You come across some odd, odd individuals living in Estonia as a foreigner.

A colleague of mine noted that some function he’d been to at the British Embassy seemed to attract people with ‘virtually no social skills’; at least he had the advantage of face-to-face communication.

I recently saw one of those Facebook comments spats you get from time to time. This one was different, though. Taking place on a small group dedicated to discussing the delights of Craft Beer, it involved an exchange between Tony, an Irishman, and an Italian guy, Gianluca, about the mundane topic of the definition of an IIPA beer.

Things soon ‘escalated’, with mudslinging and accusations of trolling. Gianluca left the group in a huff.

This encounter all happened very quickly and late at night; other users had to piece together their own post-mortem over their morning coffee, but it did get me thinking.

The two men are ‘equals’ in many ways, living in Tallinn as foreigners, yet irreparable damage had been done to their relationship in a way that only online distortion can allow. Or so I first thought…

Then I changed my mind. There was also something about the nature of Ex-Pats which was coming into play.

Whiny Ex-Pats?

I used to write a series of posts called ‘Ex-Pat Prima Donnas’, a satire of various characters here (not least my own) but I soon realized that life was indeed mimicking ‘art’.

Poking knowing fun at a society you’re part of is all well and good when it’s good-natured, but as time went on, things started to take on a life of their own.

Worried that the EPPD posts were getting too low on the pH scale of cynicism, I had my own moment of Ex-Pat Prima Donnery and deleted the group and all the posts!

This article is also an attempt to atone for that.

But there are some amazing, beautiful people here…

You occasionally hear about how there are some ‘very talented’ people doing ‘great things’ here in Estonia.

But apart from these supposed saintly figures not really existing in reality, this good works fixation doesn’t do a whole lot for me. People pretty much always have an ulterior motive for whatever it is they’re doing, and, Work in Estonia campaigns notwithstanding, if people really are that talented they’re likely to either stay in their home country or go somewhere where there is more money.

Ex-Pat or Immigrant?

But first, what is an Ex-Pat? A definition might be ‘a person permanently or temporarily living in a country other than the one of their citizenship’, yet the word carries far more associations.

‘Ex-Pat’ has connotations of a retired Brigadier carnally interfering with a punkawhalla on a verandah in Mandalay, or middle-aged men slapping each others’ backs in some illicit whisky and cigar club in Aden.

Whereas people coming from Africa or the Middle East are mere ‘immigrants’ regardless of how successful they may end up in their adoptive homes, those from the Anglosphere or Western Europe are, all of a sudden, ‘Ex-Pats’…regardless of how unsuccessful they may end up being in their new home.

This is pure hubris; the Ex-Pat class during the British colonial era, say, were a hardy breed. They needed to be, living before mass communications, regular air travel, air conditioning etc.

So for this modern type of Ex-Pat to promote themselves to the ranks those emigrés of yore, is laughable, yet the tag has stuck.

I’ve identified (roughly in descending order of annoyance) various types of personas, masks, and games people play in the Ex-Pat community here. There’s a common thread running throughout, a monumental self-centredness and arrogance.

Believe me, if circumstances had been different, some of these people are the same provisional types who would’ve ended up in ISIS or similar. So things could be worse. Marginally…

1. ‘The Celebrity’

Albeit a dying breed as Estonia matures, the ‘famous for being foreign’ or ‘exotic’ person is still here.

A sub-group is the ‘Ass-Kisser’, celebrities-in-waiting who write gushing posts about how great Ilves is or what an amazing e-State we have, to no great effect.

2. ‘The Handle With Care’

Easily offended, sensitive, prone to tantrums – tread on eggshells where the Handle With Care is concerned. Ironically often highly adept at stepping on other folks’ toes.

3. ‘The Cult Leader’

Somebody of meagre talent who was a dead loss back home, but gets large numbers of young and impressionable Estonians to hang on their every word. Kingdom of the blind and all that…

A corollary of the Cult Leader is ‘The Clique Merchant’. Someone has written about the ‘bitchfest’ that Ex-Pat life can sometimes entail, and the Clique Merchant embodies this, but draws their life-force more from other Ex-Pats rather than locals. Has poisonous spit and claws like that little dinosaur in the first Jurassic Park movie.

4. ‘The Sycophant’

Whereas the Ass-Kisser tries to inveigle themselves with the Estonian élite, the Sycophant is forever massaging the egos of other, higher-status Ex-Pats (such as the Cult Leader, above). Whilst this might get you a few free craft beers, it will also cause you to completely undo your sense of self, so props for that.

