Are Europeans really less friendly than Americans?

I am not really sure that this is true. I think it only seems that way.

Caveat: sterotypes are useless.

I remember when I first went to a grocery store in Europe I was nervous that someone was going to speak to me and my lack of local language skills was going to be horrifyingly, humiliatingly revealed. Everyone would look at me with xenophobic hate in their eyes. I would be cast out, spat upon, thrown down and kicked — told to get out of the country and go back to whatever hellhole I crawled from.

But that didn’t happen.

What happened was that the place was filled with bitter scowling people waiting in queues while bitter scowling shop assistants rang their purchases up with a snarl. No one spoke to each other. No one even looked at each other. No one bagged anybody's groceries but their own. 

 I was relieved.

But then I thought, How unhappy the people here are! How sad! What squalid, angry little lives they must live!

Eventually I learned better.

They are neither more nor less friendly in my opinion. It really is simply a matter of societal norms. And the differences in how the people in the cultures define ‘coldness’ or ‘friendliness.’

Conversely, one thing you hear from Europeans all the time is that American “friendliness” is “fake.” That ‘they smile but they don’t really mean it.”

As an American that assertion has always stung. It is dehumanizing, when you think about it. So, if I am friendly to a stranger, I am automatically not to be trusted? I am automatically a phony? That is not only offensive, it is…perverse.

At some point I heard an American expat say the same thing and I retorted that ‘In [Europe] can you stay here so long that a smile turns into a frown!”

And, that, in fact, really is the‘heart of the matter. It is polite and part of societal norms for Americans to smile, greet each other warmly, and chat while waiting in queues or whatever. (NOt that it always happens, but it happens more often there.)

You meet someone’s eyes, you give them a nod or a wave and a smile. You wink at the girl serving you. You French kiss the orderly at the hospital…OK, maybe that would be taking it too far..

Of course that does not mean the old American guy making jokes about your baby or the muscle-bound man who kindly and quickly helps you to carry your bags down the stairs at the subway stop is going to invite you home, cook dinner for you and give you a back rub while you watch your favorite TV show.

Why should it? That doesn’t mean he is fake. It’s just social lubricant. It makes waiting in the queue less of a hell. Because waiting in a queue is, frankly, hellish, isn’t it? It feels good to give someone a hand, doesn’t it?

Don’t you think that standing at a cash register taking people’s money all day long while they buy adult diapers, condoms and unhealthy food would suck? Doesn’t it make sense to start smiling and making jokes to the endless line of customers? Doesn’t it make things easier? I mean, the customers are in hell, standing in queue. And you, the cashier, are in your own hell, taking their money for a measley wage in a job where you are regarded as idiotic regardless of actual intelligence; where you don’t have health insurance; where you can be fired for practically nothing; where all you have to look forward to is fifteen glorious minutes of break-time with a chemical-filled microwave burrito with American “cheese” melted on top. (I have the recipe — message me for details.)

(pictured above: the American dream sans cheese.)

This is how Americans think. And that's why they are nice. It just feels better.

But a lot of Europeans* don’t see it that way. They see the whole process of chatting to strangers as ‘phony.’ Maybe even dangerous.

But that’s because societal norms dictate that they think that way: simply put, a European acting friendly might indeed have an ulterior motive than an American doesn’t have. Both are just ultimately running blindly to the whip of their culture. Like throughbreds in a race that ends up the same either way: in the cold dark grave.

Anyway, I know that I have had many a stranger glare and scowl at me in Europe; but when an mutual friend introduces me to them they are nearly always warm and friendly and kind and helpful. Once they know you are not insane, they are just as nice as Americans.

Mind you I think the American way is more pleasant. But then, on the other hand, at least in Europe, I don’t get some random old man jabbering on at me about the Broncos and last Sunday’s football game, which is a blessing because I don’t care about sports.

So when Americans say that Europeans are ‘unfriendly’, or Europeans say Americans are ‘phony’, I think they are simply making the mistake of projecting the norms of their own culture on the other.

*Europeans vary, of course. I expect some countries do not fit this stereotype at all.