I am sitting in the Bulldog Pub next to two businessmen. I am doing my best not to hear what they are saying, but bits and pieces of their conversation come my way all the same. Both of them are in their forties. One of them is applying for a job in a firm in which the other one is working. As far as I can tell, they are meeting for the first time. “To be honest with you,” the one who is already working for the firm says at some point, “I wouldn’t be in this country if I were twenty years younger.” The one who is applying for the job just nods without a word. Annoyed by the conversation, which wafts my way all too often, I get up and head for the door. But the last words keep ricocheting through my mind. To begin with, few young people would wish to remain in Croatia nowadays. It is common knowledge that they are leaving in droves. More important, what does the admission that one is of the same mind as so many young people have to do with honesty? Besides, the threadbare expression is annoying all by itself. In the end, the best I can come up with is that it has to do with patriotism. Admitting to being sorry for not leaving Croatia in one’s youth is tantamount to saying that one is not a patriot, I guess. And this is something that is best kept a secret.