Awkward social interactions when mixing up the rules

As you can imagine, there are some contradictions above (being stricter on what a friend is, but still being friendly with everyone? Being straight with people, but then lying and pretending to care about the craftsmanship of that crappy logo and brainless motto you’ve put on your business card?) – this is my life in a nutshell!

I have such a mess of social rules that disagree with themselves bouncing around in my head, that every single time I start talking to a new person I end up slipping up on one of them, and giving them one too many pecks on the cheek, being too close or too far away when talking, being too straight with them and offending them, or not being straight enough with them and having them not take me seriously.

It’s certainly exhausting that I essentially have to change everything about how I interact with people so regularly because I bounce around so much. It’s gotten to the extent that I find it impossible to say what comes naturally to me any more. Many things on this list come naturally to me now, but I try to suppress them if they aren’t natural to the country I am currently in. Customs that I grew up with and were a natural part of my world for two decades have had to be unlearned so that I can make new friends across the planet easier.

Or what about if you invite a girl out for a date? Should you be more Latin and traditional and hold the chair for her, pay for the meal, and tell her she’s pretty? Well then prepare yourself for a very offended girl if she happens to be from some countries where all that is patrionizing and a little sexist.

In travelling all this time, I have had to not only learn multiple languages, but I’ve had to learn multiple sets of social rules and “fluently” switch between them as I meet people of different nationalities. Whenever I’m successful, I can proudly say that I have made a new connection because they feel more comfortable with me, seeing that I talk to them like their peers back home do. But if I slip up even a little, then I can easily offend people, or (for me just as bad) not have them interested in spending more time with me, since I’m “just another annoying tourist”.

This is much more true than the ridiculous idea that you can ever frustrate people as a language learner! How you act, and what you are generally saying is everything in a social interaction. The actual words coming out of your mouth (or their efficient conjugation etc.) are only a fraction of this.

I shall continue onward in my attempt to learn these fascinating things that separate us and all the many more things that we have in common across different cultures. If I meet you in person some day, and act very strange it may be because I am in fact just very strange, but it may also be because my wires are crossed on which social norm I am supposed to be applying with your nationality. I hope you’ll forgive me if that happens, and be straight with me about it

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 741