village” as I believe people used to like calling it — I have a lot of friends all over the world: some in Europe, some in Australia, some in Japan, some in the Americas, some in Canada. And while I welcome the opportunity to be able to talk to these people every day online thanks to places like this blog, Twitter and other services out there, it is occasionally a bit of a bummer that I only have relatively few friends who are actually local to me, and thus it’s quite a challenge to be able to get people together to do things that we’d all enjoy. I’m a little envious of those people who do live near friends that they’re able to see more than once every couple of weeks, to be honest.

This, of course, isn’t specifically tied to being British, but I think it’s a contributing factor in there. The things that I’m into, I feel, are not stereotypically “British” in nature. I’m supposed to be into football and cricket and motorsports, and I don’t like any of those things (except, in the latter case, in virtual form) — instead I relish geeky pursuits such as video games, board games, anime, writing, music, that sort of thing. All of these things “feel” like they’re more popular, more widespread, more accepted in places such as the States. And while there are small communities of people who get together to indulge in these things here in the UK, I feel like I’m yet to really latch on to any of them. Andie and I used to attend a regular board gaming get-together in a local pub, but for one reason and another (primarily the amount of time it took us both to get back from work at the time) we stopped going along.

I’m also trying to involve my friends in my enjoyment of anime, but this has proven to be a bit of an uphill struggle to date. Perhaps I just need to pester them a little bit more; the last time I mentioned it, there was at least a little bit of interest, particularly at the prospect of an “anime, food and drink” evening shamelessly stolen from my Canadian friends who hold such an event on a regular basis.

I feel like I’ve kind of got off topic a little bit here, but no matter. I guess, to return to the original question, no, I don’t especially consider myself patriotic, but I’m not ashamed to be British, either. I don’t try and pretend I’m something I’m not, but I’m also aware that the path I walk is a little outside that which we can call “normality”, for want of a better description. And I’m kind of cool with that; it’d just be nice to be able to share these things a little more easily with others, I guess.