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I have a pet theory. Disclaimer: I'm Dutch. In the UK, it's a faux pas to talk about 'serious topics' (feelings, politics, etc.) with strangers. There is no da

I have a pet theory. Disclaimer: I'm Dutch. In the UK, it's a faux pas to talk about 'serious topics' (feelings, politics, etc.) with strangers. There is no danger of this happening, and if it does happen you're equipped to deal with it. In the Netherlands, however, it's relatively common to talk about serious things. Even with strangers. This makes every conversation 'risky'. My theory is that this is at the root of why the Dutch are generally not very good at small talk. It's scary, so we don't do it enough, so we're not practised.

phkahler 3y ago
>> In the Netherlands, however, it's relatively common to talk about serious things. Even with strangers. This makes every conversation 'risky'. Sometimes it's good to talk about serious things with someone not directly involved with your life (i.e. no skin in the game). People even pay for this as a service, I think it's called... um... therapy. A friend of mine "admitted" to seeing a "talky doctor" because "there aren't any insightful bar tenders any more". This in the US.
- pindab0ter 3y ago
  Oh, definitely. I recently went to Japan and while I enjoyed the culture immensely, I can't help but notice a lot of people really aching for actual conversation. Something the Dutch generally aren't starved of with their direct and open (sometimes maybe blunt) attitude.
  - kurthr 3y ago
    This is especially true in business situations. Although there is a very collective decision making process, it can be quite hierarchical. Often, if a manager has stated a position others will not disagree even if it is quite wrong. This is where drinking together comes in... I've seen an engineer who had sat through a day of meetings on a topic holding his tongue until they went out for drinks after work (like most days). The moment beer touched his lips he broke into an angry tirade as to how terrible the decision was, and because we were "drinking" it was not considered out of bounds or reasonably punishable insubordination. Of course sexual harassment can have similar in/out of bounds elements so it's not like strict rules, boundaries, and exceptions solve all problems.
    - saghm 3y ago
      It's kind of jarring to me that this sort of thing could be anything more than an outlier. Do companies like this not have anyone who's an alcoholic, pregnant, not fond of bars, etc., or are they just fine with cutting them out of the actual decision making process?
      - xp84 3y ago
        My favorite boss ever would sit and drink with me and a few of my peers after work regularly. Some others wouldn’t join us, for their own reasons. He made sure to spend more time listening to their opinions in the office though, and he had their complete trust. Now, we may not have heard quite as unfiltered commentary from those folks since they didn’t choose to drink, but that’s by their choice. It’s better to have some honesty from half your subordinates than none. I don’t mean this at all as an inflammatory hot take, but drinking with people builds bonds in a very effective way which is very hard to match inside the office environment. I acknowledge though that there are obviously big problems with drinking as well and not everyone should do it.
        saghm 3y ago
        I'm going to preface this by saying that I also don't mean any of this as inflammatory or a personal attack, and I fully believe that you had nothing but good intentions, but it doesn't really seem like you've fully viewed most of what you've said from the perspective of someone who doesn't drink at all. The claim that people wouldn't feel excluded and disfavored for not attending but frequent social bonding over drinks because its optional is impossible for you to objectively evaluate. Of course you weren't aware of anyone having anything less than "complete trust" in your boss because of it; why would someone who felt that your boss was favoring those who drank with him tell you? People who perceive they're not part of a special social clique aren't going to go complain to the exact people who are then ones making them feel that way. It's not impossible that you're correct, but it's hard for me to imagine that someone would feel comfortable sharing negative feelings about the boss with you when you seem so confident that no one could possibly have any issues with the arrangement; if I were in that situation, I can't see myself even considering trusting how I really felt about it about it with a coworker who couldn't seem to even conceive of those feelings on their own.
- weatherlight 3y ago
  I'm very happy as a software engineer, but if I could do any job in the world where money wasn't a consideration, I'd go back to bartending. I worked a the closing shift at a very popular bar in the West village, NYC around 2007-2009. I had my regulars, the work was simple. I'd get to know them and learn about their lives. I made a bunch of friends. People I would have never met otherwise, because of social strata or just having completely different lives that wouldn't intersect otherwise. I'm not a huge fan of smalltalk strangers, the kind that you might have with a stranger on the subway or someone at the dog park. But for whatever the reason, those weren't the kinds of conversations that were occurring late nights at the bar :)
