So, do you prefer it here then?

I get this question ALL the time. And after 12 years living in the United States which I honestly see as home, I still don't know how to answer it.

If you say 'no', then you're some Johnny Foreigner who is just here to milk the land.

If you say 'yes', then there's a satisfaction in the questionner's eyes that you've given up the pining (allbeit infrequent) for the tiny inexplicable things from the "old country" and submitted to a new life in the land of the free.

I got it today with Mr. Arsecrack who turned up to do what Mr. Pipes was supposed to do yesterday but didn't.

Don't get me wrong Mr. Arsecrack (who, after very few questions I learned had been out of Pennsylvania just once since he was born -- to Florida); I'm very happy to be here and am proud to see this as my home - and I feel very at home 99% of the time. But this isn't a yes/no question.

It's the other 1% of the time that I'm made to feel like an outsider because I speak differently from the locals. If I were obviously foreign (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Chinese for example) - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be asked. It's the fact that I'm obviously a native English speaker and obviously not originally from here. That's what causes "the question" to be asked.

Is it just a way of saying "tell me more about yourself because I don't really know what else to ask?" or does it really mean "well, you've obviously been here long enough and had the chance to fuck off back to wherever you came from if you didn't like it, so would you just let me know that it's awesome here and crap wherever you came from please? So I, like, don't have to go there and find out for myself."

Oh, I don't know. Maybe some suggestions in the comments might help me out here?