Fed up of fawning
Has anyone else got to this point?
I have spent most of my adult life (20+) years being curious, accomodating and warm towards mainland Europeans that I've met through work and in daily life... not in every last moment of our interactions, but particularly when the topic of cultural habits or customs comes up.
I'm getting a bit tired of it and I'm starting to feel like I've wasted a lot of energy being too helpful and yielding.
Examples -
Going along with garbled decision-making in my extended family (S. Italian) that is exhausting to witness and being told "because it's their culture''. When I make decisions or engage in patterns of behaviour that turn out to be an error, I modify my actions over time... I don't maintain my muddled existence by repeatedly saying 'it's my cuLtuRrre'.
Being force-fed food that I don't want to eat (usually because I've had enough) and then have the host stand over me proudly looking on while I eat the food that I tried to politely decline multiple times...this has happened in various countries and also people's homes in the UK... then when I reflect on it later I am told that's it's 'hospitality'. I don't do that to guests when they enter my home.
Also constantly mentioning culture and customs in general. Again, I don't do that at home or abroad (apart from the odd joke about tea obsession)...but it's this unfounded boastfulness that's starting to grate.
I've started to notice in recent years that I have been too accomodating to the point where people (non-Brits) are rude to me - eastern Europeans openly lecturing me in my own country because I allowed my five year old son to unzip his coat when the weather was like 18 degrees and not 20 degrees in the park. A new Polish friend I met online and was meeting up with for the first time sneering at me saying 'British politeness is so fake' (I was in tears afterwards and so cross with myself that I didn't have an answer ready)... and also being shot at by various friends / acquaintances from mainland Europe (those with settled status) because apparently Brits have "no culture" at all.
It's making me cross because my openness is never reciprocated. Not once in my adult life has a non-British friend or acquaintance taken the trouble to find out my 'cultural preferences' or modify their behaviour based on what i might find impolite or rude etc.
I'm getting tired and fed up. Is this just a me thing? Or are my too-soft boundaries a reflection of something bigger going on?
I heard a comedian recently joke 'you Brits are so quick to roll over...' and it struck something in me.
Jokes and non-serious anecdotes asides, I am starting to get more cross about my personal history of being too accomodating. I feel like that's what has led to some horrendous events in the UK recently that have happened because our institutions are also organised around collective weak boundaries.
I feel like British history and culture should be taught more thoroughly in schools, as we are losing our sense of identity. In general, having weak boundaries in day to day interactions puts a person back foot. On a collective level this weakness is causing real harm.
Is anyone else going through this? Looking for pointers and other points of view...
NB. I have been to university, went back-packing around the world in my twenties etc and have a professional job... and always been very open-minded.