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Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

behavioralscientist.org

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Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#41

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

floxy wrote: post #3
Nevin1901 wrote: post #2

As someone who recently moved from The Netherlands to USA, I found this article to be really great at explaining the reason why many Europeans find Americans to be fake. I myself had experienced all of the social experiences the author talked about, and found myself confused as to what a "friend" was in The USA. I also find it very interesting how the author described emotions as cultured - not just something which w…

Cultural differences aren't limited to international interactions either. Here's an interesting thing about exclamation points. Apparently there are (at least) two cultures of exclamation point usage in English. Apparently one culture uses them frequently as a marker of expressing general excitedness. The other culture sees them akin to yelling, which is appropriate only a small fraction of the time. https://news.yco…

I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU COULD MEAN BY THAT.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#43

Post by loloquwowndueo »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #21
SoftTalker wrote: post #15

American living in America. I've encountered all types of people. Some are taciturn, some are very direct, some dance around the subject for fear of offending, some are excessively friendly. We're a mix of cultures and I don't think you can say that all or even most Americans have the same social/emotional tendencies.

Our worlds are so different. I live in rural Massachusetts, it's a slower pace of life than New York City. People, on average, in extremely different environments will value different things and act differently. It's not 'rude' for a busy lunch place in NYC to expect you to order and get out of the way. They need to feed 15 million people.

They “need” as if they were some sort of soup kitchen for the needy and not an expensive-as-fuck posh place. They can fuck right off, I’ll take my time enjoying the food and use of the premises that I paid for, thank you very much.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#44

Post by jansan »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #20

As a Frenchman, when I worked in the valley, people told me to tone it down, that I could come off as rude. On my side, I wanted to slap those people calling others they barely knew "friends", overselling their lunch as "amazing", assuring an outcome with certainty, virtue signaling or refusing to say when something was completely wrong. It's like they were always in a tiny marketing process. Eventually, I learned to…

People in the valley seem to be quite different from people in the southern states (the only part of the US that I have been to). I wonder if the differences within the USA are actually be as significant as the differences between parts of the US and Europe.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#45

Post by stcredzero »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #13

> Thank you for dinner” felt to me as an act of distancing Is this really? I am French so we are rather private (in the sense that friendship is something that takes time, and before that there are rather generic interactions). But if my best friend whom I adore and whatnot did a dinner for me I would thank him very much. I wild be surprised if "thank you" is not used between friends in the Netherlands

> Thank you for dinner” felt to me as an act of distancing

True story. One of the major times I almost broke up (before we got married) with my wife, who grew up in Fujian China, is the first time I told her, "I love you," and she replied, "Thank you." (Now, on our anniversary, I might get her a bouquet with a note saying, "You're welcome.")

First time I almost broke up with her before we married was our very first date, when she was 45 minutes late. She finally called me, telling me that the CEO came in at the last moment with a new idea, and that she would be there as soon as she could. Afterwards, she was an additional 45 minutes late, because just after she got off the phone, the CEO came in with another idea. Where she's from, where she grew up, this kind of thing is just unfortunate but, "understandable."

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#46

Post by dr_dshiv »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #29

A couple of questions/observations as someone born in the UK who emigrated to the US at 25. 1. I wonder when this "difference between culture-driven emotions" fades away. I've been in the US for 35 years now, and I still sometimes sense that I'm viewing interactions the way a British person would (less often than I used to) 2. I wonder how the "noise" of differences between individuals compares in "amplitude" to the…

> 4. US English really needs to re-acquaint (no pun intend) itself with the word "acquaintance" as an alternative to "friend". The almost universal use of "friend" to describe anyone you know (even from the most singular and minor of interactions) really robs verbal behavior about the social environment here of so much subtlety

Well, we just call them brothers or sisters if they are that close. Actually…

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#47

Post by xhevahir »

negus wrote: post #26
xhevahir wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article about Russian's habit of yelling is interesting: https://classical-russian-literature.blogspot.com/2020/07/th... I haven't been to Russia but some of it reminds me of encounters I've had in Greece.

As a Russian living among Greeks I can not say that I experienced any unusual rudeness. But yes, permanent smiling may be considered to be deceptive and insincere by some Russians. But anyway: people tend to express themself in many different ways. It is great to be tolerant to others, while trying to be polite and culture-aware yourself.

The interactions I had--some of them, I should add--in Greece were combative from an American perspective and not a Russian one. If the scenes described in the link are typical of Russian life, then the Greeks I encountered indeed probably would not strike a Russian as rude.

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#49

Post by dr_dshiv »

technothrasher wrote: post #16
Nevin1901 wrote: post #2

As someone who recently moved from The Netherlands to USA, I found this article to be really great at explaining the reason why many Europeans find Americans to be fake. I myself had experienced all of the social experiences the author talked about, and found myself confused as to what a "friend" was in The USA. I also find it very interesting how the author described emotions as cultured - not just something which w…

Here's a cultural question I've been wondering since I visited Amsterdam as an American- I was walking along an up hill street in the evening, and I saw a young lady talking to her friends and smoking, with a baby in a stroller. The stroller started to roll down the hill slightly and she didn't seem to notice. It then picked up a little speed, so I moved to intercept it, and rolled it back up to her. When I delivered…

Hill? In Amsterdam? Suspicious detail!

Re: Americans are fake and the Dutch are rude (2022)

#50

Post by stcredzero »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #20

As a Frenchman, when I worked in the valley, people told me to tone it down, that I could come off as rude. On my side, I wanted to slap those people calling others they barely knew "friends", overselling their lunch as "amazing", assuring an outcome with certainty, virtue signaling or refusing to say when something was completely wrong. It's like they were always in a tiny marketing process. Eventually, I learned to…

Over the past 6 years married to a woman who grew up in China, I've become more aware of how often we Americans say the exact opposite of what they mean, but instead convey their actual meaning through context, tone of voice, or whatever.

It took us about 2 years to really learn how to talk to each other.

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