Attraction is a strange thing. Some people fancy beautiful eyes or long legs, blondies or baldies. I know at least two ladies with a weakness for shiny-headed, gap-toothed men. I’ve always been more of a sounds and smells kind of girl. If you smell funky, you’re automatically directed to the No bucket. But what smells funky to me can’t possibly smell funky to everyone, so who am I to judge? It’s just that if you smell like a wet sock to me, I don’t think we can fix that. The pheromones have spoken.

If you speak with any sort of accent, I’ll personally escort you to at least the Not No bucket. Pretty much any accent does the trick…Boston, Southern, Yooper, British, Australian, Brazilian, Canadian, Kiwi; there is no known end. I know it’s superficial. But so is only dating men above a certain height, or having a preference between T&A.

What this accent attraction doesn’t do is explain why I feel the need to speak like I’m from England/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand/Scotland or more realistically, a mangled mash-up of all of the above. Half the time I don’t even realize I am doing it. My sister is inflicted with the same problem and it’s not uncommon for us to leave long voicemails to each other, speaking in some unrecognizable tongue.

Traveling abroad seems to worsen my condition. I figure it isn’t hurting anyone if I pretend I am British for a few five-minute conversations exchanging pleasantries. I hate chitchat. I hate the little nothing conversations you have with others to be polite. Does that make me a bad person? Speaking with a fake accent is definitely a way to make small talk more enjoyable.

Which is what I was doing when this happened.

Scene: My friend Alex and I on a Greek island waiting for the free shuttle to take us to downtown Mykonos. Alex was engaged in a conversation with strangers, two young girls from the US. Alex has the gift of being able to converse with anyone anywhere. I usually just wait for his new friends to disappear, but there was nowhere else to go and when the conversation inevitably turned to me, my British persona just popped out. Well-acquainted with Brit-Tosh, he joined my web of lies, no questions.

When the shuttle finally arrived with a legit British family aboard, I decided to shut up. I’m fully aware my fake accent is terrible, and I didn’t want to be asked any questions, called out for being an imposter, or worse, offend them in any way, as my fake accent is pretty offensive. I quietly eavesdropped on their conversation trying to pick up some pointers.

In town, I bolted from the bus. Free from the ears of the British family, but somewhat stuck to the American girls. Fuck me. Once you come out as British, the only appropriate time to stop being British, is when you physically leave the people you falsely lead to believe you were British.

HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WE WOULD BE WITH THEM ALL NIGHT?

Left with little choice, I morphed into a Brit with a past. My parents split when I was younger and my twin sister moved to the States with my mom, which is why I sometimes “slipped” into the American accent but I had recently moved to Chicago to reunite with my sister. Stolen straight from Parent Trap, with zero recognition, and that’s on them.

When I learned one of our new friends was an aspiring model, I invented a friend in New York who worked at an agency. What’s that? Of course I will take a photo of you and send it to him! (technically I do have a friend who lives in New York who works. He was very confused by my message containing a glamour shot of a girl with the caption, “found your next model!”) A couple of times I had to remind Alex he was not British, just me, so his accent was unnecessary, though much appreciated. My Oscar moment of the night was when one of the ladies gushed, “I totally apologize in advance if I start talking like you, I just love your accent. I hope I don’t offend you.” Offend? I will wear that as a badge of honor, my friend. You have no idea just how inoffensive that is.

And then I was punished for being a horrible fraud of a human.

An entire night of being British is exhausting. I needed a gyro. And boy let me tell you, it was the BEST gyro my mouth has ever known. Aggressively consuming our individual pieces of heaven, I noticed a dude from the club gazing wistfully at Alex. (For the record, this is hard not to do. I find myself gazing wistfully at Alex all of the time, and I know he’s gay.) Alex, preoccupied with his gift from the gyro gods, failed to notice, but the way too loud, way too obnoxious American table sitting between us picked up on the vibe. It’s hard to say exactly why one dumped an entire two liter bottle of water over the dude, I won’t pretend to understand their motives, but the derogatory comments made during the dump were definitely targeted. Startled, the dude fell back in his chair hitting his head on the ground.

I don’t like bullies and I am particularly turned off by bullies who specialize in hate crimes.

“Sorry, s’cuse me. Wha’dya go an’ do that fo’?” I heard my angry British voice question. It’s my favorite phrase to say undercover, picked up in Glasgow, and now you understand my “British” accent.

