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One thing I've heard from several Europeans I've met (who are currently living in the US, either for work or school) is that Americans have a reputation for bei
by jarin 16y ago
One thing I've heard from several Europeans I've met (who are currently living in the US, either for work or school) is that Americans have a reputation for being very friendly but making a lot of empty social promises.
One European I met at my local watering hole was a programmer and a very cool guy, so we made plans to get together for beers and nerd talk. He mentioned the whole thing about social promises and said that he's had tons of cases where an American would express an intention to hang out at some later date and then flake out.
I insisted that I totally intended to call him up the following weekend and set something up, but of course I totally forgot, and by the time I remembered it had been an awkward amount of time, so I never did call.
- ola 16y agoI'm European and I do this all the time too, I think it has more to do with the individual than with cultural norms.
- notJim 16y agoMy Singaporean roommate complains about this very thing. He thinks it's a politeness thing, as in, Americans will say "Let's do this again sometime," to sound polite, even when they have no intention of doing so.
- jarin 16y agoI know that I totally intend on following up, but starting up new friendships often seems like a lot of work. Most of my friendships come from work, friends of friends, or other regulars at the bar my friends and I all go to. It seems like less of a risk after you randomly socialize with them a few times.
- jarin 16y agoJust wanted to clear up that by "them", I don't mean foreigners, I mean potential new friends.