Here's something people might consider: when you meet someone that looks ethnically different from you, don't start a conversation with "where are you from?". It is alienating and othering & an immediate reminder that they don't belong here [wherever that is].
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Replying to @Abebab
Serious q. What if you phrase it 'Where have you come from today?' or 'Are you a Londoner/Dubliner etc?'.
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Replying to @carlgomb
I think that's a fine q as far as I am concerned. It doesn't have that assumption that you're not from here. (and sure, I am not from here and I may never be but when the first thing a person asks is where you are from, you are made aware that IT IS the first thing they notice).
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Also, for me personally, ask me where I am from, by all means, but don't let "where you from" be the first q. making my "otherness" the first talking point. Maybe I have more interesting (& sth in common with the person asking) than my difference.
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My experiences are totally inline with Abeba's. I love being asked where I am from by Cypriots. Everybody else does something untoward w the conversation once they hear the answer. I don't care if you like my accent, I don't care if you thought I was British (I am), I don't care!
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What if the person then finds a genuine connection with you through Cyprus? Does that make the question worthwhile or is it still irrelevant/a pain?
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If they are Cypriot it's fine otherwise, to be really brutally honest: it's never happened. I am not creating this rule based on anything other than descriptive events. Prescriptively though, if you think we have a genuine connection and suspect I'm Cypriot go for it.
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But like I say it's ended really badly often and if you have to ask everybody you think is from Cyprus iif they are Cypriot (and you aren't) it makes me think you have a fetish? Why would you do that?
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