  - GFischer 3y ago
    I heard of someone well off being a part-time Uber driver in SF because he got to interact with interesting people...
mdpye 3y ago
Ireland is an independent country, not part of the UK. Pubs in the UK are much less like this than in Ireland, which I also believe are quite special. There are pubs like this in the UK, but they're less and less common the larger the town you are in - which (my pet theory) correlates closely with the likelihood that there are people in the pub who don't already know each other anyway... Edit for clarification: the more people are mixing in the pub, the more likely they all knew each other beforehand. Likely because it's a small town pub, although tight community pubs do still exist still in London - they're rare).
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Just a note: A fifth of Ireland is in the UK and the whole island has very close cultural ties and a shared history with Britain.
  - deadletters 3y ago
    A lot of the world has close cultural ties and a shared history with Britain for some reason.
    - taway1874 3y ago
      Yep. For "some" reason that I quite cannot put my finger on ;-)
      - vkou 3y ago
        You could definitely put a finger on the trigger of a muzzle-loaded musket.
    - shagie 3y ago
      Relevant xkcd: Sunset on the British Empire https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_ga... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_British_Empire.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_British_Empire.p... --- Tangentially tangent trivia - the largest park in the EU is located about 3° north of the equator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Amazonian_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Amazonian_Park If it's not Britain, it was France or Spain.
AlecSchueler 3y ago
That's a very interesting idea, and one that I hadn't considered. And indeed, Ireland in comparison is a place where people try not to get too political in conversation for obvious reasons, especially in the North where I grew up. Your comment reminded me of another story, from the first time I visited home after being over here for 2 years, bringing my Dutch girlfriend with me to show her around and share with her a better understanding of where I came from. I grew up in Belfast, which outside of the city centre was strongly divided between Protestants and Catholics. I grew up myself close to an interface between two of these areas, where violence was so bad and so regular that a wall had been erected to keep the communities apart and keep them from fighting. This was one of the things that was shocking to my girlfriend, as well as the paintings on the wall showing masked men with guns to denote who controlled the area. After talking and walking for a while she noted that she was curious about the paintings on "the other side." I explained to her that, by the age of 27 when I left the country, there was large portions of the city that I'd never visited because I didn't feel comfortable going there. She argued that peace had long been found and that if we went there no one would ever even know where I was from, so I agreed and we took a visit to The Falls Road in West Belfast, a working class Catholic area which was important in the history of The Troubles. We saw their wall, we saw their murals which were honestly less intimidating than the ones I'd grown up with. We got to the top of the road and explored some side streets, one of which had a house pub, a house that had been converted into a pub. My girlfriend wanted to go in and get a real sense of the local life. I was honestly quite scared because, on my side of town, such bars were always strongly associated with a heavy paramilitary clientele and would be unwelcoming to outsiders. But, I guess being Dutch, she said "Come on, we don't have to talk to anyone, we'll just get a drink and enjoy the atmosphere and you can say you've done it." Again, I agreed. We entered into a small dark room. We hadn't even ordered our drinks before the locals noticed we were having to think about what was available and became curious. As soon as my girlfriend opened her mouth with her Dutch accent we were asked by the group around the bar, and the barmaid herself, where we'd come from. She explained that she was Dutch and was welcomed with a friendly joke about "King Billy," William of Orange who had fought in Ireland for the Protestant Ascendancy in the 17th Century. While this was happening a man approached me from antother part of the room and asked if I was a musician, as I was holding a set of mandolin strings. We got quickly into conversation as he was himself a banjo player, and I had been curious about finding a bar to hear some traditional music as I had started playing it myself while living in Holland. Another gentleman then joined us and asked us where we were staying and I, still