Hello again Fox Friends. It’s time for another fun filled FoxyFriday! 

This week, rather than a humorous listicle or an informative article, our post is going to be about the experiences of a real life person using a proxy service. Spoiler: that person is me, your blogess.

I’m an American, and my husband is British. Culturally we’re pretty similar, but there are a lot of little differences, like how the Brits consider swearing to be a cherished art form (which I admire greatly), and how Americans tend to be overly forthcoming with things like feelings, opinions, and a burning love for our national flag.

“Why are there so many American flags everywhere? Have you all forgotten where you live?” he said.

When he moved here to the US, it was a bit of a culture shock. Suddenly he was in the middle of Pennsylvania, surrounded by people who insisted on calling him “guv’na” and who decorated their cars, homes, and bodies with Confederate flags despite living nowhere near The South.

He missed home. He missed the comfort of the background noises of home. Suddenly the background noise of the TV became a reminder that he was 3000 miles away from his friends and family. Non-subtle American style humor or dramatic shows awash in blood and violence but yet afraid to swear or feature nudity, punctuated every 10 minutes with sets of loud and brash commercials, only made his homesickness more real.

Being able to watch TV from The UK brings him a little feel of home, but it also helped me grasp his way of thinking a little bit better. British humor can take a little getting used to, and spending time watching my fill of BritComs and panel shows (and my God, do those people love panel shows) did give me a bit more understanding of their wonderfully dry humor.  I am still trying to figure out how a people who consider partial nudity, swearing, and sexual entendre the height of humor can also be so reserved and non-forthcoming in person.

Even hearing TV commercials from home gave him a pause and a little smile, with the occasional humming along. I think if you went into a crowd of Brits and started singing the Fairy Liquid song, they would all sing along, compelled by years of marketing programming.

For just a short while, he would relax and put on some obscure show that I had never heard of, with accents so un-homogenized for American audiences that I would need him to translate for me.  I still can’t for the life of me understand a heavy Glaswegian accent. Even many websites are tailored for your geo-location, so things like the BBC websites present differently when you look at them from a UK address, rather than American.

It’s a small thing, but these little bit of comfort from home, little hour long bubbles of British culture and hearing people who sound like him, make my husband feel a bit better about living in America.