First they tried to tell me they were related to the guy (they weren’t), then they told me to mind my own business, stay out of it, go back to my own country (uh, what? Have you failed to notice you are also a foreigner?) and finally, to go f*ck myself.

Yeah, no. Minding your own business is how people get assaulted in the middle of city streets while other people listen, peeking out the windows from the safety of their homes to see what all the commotion is about. Someone else will do something. If you see horrible things happen and just let them happen, you’re kind of saying it’s okay. And it’s not okay. Besides, I’ve never excelled in minding my own business.

We exchanged words; theirs rude, typical college-aged American insults, mine with a lot of “bloody” and “wankers” tossed in. It became clear I had the advantage of being sober and logical. They must have figured this out too, because they resorted to what so many people do when they have nothing intelligent to say: attack with personal insults.

“Why do you care anyway? Look at your nose. You’re ugly as f*ck. Get a nose job.”

Now my brain is working overtime, trying to carefully select fighting words British people would actually use, while at the same time trying to process their logic. How did…why…what? My nose? I’m sorry…what does that have to do with…what are we talking about here again?

I’m Polish, complete with the Polish nose of my father, his mother, and a long line of Polish ancestors. Growing up, I remember telling myself I would grow into my nose. Turns out, it doesn’t really work that way, though I will say, some stages were much more awkward than others. And kids are mean, man. So I endured my fair share of stares, rude comments to my face, whispers just loud enough to reach my ears and I taught myself to deal with it. They weren’t staring at me. They weren’t whispering about me. And even if they were…meh. What kid, heck, what adult, doesn’t have that one (or many) thing they are insecure about? This was mine.

As an adult, dealing with it turned into acceptance, and acceptance turned into some weird sort of love/hate appreciation. I liked that I looked like my dad. I liked that I looked different from everyone else. I liked being Polish. Finally it just became a part of who I am, which is funny to acknowledge, since it was physically always a part of who I was.

But I’m ashamed to admit their words cut deep that night. I realize calling this a hate crime might be a stretch. The internet tells me “hate crime” describes bias-motivated violence (verbal abuse and insults included) on the basis of certain personal characteristics: different appearance, color, nationality, language, religion. So technically, to make it a hate crime would mean the bullies perceived me to be Polish (clearly I was British, duh) and verbally insulted me because I was Polish. Part of what helped me in my acceptance phase was strongly identifying with my ethnicity. I told myself everyone looked like me in Poland, I was just a long way from home, and I should appreciate my ethnic look. 

I was especially offended by the piss poor advice to get a nose job. Please, it’s not like I didn’t think about it every day for years. That’s so 1999. This is me! I was born this way, dammit! I had forged a direct link between my nose and being Polish, so while their insults probably had no hate behind them, it felt like they were attacking my very identity.

At some point, water was thrown in my face, and I completely lost control of my right hand, which allegedly tossed my half-eaten gyro at the gaggle of bullies. I regretted that immediately. Noooooo, not my gyro! After unintelligibly shouting as many insults as they could form in what was left of their alcohol rotted brains, they high-fived themselves on their successful verbal attacks and skipped down the street chanting, “USA! USA!”

I vowed to be British forever.

Maybe I was exhausted from my acting gig, disappointed in being even remotely associated with those Americans, pissed at myself for wasting my gyro on a bunch of losers, overwhelmed by long-forgotten childhood memories, or simply confused by what the hell just happened, but I broke down and cried. It was only then I noticed the locals. Several applauded me and thanked me for saying something and “giving them what they deserved,” one told me, “it looked like you had it covered, but we were here for you just in case,” and the gyro shop owner said,” I noticed you used your gyro as a weapon. Care for another?” Oh man, WOULD I?!

But unfortunately my appetite had chased the Americans down the street. I was overwhelmed, sad and embarrassed. Embarrassed for my fellow non-idiotic Americans, my home country and how it was represented, but especially by how I let meaningless words from insignificant people tear me down. All I wanted was to close my eyes and erase the last 20 minutes with the darkness of my lids.

The next morning as Alex slowly came back to life, he just stared at me. I shifted uneasily, worried he was going to try to comfort me, and tell me I’m pretty and wonderful, but instead he just solemnly touched my arm and spoke very slowly, “Tosha…I just…I just want you to know…I’m very impressed that you fought that entire fight last night without breaking your British accent. Not once.”

And that is why we are friends.