feeling uneasy, was quick to mention that it was in South Belfast, a mostly neutral part of town. I was told we weren't the only non-locals in the bar that night as there was a boy from Scotland as well, and he was quickly pointed out. Conversation flowed naturally on and eventually I was asked what part of town I was from, and I decided to be honest and say East Belfast. The latest gentleman to have entered the conversation assumed that I was from the Short Strand, a small Catholic enclave in anotherwise Protestant neighbourhood. He actually phrased it as, "What part of the Strand are you from?" to which I responded, "I'm not, I'm from the Other Side" and he asked immediately "What are you doing up here then? Are you not afeared?" I explained that I'd left the country and seen things from the outside, seen that we were one people living on one island, and that I was here with my girlfriend who was Dutch and just wanted to see the whole city. He shook my hand and said, "Well, you're a braver man that I am" before moving to another table. Soon after the first man I'd spoken to, the musician, came up and said he'd heard that I was Protestant. He too shook my hand and said "That's just the way it should be. I hope you'll come back again." We finished our drinks and left soon after, as we had agreed. I'm still not sure what to make of it all. Sometimes I regret having left and contributed to the "brain drain" at home, not being there to do my part in helping with the peace process. But sometimes I look back on that day and feel that in some small way I did my bit.
letitbeirie 3y ago
I think that's a pretty astute observation. Visiting the UK (from the US) it was pretty clear that the social boundaries were different, but the general nature of the game was the same - we're both guess cultures: you have to figure out what to say and how to say it. In the Netherlands, conversation seemed much more unguarded. It's hard to describe but it's similar to a concept in the US of someone "having no filter" - basically, less verbal softening of uncomfortable/taboo subjects and more willingness to engage with them. I actually find the Dutch way very refreshing in some ways. Soliciting critiques (e.g. "how does my new haircut look?") is a largely pointless exercise in the US because there's strong social pressure to say "it looks great" whether it's true or not. I do wonder though if the Dutch way of making friends (as adults at least) has to be wildly different than in the Anglosphere, given how big a role those subtle social cues play here.
- yumraj 3y ago
  The above comment reminds me of Jan Maas in Ted Lasso. :)
- falloutx 3y ago
  I don't know if its just me, but I personally never had a no-filter conversation in this country. Like if I ask someone about my hair or something, they always answer politely. There is still enough social pressure not to say a bad thing about other people. If I ask a question, the answer is always something which would be considered polite. May be not American polite, but still polite imo.
brightball 3y ago
This is actually one of the big no-nos of social gatherings in general in the US too. You don't talk about politics, religion or money. There's no point. It's a no win situation because you're only going to make somebody angry, never change anyone's mind and everyone else in the room will be uncomfortable and/or leave because they just showed up to see everybody, share food, find out how life and family is going and have a good time. This is also one of the main reasons that it's so easy to talk about sports.
- r3trohack3r 3y ago
  I've found this is a generational thing in my social circles. The older generations have a philosophy of "you don't talk about politics, religion, or money" and, the younger generations, that's all they talk about.
  - TremendousJudge 3y ago
    maybe it's learned behavior?
  - tonyarkles 3y ago
    I’m probably in between “the younger generations” and “the older generations” at this point in my life. One of the interesting observations I’ve made hanging around younger people is that they do seem to talk about politics quite a bit, but in a homogenous way. With older people, I know a number of right-leaning and left-leaning people and they don’t talk about politics with each other because they’ll just end up pissed off with each other. With younger people it seems they tend to form social circles that are very politically aligned, so no one’s going to get angry talking about politics. (Compared to, say, forming social circles around a baseball team or something like that)
    - brightball 3y ago
      This is my experience as well.
    - sfink 3y ago
falloutx 3y ago
I am living here for a few years and I usually feel people here don't like to talk with someone they don't know. Which is totally understandable and thats how it is in most of the world except maybe America or England. There is something good about not getting disturbed by strangers when you just want to have a quiet day. But having said that, I do feel for lonely people(including me) here. So, after living here for few years I discovered this culture doesn't suit me, but I totally understand why it is the way it is.

