Jack, Mike and Cheeky are all different online manifestations of the same person, right?

Unfortunately I think the image of "Trad" has been exported, socio-political connotation and all.  I was having coffee with a fellow student that i had just met in my first week of Grad school in Edinburgh.  Being in a new country, I've been using the opportunity to dress how i want, and i have a bunch of suits left over from my old office job.  I had on a vintage navy 3-button, white OCBD and a vintage maroon knit tie, very narrow.  He told me   i looked like a New England Prep School boy and called me a WASP.  I don't think he meant it offensively, somehow he sneaked it into a literature discussion.  He also said about himself over the course of the same conversation:  "i'm not English, i'm not EVEN American"  (emphasis mine) I have no idea what he meant by that. 

We were talking about literature from non-English-speaking cultures and I think part of the insinuation was that because of my dress i was somehow tapping into the culture of the oppressor (first year postgrads love to jump to hasty conclusions).

I guess my point is that from another perspective, the supposedly "traditional," torch-bearing, good-old-way-we-were image of Trad can come off as American narcissism to some (ill-informed). 

I will apologize for neither my nationality nor my clothes.  If I were in Japan it might have gone over better.

Silly thought: What does your hair look like?

Maybe if you wore it shorter you'd look meaner?

There are lots of Modernists up in Scotland if you are that way inclined. I think your chum was just dumb.