5. ‘The Only Gay In The Village’

Doesn’t take kindly to other Ex-Pats, especially their own countrymen, cramping their style. Never mind if some people are struggling living here and could do with a leg-up or just a friendly ear to be lent; the ‘only gay’ might see their little satrapy crashing around them, and that would never do.

6. ‘The Long Termer’

Unless you were in Estonia when it was sort of a featureless steppe where Wooly Mammoths roamed, you don’t even enter into the equation as far as the Long Termer is concerned.

7. ‘The Messiah’

Estonia could be such a great place if, and only if, they would just see reason and implement all of the beatitudes the Messiah is here to proclaim, so we can all evolve to a higher place of love and tolerance.

Add to that the ‘All Hat and No Cattle’, who will pat themselves on the back as they brag online about how they are prepared to take an entire village of Djiboutians into their home, then forget all about it within an incredibly short timeframe.

8. ‘The Let’s Play Shops’

Always has an monumental knowledge of where to get virtually anything in Estonia, how the various telecoms carriers shape up in comparison with each other, how the tax system works, how to get a driving license if you’re non-EU, where the best doctors are etc. Extremely helpful.

9. ‘The Storyteller’

This often prematurely-aged bar-bore will regale you with endless tall tales about how they were robbed in broad daylight In Tartu in 1997 (they don’t mean their possessions now, but that they themselves were robbed!), or the time when they accidentally busted an international drugs ring by walking into the wrong building en route to teaching English etc.

10. ‘The Grandstander’

Everything they do is important on approximately the same level as Moses going up the mountain. Grandiosity knows no sacred cows by the way — even an omniscient institution like NATO aren’t immune from drawing the ire of a shunned Ex-Pat Grandstander.

11. ‘The Professional Scotsman’

If there’s anything worse than an Englishman abroad, it’s a Scotsman.

Well, I can get away with saying that being a halfling of the 2 nations, but the professional Celt or, for that matter, Antipodean abroad is an ever-present, the sole raison d’être of these menacing alcoholics being to drone on about their land of origin and intimidate others into silence (see Cult Leader, above). Nice.

12. ‘The Shiny, Happy Smiley Person’

Perpetually radiates (inasmuch as a turd can ‘radiate’ anything) an untenable ‘can’t we all just get along’ attitude, and inviting you to Magic the Gathering evenings where ‘we can drink mango lassi and watch the sunset over Naisaar’. Eurgh.

13. ‘The Bully (online)’

There used to be a Norwegian living in Tallinn, Sverre, who would burst in on others’ social media conversations, demanding amongst other things that they use ‘gender-neutral terms like ‘ze’ and ‘hir’.

Things didn’t go well for Sverre in the end, as ze threw zir (gender-neutral) toys out of zir playpen, after ze could not get hir way in all things at all times, and ze left the country in a huff-ette.

Related with this is the Point Scorer, who will make use of online Ex-Pat groups to try and make others look bad via the use of feeble memes or similar (though usually with it rebounding in their face — q.v. the Handle With Care).

14. The Human Sewage Parasite

Most of the list so far has been about fairly harmless types, but there are a few characters out there who are rotten to the core. Some of them you can spot by the trail of slime they leave behind them, others are more adept at concealing their intentions; the devil deals in half-truths after all.

Jo Arild ‘Sea Urchin Bukkake Parties’ Remme is a good example of the Human Sewage Parasite; notice this one is not in quotes.

15. ‘The Know-It-All’

Unlike the Lets Play Shops, whose opinions are sometimes worth listening to, these are truly objectionable contrarians who can only really wag their finger and generally turn into...

16. ‘The How Come That Person Is A Part Of My Life?’

Sometimes in an Ex-Pat community you can find yourself in regular social contact with a person who, one day, makes you wake up and think ‘why the hell is this person in my life? We’ve absolutely nothing in common and neither of us would choose to have anything to do with each other on the outside world’.

17. ‘The Oneupmanship-er’

You got an iPhone5? Guess what they’ve got an iPhone5S. You went to Privé last night? Well they know the owner personally. You moved to Estonia in year X? Pity, ‘cos they moved there in year X minus 10. And so on and so forth.

18. ‘The Peter Perfect’

Continually in a state of ecstatic, eyes-shut vision as they contemplate their own immaculateness, but truly no use to either man or beast.

19. ‘The Lost Soul’

Somehow, somewhere along the line, the Lost Soul took a few wrong turns in life, and ended up in this festering hell-hole on the eastern shores of the Baltic…no, only joking. But nonetheless these guys and gals who don’t fulfill the single most obvious criterion for moving here, ie. for love, can be a bit of a depressing enigma.