phkahler 3y ago

>> In the Netherlands, however, it's relatively common to talk about serious things. Even with strangers. This makes every conversation 'risky'. Sometimes it's good to talk about serious things with someone not directly involved with your life (i.e. no skin in the game). People even pay for this as a service, I think it's called... um... therapy. A friend of mine "admitted" to seeing a "talky doctor" because "there aren't any insightful bar tenders any more". This in the US.

pindab0ter 3y ago
Oh, definitely. I recently went to Japan and while I enjoyed the culture immensely, I can't help but notice a lot of people really aching for actual conversation. Something the Dutch generally aren't starved of with their direct and open (sometimes maybe blunt) attitude.
- kurthr 3y ago
  This is especially true in business situations. Although there is a very collective decision making process, it can be quite hierarchical. Often, if a manager has stated a position others will not disagree even if it is quite wrong. This is where drinking together comes in... I've seen an engineer who had sat through a day of meetings on a topic holding his tongue until they went out for drinks after work (like most days). The moment beer touched his lips he broke into an angry tirade as to how terrible the decision was, and because we were "drinking" it was not considered out of bounds or reasonably punishable insubordination. Of course sexual harassment can have similar in/out of bounds elements so it's not like strict rules, boundaries, and exceptions solve all problems.
  - saghm 3y ago
    It's kind of jarring to me that this sort of thing could be anything more than an outlier. Do companies like this not have anyone who's an alcoholic, pregnant, not fond of bars, etc., or are they just fine with cutting them out of the actual decision making process?
    - xp84 3y ago
      My favorite boss ever would sit and drink with me and a few of my peers after work regularly. Some others wouldn’t join us, for their own reasons. He made sure to spend more time listening to their opinions in the office though, and he had their complete trust. Now, we may not have heard quite as unfiltered commentary from those folks since they didn’t choose to drink, but that’s by their choice. It’s better to have some honesty from half your subordinates than none. I don’t mean this at all as an inflammatory hot take, but drinking with people builds bonds in a very effective way which is very hard to match inside the office environment. I acknowledge though that there are obviously big problems with drinking as well and not everyone should do it.
      - saghm 3y ago
        I'm going to preface this by saying that I also don't mean any of this as inflammatory or a personal attack, and I fully believe that you had nothing but good intentions, but it doesn't really seem like you've fully viewed most of what you've said from the perspective of someone who doesn't drink at all. The claim that people wouldn't feel excluded and disfavored for not attending but frequent social bonding over drinks because its optional is impossible for you to objectively evaluate. Of course you weren't aware of anyone having anything less than "complete trust" in your boss because of it; why would someone who felt that your boss was favoring those who drank with him tell you? People who perceive they're not part of a special social clique aren't going to go complain to the exact people who are then ones making them feel that way. It's not impossible that you're correct, but it's hard for me to imagine that someone would feel comfortable sharing negative feelings about the boss with you when you seem so confident that no one could possibly have any issues with the arrangement; if I were in that situation, I can't see myself even considering trusting how I really felt about it about it with a coworker who couldn't seem to even conceive of those feelings on their own.
weatherlight 3y ago
I'm very happy as a software engineer, but if I could do any job in the world where money wasn't a consideration, I'd go back to bartending. I worked a the closing shift at a very popular bar in the West village, NYC around 2007-2009. I had my regulars, the work was simple. I'd get to know them and learn about their lives. I made a bunch of friends. People I would have never met otherwise, because of social strata or just having completely different lives that wouldn't intersect otherwise. I'm not a huge fan of smalltalk strangers, the kind that you might have with a stranger on the subway or someone at the dog park. But for whatever the reason, those weren't the kinds of conversations that were occurring late nights at the bar :)
- GFischer 3y ago
  I heard of someone well off being a part-time Uber driver in SF because he got to interact with interesting people...

