you know youre british when

I was messaging a friend when I noticed we were both putting an x at the end of our messages. It had started to feel completely natural, which was strange considering how confused I’d been by those little kisses when I first moved to the UK. Maybe I was becoming British after all.

After almost seven years here, I’d picked up some of the social habits that once seemed unfamiliar. Others still didn’t suit me. I could use “cheers” to thank someone holding a door, but I couldn’t bring myself to use “You all right?” as a greeting. When I said it, it sounded ridiculous to me and didn’t feel natural at all.

A little x was surprisingly confusing

When I first arrived, I was getting messages from coworkers, bosses and other people with an x attached. That wasn’t how I’d normally texted in North America. I might use XOXO sometimes with my mom or in a birthday card, but this little x from people at work was new territory. I wasn’t sure what it meant or how I should respond.

Did I send one back, or two? What did each extra x mean? Those were genuine questions for me at the beginning, so noticing that I’d started doing it without thinking was a funny change. “Cheers” had become comfortable too. If somebody held a door for me, that was now a perfectly ordinary way for me to say thanks, even though “You all right?” still wasn’t coming out naturally.

Weather talk was useful when I had nothing else

Social interactions aren’t my forte, and I had absolutely started using the weather to get through an awkward silence. When I didn’t know what to say, or was trying to keep a conversation going until somebody could rescue me, there was always the rain or the possibility of more rain. I was willing to admit I used this all the time.

I’d also taken up complaining about the weather in both directions. In summer it could be too hot, and in winter it could be too cold. I loved that you could complain about either, and I was doing it myself. It went hand in hand with talking about the weather, and apparently I couldn’t stop.

A complaint did not always become a confrontation

One of the things I recognised was grumbling about a meal to the people at your table, then telling the waiter it was lovely when they came to check. I understood the reluctance to be a bother, because I did the same thing. Of course, not everybody is like that. Some people would confront a queue jumper or complain about a bad meal, but as someone who gets socially anxious outside the house, I understood the quieter response.

I had been in queues where somebody cut in, although I found it rare. The response I enjoyed was the shared look between the people who had been waiting, that silent disbelief at the cheek of it. Sometimes nobody needed to say anything for that little moment of camaraderie to happen. I’d seen the tutting too, and thought the British were particularly good at it.

Sometimes politeness got a little louder

I used to take two buses to work in the morning and two home at night, so I saw plenty of bus behaviour. If somebody got off without thanking the driver, I often noticed the next person or group thanking them more loudly. It seemed like they were making a point, and I loved it. The thank-you was polite, but I could hear the disapproval underneath it.

Not every public reaction was one I enjoyed as much. I’d seen people cheer or clap when someone dropped a glass in a pub, and it always made me feel bad for the person who’d dropped it. Secondhand embarrassment gets me. I could recognise the habit and still feel awkward about it, just as I could happily add an x to a message while still feeling completely wrong saying “You all right?”.

Watch the full British habits checklist.