Steady on old chaps: slow down with the bucket loads of bonhomie! Don’t you get it? I’m The Outsider, as per the headline on this article. If you all keep up this friendliness lark I’ll soon know everyone in the county and the Voice will cancel my column!
As an escapee from the British Isles, a land where we are so stand-offish, so reserved that anything more than a curt nod of the head or brisk tipping of the hat by way of salutation could be seen as frightfully familiar, this Haliburtonian way of striding right up to a fellow, slapping him on the back and bellowing ‘HOW ARE YA’ is altogether rather a shock to the system.
On emigrating to your fair land I wondered and worried about many things – work, the weather, bugs, bears, driving on the other side of the road… the list was long and winding – but perhaps the thing I pondered most was, could my family and I make friends with the locals? Would we find new chums to help lessen the sense of loneliness that might grip following our move 4000 miles and an ocean away from family and friends of old?
I needn’t have worried. As I wander down the main street of my adopted manor, I wave a cheery ‘hello there’ to the insurance broker, the outfitter guy, bank manager and every second passerby. They’ve all made my acquaintance and a mighty fine bunch they are too.
Everyone knows everyone else in Haliburton and it seems are pleased to know me, too. This warmth and geniality is a wonderful thing but at times it can make me quite giddy. Your friendliness and generosity of spirit is something I’ve longed for but it is a heady concoction that this fellow from London, England is not used too. In the capital city of my homeland anonymity is cherished as much if not more so than friendliness. Pedestrians’ eyes are fixed firmly on the ground four steps in front; passengers on buses skilfully ignore their neighbours; even when crammed into an underground train, pressed together like sardines in a can, these urbanites maintain a stony silence and icy cold shoulder that would crack even the Shield of granite on which your friendliest of communities is built.
The reason for this hooded hostility, this practiced ignorance, is a mystery to me. However, in lieu of an explanation - and also by way of an apology to any one of you who has visited London - I believe that with so many folks to choose from, people in London are flummoxed as to who to make friends with. They busy themselves with their self-important little lives, all the while wary of strangers, anyone who might, god forbid, strike up a friendly conversation!
Here, on the other hand, I’m welcomed as a new member of a community by everyone. I’m over-run with new friends. I’m indebted to many of you for the advice on the dos and don’ts of living in these beautiful highlands (yes, I understand about garbage and critters, but being English I sit up at night proffering cucumber sandwiches to passing racoons). I’m amazed at the immediate conviviality and continued courtesy of the realtor, café waitresses and LCBO staff (although I do go avail myself of their services regularly). Even the fellow who pushes a shopping cart around town has a pleasant word to say.
Friendliness it seems is a disease that everyone in this county is afflicted with. I’m overwhelmed with it, dumbfounded by the amount being poured my way, and, at times bewildered as to how to respond. And, on that note I’d like to add that if we have already met, and yet, on second meeting – when you stroll over, slap me on the back and bellow ‘HOW ARE YA’ - I seem slightly bemused, it’s not that I’m being offish, reserved or unfriendly. It’s just that I’ve met so many great new folks in my short time here that I’ve forgotten your name and am frightfully embarrassed about that.
Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been warned off making any more new friends by the Voice because it will ruin my reputation as The Outsider!
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