Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

Many of us have already talked ad nauseam about the rules governing Tube behaviour. No eye contact. All extremities and personal belongings to yourself. Never strike up a conversation with your fellow passengers (unless it is to moan about a delay or some noisome activity going on in a station).

However, we have also observed many exceptions to these rules, mostly in the form of young couples and Public Displays of Affection in varied locations and to varying degrees of intensity.

Beyond this, I have noticed that the LGBT community- particularly lesbian couples and cross-dressers/transgendered individuals- is extremely present here in London. As a group, they seem much more open and accepted here in London than some of the other cities I have been in. What the cause is, I don’t know- perhaps it has to do with the laws (I believe gay marriage is legal in England)?  As someone who has and has had LGBT friends, I heartily applaud the apparent acceptance the community enjoys here.

[From one of the LGBT London support sites: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/images/kulgbt.jpg]

Anyway, as I was making my way back to the Arran House one day, I had an encounter with a lesbian couple that broke almost all the English rules of behaviour (not THAT kind of encounter . . . don’t get too excited, gentlemen)

I was transferring from one line to another and noticed two women in front of me holding hands and I remember thinking to myself “Awww, how sweet. I wonder if they’re sisters? Or . . . are they a couple?” While the TV show The L Word may be set in Los Angeles, I have not seen many gay couples – particularly lesbians- who feel comfortable enough to openly express affection in public.

We ended up in the same Tube car and the only open seat happened to be next to one of them. The other, a heavier woman, sat opposite and, within seconds of the doors closing had started fighting with the teenage girl sitting next to her (who, interestingly, looked and sounded to be foreign, not White-British). I quickly assessed the situation: both women were black, but the heavier one (who clearly was the femme in the relationship) was strongly taking on the Angry Black Woman persona while her partner (who was very butch) didn’t interfere except to say, “Do you have a problem with my girlfriend?” The butch lesbian was the one sitting next to me, so I turned to her girlfriend sitting across from me and asked if she wanted to switch seats with me so they could sit together. She seemed very surprised and pleased that I had offered but declined- I think she wanted to make the person sitting next to her uncomfortable for a little while longer (she said as much herself) and then leaned over and kissed her girlfriend next to me. As she continued arguing with her neighbour and generally drawing attention to herself, her girlfriend sitting next to me struck up a conversation, asking where I was from. As it turns out, she had visited the States once and stayed not 10 minutes from where I grew up! When the train got to their stop, both women took hands (the heavier one glaring daggers at her antagonist- frankly, I couldn’t decipher what the cause of contention was but it sounded like the issue had arisen from the woman’s size – maybe taking up too much seat room? – her race or her obvious sexual orientation) wished me a pleasant stay in England and departed.

After they got off the Tube, the girl who had been fighting with the heavier woman glanced at me suspiciously and then looked away. I’m still not certain what my crime was, that I was talking to people on the Tube at all, that those people were lesbians, or that they were black. Perhaps a combination of all three.

Since that incident, I have seen several more obviously-lesbian couples and some obviously-cross dressing or transgendered men walking around on the streets. From what I have observed and experienced, it seems to me that the gay community here is much more open, much more free about expressing affection and- as I experienced on the Tube- much more willing to break with the established rules of English social behaviour. And yet, the irony is there were still the restraints of other behavioural roles – the gay persona as well as the racial persona- coming into play. Perhaps the moral is that all people – English, American, black, white, gay, straight, whatever – are always adhering to some expected social code. We can reject some and embrace others but one is always present and guiding our public behaviour.

As a dedicated people watcher, I found this whole experience and the attention it made me pay to individual couples just fascinating. I tried very hard in my relation of it to use as netural and widely accepted terms as possible, hoping to cause no offense to anyone on any account.

Reading Fox before I came to England  has definitely helped me a lot, not only because it prepared me for the behaviors and quirks of the English, and probably diffused some of the culture shock, but also because it has helped me to notice things that I might not otherwise have noticed and to think about these things critically when otherwise I might not have know what to do or to think.  During our first week in London, I have made a few observations about English culture and habits that were not specifically covered in Fox, but I have used Fox to help me think about these observations.  Here are a few:

Bathrooms/toilets/loos: In America, bathroom stall doors and walls are constructed with the least amount of material possible, with a lock that might be a hook through a loop, or a latch in a slot.  People check underneath the doors to see if the stall is occupied or gently poke the door, not without the danger of disengaging the flimsy lock.  In England, there are floor to ceiling doors with legitimate deadbolts.  In addition, the part of the lock on the outside of the door will show red when occupied, just so no one even tries to test the door of your occupied stall.  Not that you could look under the doors if you tried.    I probably would not have taken this much notice of the difference between the two countries I have now “lived in” had I not been thoroughly aware of the English obsession with and need for privacy through Fox.   However, I like this aspect of the English obsession with privacy.  Unlike some of the other privacy related quirks,  such as not asking someone’s name upon meeting them, this one actually seems adaptive.

On the tube: Although the English are obsessed with privacy, they do not share American qualms about sitting next to strangers.  If we were on a train in America, and the only seat open was next to a stranger, we would rather stand.  In England, people go for any available tube seat.  Do they acknowledge that they have a neighbor or make any attempt to talk to them?  No, but I have caught our group standing for a whole train ride unless there are seats where we can all sit next to each other.  We Americans have apparently not perfected Fox’s “denial rule” of pretending that we are alone, even in public.

Do not rush eating in England unless you are getting take-away: During our lunch break during class at the UEA London Centre, some of the group (perhaps foolishly, in denial about how much time we actually had) decided to go to a pub.  We all ordered sandwiches.   They were good, but we did not get our food until we only had like 10 minutes to eat before getting back to class.  We scarfed it as fast as we could (this felt rude), some of the group took their sandwiches in napkins back to the classroom (this also felt rude), and some of us left the remainder of our lunches on our plates (this also felt rude).  When people do get take away for lunch, they are always in a hurry.  You can see people power walking through the tube stations with briefcases and sandwiches from Pret a Manger.  Clearly the English have specific rules for the settings and circumstances in which you can hurry and not hurry your eating, and we are learning the rules as we go.  At most take away places, it even costs less to take away then to eat in.  I wasn’t quite sure how to interact with the English pub staff –  to apologize for rushing.  They didn’t say much other than “Oh well you seem to be in a hurry” but we know from Fox that they never would have told us if we were being rude.  I suspect they may have tut-tutted among themselves after we had left.

Well I’ll keep this relatively short for now.  I’m sure there will be more observations such as these as our time in London goes on, and as we get used to the customs and habits and begin to become part of them ourselves,  I wonder if we’ll start to read Fox in a different way.