Where am I from?

It really shouldn't be that difficult of a question to answer.

I only actually say I'm "from" either of the places where I lived for more than five years. Saving the others is good for making yourself seem worldly and experienced and/or immediately embarrassing yourself when the person you're talking to say "oh, I'm from Ohio" and you go "actually I didn't mention it but me too kinda!"

xpost

You do have a bit of a Gandhi look, Nabisco, it's true. I still bet a lot of people really want to hear a country, though.

Except usually people ask me on account of the way I speak which can't be explained away by any geographical locale.

No. No. No. Continue and, when asked where you're from gently emit one of your world-weary sighs and say, "Everywhere and nowhere. I'm cosmopolitan I guess." ;)

Hahahaha...not a terrible problem to have, but I have no idea what to say to where I live these days, I've been splitting my time between the east coast and west coast so much. I had a little bit of explaining to do last Tuesday to a confused flight attendent on a CO SEA-EWR flight. She was on my flight to EWR on Saturday, and we chatted for a few minutes and I said I was flying home. Then she was on my flight back to SEA 3 days later, and we said hi, and she asked me where I was going, and I said 'home'. Took a bit of explanation to sort that one out. This 'post-geographical' thing about working from whereever and with other people who are logged in from all over is kind of crappy a lot of time, I get woken up with my cellphone ringing at all hours of the night. Databases don't like to respect my sleep schedule when they crash.

So I usually answer with whatever sounds most incongruous with the situation. I.E. if I'm in NYC and slightly tipsy and the old Queens English has resurfaced, I would answer "Queens!" But if I'm in deepest Hoxton sounding very brassy and American, I reply "South London. St. Reathams in the house, etc."

If you have no nationality or specific cultural identity, it's fun to play with the concept.

'short circuit'

???

Otherwise you can always go with "Where am I from? The United States Of Kiss My Ass, That's Where I'm From!"

Years ago I had a mild-mannered stalker (he was outside my workplace suspiciously often), who would try to start up conversations by asking me things like "Are you Irish?" or "Are you Danish?"

If people look at the information I fill in on forms (born in the UK, and living in Oxford), they would have thought that I was brought up in the UK. Whereas I moved back to Hong Kong when I was 6 months old, lived there for 6 years, before moving to the States for a bit and then moved to the UK. Though having then to explain my whole childhood background gets confusing.

a) this doesn't make sense. if people "didn't move outside of their town or villages", why would they need to ask "where are you from?"?

b) i think you're overstating this ease, and, surely it does? when i lived at home, my parents took in lodgers who were language students from all over the world. their parents were part of the supernational superelite, but they sure as shit were formed by where they came from, even if that meant they came from a number of places.

The point is that the 'Where I'm from' question isn't as straightforward as it used to be. In the past, the place where you were born would indicate where the family were based, and the place you would say you're from would explain where you grew up. But with people moving around a lot more it's a lot harder to define someone just by a couple of place names.

(okay, I can solve the entire quandary by saying "south-WEST London", I know, I know)

I am vaguely but genuinely proud about my Italian heritage, so if people are interested (and historically they have been, the mystique/romance of Italy being a decent selling point by and large), I'm happy to talk about that too.

Maybe it's because I'm dumb (and blonde -> hey another cliche!) but I really don't like riddles. So if a guy would say:"Oh, from a land where the weak walk with oranges in one hand and a cellphone in their asse." I disintegrate rather quickly.