The Day I Was Told I Would Never Be Happy Because I Am Brown
Spoiler: They were wrong
“Do you consider yourself British?”
“Yes, I was born and raised here.”
“Then you’ll never be happy.”
I laughed but stopped when I realized it wasn’t a joke. A smirk spread across the other man’s face. He was enjoying my discomfort. I forced myself to stay calm to spoil his fun.
He knew he had my attention so explained he had been working on a research project. The project would examine the happiness levels of people who were the first generation in their family to be born in a Western country.
According to him, these people would never truly be accepted by the society of the country where they lived. The more they tried to integrate, the worse their feeling of not fitting in would be. They were cursed.
He called me cursed whilst looking straight into my eyes.
I never let my voice waver and rolled with every attack he launched on the foundations of my identity. What kind of insensitive monster smiles as they try to convince someone they will feel lonely for the rest of their life?
I was improvising and it was even worse because we were at a professional networking event. He was 20 years my senior and…
