I often hear how friendly and open-minded Americans are compared to Europeans, and honestly it kind of scares me. Because I find Americans are overall (not of all them) pretty narrow minded and damn judgmental, at least in Oregon where I live. And not friendly at all, tbh. It’s pretty much impossible to spontaneously make friends in the United States. People might be superficially friendly here, until you actually have a problem and then they ditch you and accuse you of being overdramatic or needy. There’s definitely a strong “victim-blaming” culture in America. People believe we live in a just and free nation and that anyone who is not getting what they want out of life must just be lazy or stupid.
I’d really like to live in the UK or Germany because America is very authoritarian and workers’ rights here suck. But if the people are even ruder and selfish than the people here I might just stay in the States. Can someone please tell me it’s better there? Unless it’s actually not.
After 20 years in the Navy, and port visits in about 30 countries, I can definitively say that people everywhere are… wait for it… people. I have been to a pub and drank with Russians, Germans, English, Scottish. I have sat in a hookah bar in Bahrain and had a pleasant conversation with a Bahraini. I have also been yelled at by people of the same nationalities. I was actually chased down the street by an angry mob of Bahrainis. People are people, if you are friendly, they may be friendly, or not.
You find Americans unfriendly and narrow-minded, and are put off by how judgmental they are. Interesting. And now you’re on a mostly american message board asking a bunch of narrow minded people to judge how unfriendly Europeans are? That makes total sense. I honestly have no idea why people might find you dramatic or needy, but, perhaps, if we stronger workers’ rights, people would be nicer to you.
On a more serious note, I’ve lived in a few states in the US and I lived in England for a little bit. I’ve also spent a decent amount of time travelling i other countries. I’d say that, generally, you’ll find friendly and unfriendly people everywhere you go. You’ll also find that there is some variety in how distant or familiar people are upon initial contact across cultures or regions. In this regard, however, I’d say there’s probably as much diversity within America as without, and often times it has more to do with the nature of the social event or social scene you’re at, then the country, state, or city, it’s taking place in. More important, though, I think is the fact that if you’re in a city of millions of people, or even in a small town of thousands, it doesn’t really matter how most of them act. What matters most is having a set of friends and a workplace with people you get along with. You can find it anywhere and you can not find it anywhere.
protoboard, it might be time for a little more self-reflection. If one person tells you that you whine and complain too much, it’s them. If everyone tells you that you whine and complain too much, it’s you.
One of the truest things anyone ever said is “wherever you go, there you are.” Your personal problems aren’t going away until you solve them. Moving to Canada, Germany, England or Mars is not going to change the things you’re experiencing.
Americans are some of the friendliest people I have ever interacted with. Continental Euros are probably the second least friednly, after the undisputed Kings, Gulf and Peninsula Arabs.
Europeans are so unfriendly that massive, years-long, continent-spanning wars break out there every few decades, for no obvious reason. The OP may have heard of some of these conflicts. I’m a bit hazy on the details, but I think some of them may have had something to do with soccer.
Rather than go to Europe, I suggest the OP calibrate his friendliness meter by spending a couple of weeks in St. John’s, Newfoundland. If he has any issues after that, it’s fairly certain the problem is internal rather than external.
If America manages to depose the most evil dictator the world has ever known today, believe me, Americans will find Europe and most of the rest of the world quite friendly.
Definitely a case of the problem being in the mirror.
However, Europeans are neither unfriendlier than Americans, nor friendlier than Americans. A European person may be friendlier or unfriendlier, but if one is off-putting to the friendly people, one will find oneself surrounded by the unfriendly people, like oneself, that one doesn’t like.
Western Europe is, for the most part, more worker friendly. It’s also, again for the most part, more authoritarian. Southern Europe is less authoritarian, might be more worker friendly if one is lucky enough to find a job, and teaches doctorate level courses in corruption to places like New York, Illinois, and Louisiana. By the way, better be multilingual. About the only European area where that’s not a necessity are the British Isles, though it still takes time to get used to the accents (and the Scots may as well be speaking a different language).
Ooooh…right. This is the “poor me, my life sucks, and it’s all because of this horrible horrible place I live in, no matter how many people tell me otherwise” guy.