mdpye 3y ago

Ireland is an independent country, not part of the UK. Pubs in the UK are much less like this than in Ireland, which I also believe are quite special. There are pubs like this in the UK, but they're less and less common the larger the town you are in - which (my pet theory) correlates closely with the likelihood that there are people in the pub who don't already know each other anyway... Edit for clarification: the more people are mixing in the pub, the more likely they all knew each other beforehand. Likely because it's a small town pub, although tight community pubs do still exist still in London - they're rare).

AlecSchueler 3y ago
Just a note: A fifth of Ireland is in the UK and the whole island has very close cultural ties and a shared history with Britain.
- deadletters 3y ago
  A lot of the world has close cultural ties and a shared history with Britain for some reason.
  - taway1874 3y ago
    Yep. For "some" reason that I quite cannot put my finger on ;-)
    - vkou 3y ago
      You could definitely put a finger on the trigger of a muzzle-loaded musket.
  - shagie 3y ago
    Relevant xkcd: Sunset on the British Empire https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_ga... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_British_Empire.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_British_Empire.p... --- Tangentially tangent trivia - the largest park in the EU is located about 3° north of the equator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Amazonian_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Amazonian_Park If it's not Britain, it was France or Spain.

AlecSchueler 3y ago

That's a very interesting idea, and one that I hadn't considered. And indeed, Ireland in comparison is a place where people try not to get too political in conversation for obvious reasons, especially in the North where I grew up. Your comment reminded me of another story, from the first time I visited home after being over here for 2 years, bringing my Dutch girlfriend with me to show her around and share with her a better understanding of where I came from. I grew up in Belfast, which outside of the city centre was strongly divided between Protestants and Catholics. I grew up myself close to an interface between two of these areas, where violence was so bad and so regular that a wall had been erected to keep the communities apart and keep them from fighting. This was one of the things that was shocking to my girlfriend, as well as the paintings on the wall showing masked men with guns to denote who controlled the area. After talking and walking for a while she noted that she was curious about the paintings on "the other side." I explained to her that, by the age of 27 when I left the country, there was large portions of the city that I'd never visited because I didn't feel comfortable going there. She argued that peace had long been found and that if we went there no one would ever even know where I was from, so I agreed and we took a visit to The Falls Road in West Belfast, a working class Catholic area which was important in the history of The Troubles. We saw their wall, we saw their murals which were honestly less intimidating than the ones I'd grown up with. We got to the top of the road and explored some side streets, one of which had a house pub, a house that had been converted into a pub. My girlfriend wanted to go in and get a real sense of the local life. I was honestly quite scared because, on my side of town, such bars were always strongly associated with a heavy paramilitary clientele and would be unwelcoming to outsiders. But, I guess being Dutch, she said "Come on, we don't have to talk to anyone, we'll just get a drink and enjoy the atmosphere and you can say you've done it." Again, I agreed. We entered into a small dark room. We hadn't even ordered our drinks before the locals noticed we were having to think about what was available and became curious. As soon as my girlfriend opened her mouth with her Dutch accent we were asked by the group around the bar, and the barmaid herself, where we'd come from. She explained that she was Dutch and was welcomed with a friendly joke about "King Billy," William of Orange who had fought in Ireland for the Protestant Ascendancy in the 17th Century. While this was happening a man approached me from antother part of the room and asked if I was a musician, as I was holding a set of mandolin strings. We got quickly into conversation as he was himself a banjo player, and I had been curious about finding a bar to hear some traditional music as I had started playing it myself while living in Holland. Another gentleman then joined us and asked us where we were staying and I, still feeling uneasy, was quick to mention that it was in South Belfast, a mostly neutral part of town. I was told we weren't the only non-locals in the bar that night as there was a boy from Scotland as well, and he was quickly pointed out. Conversation flowed naturally on and eventually I was asked what part of town I was from, and I decided to be honest and say East Belfast. The latest gentleman to have entered the conversation assumed that I was from the Short Strand, a small Catholic enclave in anotherwise Protestant neighbourhood. He actually phrased it as, "What part of the Strand are you from?" to which I responded, "I'm not, I'm from the Other Side" and he asked immediately "What are you doing up here then? Are you not afeared?" I explained that I'd left the country and seen things from the outside, seen that we were one people living on one island, and that I was here with my girlfriend who was Dutch and just wanted to see the whole city. He shook my hand and said, "Well, you're a braver man that I am" before moving to another table. Soon after the first man I'd spoken to, the musician, came up and said he'd heard that I was Protestant. He too shook my hand and said "That's just the way it should be. I hope you'll come back again." We finished our drinks and left soon after, as we had agreed. I'm still not sure what to make of it all. Sometimes I regret having left and contributed to the "brain drain" at home, not being there to do my part in helping with the peace process. But sometimes I look back on that day and feel that in some small way I did my bit.

