Or a matter of being more or less transparent in certain social situations, where being a bloody colonial would have been tantamount to social suicide.

Was it fraudulent? Yes. Was it interesting? Yes and no. There is always something mildly humbling about being taken for and considered as a native when one in fact isn’t. Plenty of societal and cultural cues that I hadn’t any sense of, yet had to manage in the situation. Kinda fun. Even more fun later, when folk found out I wasn’t from jolly olde England. Kinda like being Eliza Dolittle and Henry Higgins rolled into one.

How odd to have one’s youthful indiscretions masquerading as a ponce at the ballet, instead of being a drunken lout at the disco.