So the other night a few students and myself went out to grab a quick dinner and a pint following our alumni event, as the “Honey I Shrunk the Salmon Cakes” hors d’oevres could not fill our gullets for the night. Donned in dapper suits and freshly purchased genuine leather kicks, we set out to find our destination. Our first interaction with a Brit came in the form of a toothless, homeless woman with dreadlocks. She approached us, our eyes met with hers and she approached us rather briskly, uttered some kind of local gibberish which we all interpreted to be “do you have any spare change?”. One student obliged as the rest walked onward, glad to have escaped the incredibly awkward situation. We came back from it, discussed it a little bit and walked on. Upon finding the ideal pub, we sat down and sipped on our local brew, chatting and recapping the passing day. Soon we had our second interaction; a homeless man with a torn shirt asked us for money. One student offered him a little bit, the man mumbled something to himself, and he slammed the coin back on the table and walked on. We were shocked, but the madness continued. A third woman (who was far more well dressed mind you) walked up to us and explained how somehow her inability to get a bus pass meant that one of us had to give her a sip of our beer. After a bit of debate with her (I gave her the germaholic excuse), she just nodded and walked on.
So what do these 3 interactions mean? We discussed how the fact that we were all dressed in suits clearly had some impact on the surrounding Brit’s conceptions of our class status, since they seem to value appearance quite a bit in what we have seen so far. I have to admit we were getting some looks from Brits other than the homeless population while we wandered the streets. So clearly, we had people convinced we were some sort of businessmen judged by the first look. Why then was this slew of impoverished people so willing to approach us and ask us for their money? Maybe it has something to do with the fake politeness we have discussed concerning the Brits. How far can politeness go though? Do homeless people only go after the people they think can afford to give away a little money? It could be that these class systems are so defined but have such big extremes that the lowest of the low may only think to ask the top dogs if they could spare it, sine they can read people so well that they wouldn’t think to ask anyone that wouldn’t afford a few extra pence. What about the guy who rejected our offer? He acted as if we were being smug to give him only 10 or 20 pence. Maybe he had labeled us so that he thought we could afford more. But then what happens to the idea of fake politeness? This beggar rejected our offer of money, which wasn’t exactly the most polite of actions. Don’t even get me started on the girl who only wanted to swipe a sip of our beer. I can’t imagine that would be a polite thing to even ask. There is no way that this politeness deal can only work from the top down. The mystery of the British people continues to unravel…
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