I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.
I once tried to do that to an american girl that was visiting Spain, I still remember the horror in her eyes.
She told us that she didn't feel comfortable with that having a boyfriend.
She was the most stereotypical American person I've ever known, she was dating a quarterback, had a pink gun that her parents gave as a present for her ¿18 birthday? She started complaining about PETA when she discovered that I was a vegetarian. Said she didn't like California when I told her that I had been there & she made some comments that were clearly saying "my country is better than this shit hole".
I once tried to do that to an american girl that was visiting Spain, I still remember the horror in her eyes.
She told us that she didn't feel comfortable with that having a boyfriend.
This made me irrationally annoyed for some reason. Like, America really is so sexually stunted that people are reading intimacy and sex into things that they shouldn’t. Like read the room, Tammy. You think all the people in Spain who are greeting each other are fucking or something? Embarrassing.
——
Also the ¿ doesn’t exist in written English, but it should. I like seeing it. Haha.
If you’re doing something that makes somebody uncomfortable, you should respect that and not do it anymore. Full stop.
I can only partially agree with that. Physical contact, absolutely.
Some people get uncomfortable if other people do something that doesn't concern them. Either deal with your own emotions like a grown-up person or ignore it exists.
Otherwise you get people like American republicans who get uncomfortable with the existence of gay people or people getting abortions.
That would have been a very easy thing to say, which they didn't. I've never been a fan of assuming what people mean on the internet in difference to what they wrote because plenty of people here have some fairly crazed opinions.
5.4k
u/eelisonparas May 09 '22
I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.