letitbeirie 3y ago

I think that's a pretty astute observation. Visiting the UK (from the US) it was pretty clear that the social boundaries were different, but the general nature of the game was the same - we're both guess cultures: you have to figure out what to say and how to say it. In the Netherlands, conversation seemed much more unguarded. It's hard to describe but it's similar to a concept in the US of someone "having no filter" - basically, less verbal softening of uncomfortable/taboo subjects and more willingness to engage with them. I actually find the Dutch way very refreshing in some ways. Soliciting critiques (e.g. "how does my new haircut look?") is a largely pointless exercise in the US because there's strong social pressure to say "it looks great" whether it's true or not. I do wonder though if the Dutch way of making friends (as adults at least) has to be wildly different than in the Anglosphere, given how big a role those subtle social cues play here.

yumraj 3y ago
The above comment reminds me of Jan Maas in Ted Lasso. :)
falloutx 3y ago
I don't know if its just me, but I personally never had a no-filter conversation in this country. Like if I ask someone about my hair or something, they always answer politely. There is still enough social pressure not to say a bad thing about other people. If I ask a question, the answer is always something which would be considered polite. May be not American polite, but still polite imo.

brightball 3y ago

This is actually one of the big no-nos of social gatherings in general in the US too. You don't talk about politics, religion or money. There's no point. It's a no win situation because you're only going to make somebody angry, never change anyone's mind and everyone else in the room will be uncomfortable and/or leave because they just showed up to see everybody, share food, find out how life and family is going and have a good time. This is also one of the main reasons that it's so easy to talk about sports.

r3trohack3r 3y ago
I've found this is a generational thing in my social circles. The older generations have a philosophy of "you don't talk about politics, religion, or money" and, the younger generations, that's all they talk about.
- TremendousJudge 3y ago
  maybe it's learned behavior?
- tonyarkles 3y ago
  I’m probably in between “the younger generations” and “the older generations” at this point in my life. One of the interesting observations I’ve made hanging around younger people is that they do seem to talk about politics quite a bit, but in a homogenous way. With older people, I know a number of right-leaning and left-leaning people and they don’t talk about politics with each other because they’ll just end up pissed off with each other. With younger people it seems they tend to form social circles that are very politically aligned, so no one’s going to get angry talking about politics. (Compared to, say, forming social circles around a baseball team or something like that)
  - brightball 3y ago
    This is my experience as well.
  - sfink 3y ago

falloutx 3y ago

I am living here for a few years and I usually feel people here don't like to talk with someone they don't know. Which is totally understandable and thats how it is in most of the world except maybe America or England. There is something good about not getting disturbed by strangers when you just want to have a quiet day. But having said that, I do feel for lonely people(including me) here. So, after living here for few years I discovered this culture doesn't suit me, but I totally understand why it is the way it is.