Complaint: We're not really complaining.

My friend and fellow blogger The Solipsist was talking about insults in one of his recent posts, and he got to the term “Canuck.” I’d like to set the record straight on that.

Speaking as a Canadian, and ex-pat, I would have to say that I think the word “Canuck” is just uber-lame. It’s not cute, it's not accurate, and it sounds like a marriage of the words fuck and Canadian and as a polite and law-abiding citizen of Canada I have to take umbrage at the term. Politely, of course. I'm fine with it, you know, but other people might now like it.

Also, The Solipsist also claimed that Canadians never get offended. And this is not entirely true. Canadians CLAIM never to get offended, but they do. That’s what makes us/them Canadian. We act like we’re fine with whatever people are saying about us but the truth is it riles us to no end to be compared to anyone else, (especially Americans, our flashier, more fabulous older sibling country) and riles us even more if nobody takes any notice of us (which happens all the time.) So we act like we’re fine, but underneath, we’re pissed off. But we don't show it to anyone but each other.

Why? Because everyone thinks we’re so damn nice. So we act nice. Everyone mocks our pronunciation and still manages to get it WRONG (we don’t say ABOOT, we say ABOWT). We don’t only drink beer and play hockey although many of us do one of the other. I’m weird, because I don’t do either. (But I did go through an embarrassing “Black Label” beer drinking phase in my Montreal Boho youth, but that’s another story. I even smoked Canadian cigarettes. Gah.)

So what I’m getting at here is that Canadians are tricky because we generally ARE nice, mellower, more tolerant (see pot smoking and gay marriage) but we can be offended. In fact, most of what any American says about us gets our knickers in a knot because we think, how could they possibly know what it’s like to be Canadian, they have no idea, we’re SO different, they’re such philistines, but really we only seethe because we hate being compared to the States by the entire world. (And please, people, it's not KWUHBECK, it's KABECK.)

The truth is, there are a few key differences between Canadians and Americans. But ultimately there are many more similarities. Canadians and Americans generally speak the same language, read the same books, shop at the same stores, worship the same stupid celebrities, and eat the same food. I'm a dual citizen so I do it all, baby.

So here are the key differences, for the record: there’s no death penalty in Canada, anyone can go to the doctor for free, and you can’t buy a gun at the mall. That’s about it, really. Oh, and we’re a little passive aggressive.

But we’re much too nice to let on about that.