20. ‘The Estonia-Booster’

Yes, yes, we know that eStonia is a ‘Nordic country, with far more in common with, say, Iceland, than with neighboring Latvia’, that you can open up and close a business online in 30 seconds and that Skype and Transferwise were ‘invented’ here. Who are your audience precisely? Other Estonia Boosters presumably, in which case no need to drag us down into the mire too.

21. ‘The Earnest Newcomer’

We were all this once. Anxious to get Estonian mastered in about 3 weeks, to try our hand at making pelmeenid or staying in the country house in Võru for the weekend. Fast-forward 5 or so years to a totally spent, disillusioned husk of a person.

22. ‘The Hapless Incompetent’

Has an inverted Midas touch. Seems to be universally disliked. Most of the other Ex-Pats can build up an impressive archive of stories about the Hapless Incompetent, even after only meeting them a handful of times.

23. ‘The Unaccountably Well-Heeled’

Lives in a house in, say, Viimsi or Nõmme, has a relatively nice ride, a pretty hot wife or girlfriend and one or two impossibly cute kids without having to do anything discernible to earn it during the day.

24. ‘The Hibernator’

An elusive and endangered species, that guy who you see once in the pub in early autumn, then disappears off the radar until the following spring when they make a brief appearance. You’ll next see them the christmas after next.

25. ‘The Gubernator’

Opposite of the above, the ‘guv’nor’ rules supreme in the pub, holding court at all times and providing their own running commentary to the football, or the rugby, depending on which part of Ireland they’re from. You’ll need to marshal all the skills you picked up on that self-assertion course if you want to get even a word in edgewise.

26. ‘The Anti-Estonian’

‘Estonians have no clue, the guys are so ugly, they have no idea of traditions of democracy and the rule of law, they’re so faux and materialistic’ etc. etc.

There’s been a one-post blog covering all bases already so we don’t need to elaborate, except to say that, since the Anti-Estonian is saying what they honestly think and feel for no obvious payback, nor are they disingenuously trying to entice anyone else on to the rocks of living here, they are somewhat less evil than the Estonia Booster.

27. ‘The Paranoid Paradox’

A paradox in that, whilst the paranoid type remains convinced that people are laughing at them behind their backs, they are in fact convinced correctly, people are indeed laughing at them.

So whether they’re actually paranoid is debatable.

28. ‘The Person With, Like, An Actual, Successful Career’

Fewer in number since Skype and others started shedding staff or relocating; Often the nicest and most pretension-free of all Ex-Pats since they’ve got nowt to prove.

29. ‘The Part Timer’

Has a pad in Tallinn, parachutes in once in a while and engages in a whirlwind of partying and leaves just as abruptly. Think these people have got the right idea, myself.

30. ‘The Comic’

Ooh, hold on to your sides, folks, for they might just split when the comic comes to town. Whether it’s poking fun at Savisaar, noticing there are a lot of Russians in Lasnamäe or telling Estonians what they want to hear about themselves, the comic really does make Ex-Pat life so much more bearable for all…

That’s it then — and just in case you were wondering, I myself am a combination of 2), 9) and 24) with perhaps a smidgen of 16) and a nod towards 19)!

Do You Not See the Irony of Whining About Whiny Ex-Pats?

You might be forgiven for dismissing all of this as just a rant, but that would be to miss a greater irony, namely, that surely the people we’d least need interaction with on social media are those living in the same, compact city.

And yet that seems to be precisely what happens — the bulk of Facebook angst seems to revolve around Ex-Pats and others here in Tallinn — the very people we could easily go and meet face-to-face.

The size of Estonia is an aggravating factor here — a small amount of people chasing an even smaller pool of resources is always likely to lead to stresses.

But more than that, an Ex-Pat community anywhere will tend to mirror that of the host. Estonian society is a bit of a Potëmkin village of competitiveness and navel-gazing; style-over-content, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses and general preening being quite prevalent, and some of this is bound to percolate down…or up…(no, down, who am I kidding!?) to the outsiders soujourning here.

Add that to the hall of mirrors that is Facebook and you end up with something that is virtually unrecognizable as reality; it could be worse though — Finnish Ex-Pat Facebook groups are considerably more egregious than those here, simply because the Ex-Pat community there is much bigger (in absolute terms at least) and is thus more vocal and more confident (read: ‘obnoxious and entitled’).

Naturally there are plusses in living here in Estonia, but that was not the point of this articl. For those thinking of relocating to Estonia regardless of where they’re from, I’d suggest taking some of this on board rather than just swallowing the pretty-packaged ‘Work in Estonia’ vids…