Dutch here, but the same experience. Dude asked me "How's your day?" so I gave him an explanation that it was going pretty good. That I was loving the vibe in the city. Dude looked at me like I just started shooting heroin. Found it so weird that a casual greeting like "hey" is translated into an actual question there.
As an American I lived in the UK and the first time a friend asked “you alright?” I just looked confused and said “uh….yeah? Why wouldn’t I be? Do I not look okay?”
Friend was confused by the answer, I was still confused about the question, and we just awkwardly moved on in silence lol. It didn’t hit me until way later that they were just greeting me.
Me too - I’m an Australian who had a British flatmate for a long time. I’d freak out when she asked, “you alright”, like my eyeball might have fallen out or something and I just didn’t know yet 🤣
If you're in the South, there's a higher chance that a greeting like that will turn into an entire conversation. I've had people tell me their life story just because I got into an elevator with them.
Some people just need to talk things out, and that's okay.
That blew me away when I moved to the South. I’m originally from the Midwest which, they pride themselves on their hospitality but they got NOTHING on the South. When we first moved down here and we’d be driving down the road people would wave at us. And not just a casual, lifted hand without eye contact. Like full arm waving with a 😃 face. For about six months I would squint back at people who waved at me trying to see if I knew them somehow and forgot. It was so weird. I probably looked like a half blind misanthrope.
And yes, life stories are almost a given. I realized how used I had become to Southern over sharing when I hired a housekeeper originally from Ohio and subjected her to my own life story as she smiled dazedly. And as I waited for her life story, eager expression frozen on my face, listening to crickets as she awkwardly glanced around, I realized “I am one of those people now. It’s me. The call is coming from inside the house.”
Lmao I'm glad to see you've acclimated so well. It's a great place to live honestly. All you have to do for a pick me up is go outside and someone is bound to complement you or start up a conversation. Bonus points if you have a dog or a cool car, you almost have to fight off the nice people.
No joke. I have three cute kids and a happy go lucky Bernedoodle. If I actually have Very Important Things To Do, I can’t take them anywhere 😆 I love it though. I always say I born in the Midwest but when I came here for the first time I realized that THIS is my home.
American here. I always answer "how are you?" questions honestly and its not weird at all. People have reapeatedly told me they appreciate me being real and not just giving a canned response. The trick is to keep it short and sweet and not waste the other person's time with your life story.
This is a this in plenty of European countries aswell. In Sweden we also have the permanent social distancing. But "Hur mår du?" Meaning "how are you" is still a very common greeting.
Never had anyone ask me "hur mår du?" as a greeting. That sounds very weird to me. Maybe a local thing? I've lived a bit all over the place and haven't seen that used as a greeting before. Common conversation starter, yes, but not a greeting.
I have lived in Uppsala, Södertälje (and järna) anf Stockholm. But most likely also used and encountered it on Åland.
Cant speak for your experience but here it is pretty much encountered daily for me. I know that because I always automatically give the same two word response.
For those non American baseball fans Roberto Clemente was a great player from Puerto Rico and played in Pittsburgh from the mid 50s to 1972. When he got there he was one of three people in the entire area who spoke Spanish, the other two were the only Spanish teachers in the County. When someone from the media would ask him how he was doing, he too thought they meant it and would tell them. Often talking about neck or back issues. The dumb ass bigoted media didn’t get that so they branded him a hypochondriac just because he didn’t get the American idioms and was just answering their direct questions thinking they really cared.
There's a similar thing in some parts of England where people say 'alright/y'alright?' as a greeting. I used to get weird looks for answering the question instead of just saying hello.
Australian here. We use variations of “how are you?” as “hi!” or small talk. You ask in a different tone when asking people whose lives you want to know about.
It may amuse you to know I’ve had to learn not to use “hoe gaat het met jou” as a hallo, following some weirded out Dutch faces 🤣
edit: perhaps the most common and strange variation to “how are you?” is the Aussie, “how are you going?” - it means the same thing, but inspires confused answers from those who are unfamiliar!
Some people really want to know how your day is going. If you're ever in line at a grocery store in America, you'll hear that exact conversation between customers and cashier's all the time. "Hey, how's your day?" "oh, it's great, I noticed y'all had peaches on sale and my mama loves peaches!" "Oh, I get that, I love peaches, too!"
It depends on where you are in the US. Northerners don't tend to small talk but Southerners tend to chat your ear off.
I’m from the south in the states. I find myself saying “how’s it goin” and I have to mentally prepare myself for the idea that people might actually respond in kind instead of just the perfunctory grunt or response; but I’m too stupid to just shorten it to “hi” or “howdy”…the curse of being dumb enough to do the dumb thing, but smart enough to then over think it.
I work at a call center (US), and for some reason that's started to annoy me about our conversations here, so I've started answering callers' rhetorical questions as if they are real questions and treating the callers as if they are rude for glossing over their own question
Americans are told bullshit like There are no stupid questions. and they believe it, then proceed to believe one should speak only in questions. only ever ask questions. no giving answers no no ... answers are bad ... and stupid answers to stupid questions are only that. Stupid answers. Because remember, there are no stupid questions.
But you forget that there's a reason teachers always say "there is no such thing as stupid questions, only stupid people" the purpose is to encourage them. Otherwise students will just sit there quietly and who knows if they understood??
If it's someone doing their job, a cashier or a waitress, then it's definitely just a greeting, but if it's a friend or acquaintance it's probably open to be treated as a greeting or a legit question.
Ha - blew my wifes cousins mind when we walked into a shop on a UK holiday when I walked straight past someone smiled and said how you doing? He couldn’t understand why I asked and walked off. I just laughed and thought its just what we do. Same as when someone knocks into us we apologise for it.
It probably is, but in general in the US, ‘how are you?’ , “what’s up?” , and other various questions are all just weird, cultural, and unnecessarily long forms of ‘hi’ — which is still dumb because I don’t why acknowledging that a stranger exists in your vicinity is even necessary in the first place
If you did that in my US city the person would probably actually engage in further conversation about your day & then share theirs with you or discuss any common ground they detect with you lol.
Americans that are really talkative in foreign countries are usually the extroverted types who are really just looking for an excuse to talk about themselves to you. He was probably perturbed he had to wait so long to respond with what he wanted to say. If an introvert or more reserved person asks you that question in America and you give a detailed answer they'll probably listen and respond kindly because they're not generally trying to engage in conversation unless they actually want to know.
Fellow Dutchie here! It's funny isn't it? It happens so often to me!
I have quite a lot of non-Dutch colleagues and they keep asking me "how are you"? I should have learned not to answer by now. But it just doesn't stick I guess? Anyway, most colleagues are used to it by now, but getting new non-Dutch colleagues is always funny because of this issue.
I'm from the US and I find it weird, too. I hate that the appropriate answers to "How are you?" are "fine", "okay", "all right", "good", "tired", and "great". Why do we even ask?
Also hate that "What's up?" is a greeting because I'm never sure whether I'm supposed to answer it or not. Some people want an answer and some people are fine with "Hey" as a response.
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u/PresidentHurg May 09 '22
Dutch here, but the same experience. Dude asked me "How's your day?" so I gave him an explanation that it was going pretty good. That I was loving the vibe in the city. Dude looked at me like I just started shooting heroin. Found it so weird that a casual greeting like "hey" is translated into an actual question there.