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I'm from Britain, line in Canada with my Canadian wife. Ditto. People here go from repressed up the wazoo to open and friendly as anything. Being in my early 2

I'm from Britain, line in Canada with my Canadian wife. Ditto. People here go from repressed up the wazoo to open and friendly as anything. Being in my early 20's, this is what I've seen all my life. Claiming Britons don't like to be touched is wholly misleading as I hugged most of my friends, even my guy friends. Girls didn't avoid touching you. Put it this way, for a term of English origin, I had no clue what cooties was nor had I heard it mentioned growing up from anyone. It took me associating with Americans and Canadians to even hear the word. On this topic, I've noticed that North America is seemingly the only country with a sociopathy over touch. Back in Yorkshire I remember getting served at bars and convenience stores and people would slap change into your hand frivolously. Here in Ontario there's this anal-retentive dance that people try to give you change but refuse to touch you to actually give you the damn change. They'll try to slot the note into your hand and drop the change from like 4 inches, it's psyco-level bizarre. I guess this is the difference when you grow up in an area with a history of mining, fishing and farming. People aren't afraid of touch.

DanI-S 16y ago
Ha, definitely. There seems to be some kind of bacteria neurosis embedded in the baby boomer psyche. I'm always astonished by the bottles of alcohol hand-sanitizer EVERYWHERE. And the hands-free paper towel dispensers. And the automatic flush toilets. With disposable toilet seat covers. Yet somehow, nobody covers their mouth when they cough!
- KSS42 16y ago
  That's because of the SARS outbreak.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    This is a little more deeply engrained than from an outbreak of a single disease. The thing that is bizarre is that Ontarians respond to disease similar to how the Japanese cultural response has been to radiation. The only thing is Japan had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. Ontario has at most one outbreak of an infectious disease, which didn't really do a god damn thing; 44 Torontonians died from SARS... but by the average incidence of accidents over 5100 Torontonians literally died because 'shit happens'. It's so completely bizarre to an outsider. I mean if this is a corollary to all North Americans, if I go to New York I expect everyone to duck and cower on the ground whenever they hear the sound of a plane. But they don't.
SupremumLimit 16y ago
The exact same thing with the change also happens in New Zealand and it's quite annoying! Now I wonder what could have brought it about in both countries.

DanI-S 16y ago

Ha, definitely. There seems to be some kind of bacteria neurosis embedded in the baby boomer psyche. I'm always astonished by the bottles of alcohol hand-sanitizer EVERYWHERE. And the hands-free paper towel dispensers. And the automatic flush toilets. With disposable toilet seat covers. Yet somehow, nobody covers their mouth when they cough!

KSS42 16y ago
That's because of the SARS outbreak.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  This is a little more deeply engrained than from an outbreak of a single disease. The thing that is bizarre is that Ontarians respond to disease similar to how the Japanese cultural response has been to radiation. The only thing is Japan had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. Ontario has at most one outbreak of an infectious disease, which didn't really do a god damn thing; 44 Torontonians died from SARS... but by the average incidence of accidents over 5100 Torontonians literally died because 'shit happens'. It's so completely bizarre to an outsider. I mean if this is a corollary to all North Americans, if I go to New York I expect everyone to duck and cower on the ground whenever they hear the sound of a plane. But they don't.

SupremumLimit 16y ago

The exact same thing with the change also happens in New Zealand and it's quite annoying! Now I wonder what could have brought it about in both countries.