No matter what country you were born in, what you view as “normal” or “odd” is greatly impacted by your nation’s culture. So many things we might not think about are uniquely American, but we may not realize it until we step beyond our borders and immerse ourselves in other countries’ norms.
For instance, I’ve never felt more American than I did sitting in a European restaurant impatiently waiting for the check for our meal. In U.S. restaurants, when you’re almost finished eating, the server will usually ask if you want anything else and then give you the check. In most European countries, they won’t bring the check until you explicitly ask for it. Meals are seen as inherently leisurely affairs, no rushing, no pressure to wrap up and leave. While that sounds nice, we were in eat-and-go mode and time was a-wasting—again, so very American.
Someone on Reddit asked what things people didn’t realize were “very American” until they left the U.S., and the responses are eye-opening. in addition to the eating fast meals thing, here were some of the top answers:
The weirdness of working while sick
It should be a given that you should stay home from work when you’re sick. In the U.S., it’s not.
“I moved to the Netherlands 8 years ago. Probably the biggest one to me was working while sick. For 20 years I came to work every day unless I physically could not. Like, I had to be so sick I legitimately could not make myself get out of bed. And even then I felt bad.
I wasn’t here for maybe 3 months when I got a cold and my boss came around to my desk and sent me home. I was still in my probation period. I was super worried that if I took a sick day I’d be fired and sent back on a plane to the US, my family mad as shit at me. I told him I’d go home but I’d have my laptop on me.
No, you will go home and rest.
Ok, I’ll be back tomorrow.
NO. You will stay home until you are well. I will not discuss this further.
When I came back well, several days later, my boss sent an American colleague around to talk to me. This guy had been there 10 years. He told me that they don’t want you getting anyone else sick, and ‘there’s unlimited sick time for a reason.’ So now I’m the one telling new arrivals to use their sick time.”
“This was me in London. I was just a bartender and I got the flu and was out for like a week. I called in every day apologizing profusely expecting them to replace me and tell me I took too long etc. they got annoyed eventually and told me if I don’t stay home until I’m better, even if it’s another 2 whole ass weeks, and if I called in again to say I wouldn’t be in, that they WOULD fire me being an annoyance. I stayed out for another maybe 4 days and called in to get on the schedule and everything was fine. They thanked me for staying home.”
“Meanwhile in America: School district says doctor’s notes will no longer excuse child absences.”
“At one point they threatened to criminally cite me with truancy for keeping my chronically sick child home on doctors orders. Let that sink in. I had a life-threateningly sick child. Caring for him. Following doctors orders. And was threatened with criminal charges for truancy.”
The delicious bliss that is ranch dressing
If you’re looking for the quintessential all-American food, ranch dressing might be it. (And peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as well.)
“Ranch dressing. Ranch flavored Doritos are still sold, but they’re labelled ‘American flavor.’”
“Side note… Hidden Valley Ranch is THE ranch that invented the dressing. It’s just neat we call it ranch dressing because the people that crafted the recipe owned a ranch, called Hidden Valley, and now the dressing is ‘Ranch’ dressing.”
“I have a coworker from a ranchless country. Every couple years, we work a gig together, and I’ll bring some ranch from the US because they love it lol.”
“My fiancee told me the other day that other countries don’t have ranch. Call me basic, but it’s my favorite dressing for salads, carrots, cucumbers, etc”
“This is what I was going to say. I’m from Wisconsin and we love our ranch dressing. I live in the Horn of Africa now and it’s impossible to come by. Luckily, there’s a French grocery store here that sells a small bottle of some brand I’ve never heard of so I stock up.
My (Djiboutian) girlfriend saw that I stocked the fridge and she asked if I ‘was making a sandwich’ while holding the bottle and I just said ‘Oh, dear. That goes on everything.‘”
Those big, gaudy billboards along the highway
This is not only in the U.S., and some states have banned them, but we do seem to have a thing for big advertisements.
“Truly one of the most underrated, disappointing things about the US. I wish they were banned in more states.”
“What is really fun is going down 75S and seeing all the adult superstore ads right next to all the religious hellfire ads.”
“My absolute favorite are the digital signs above the highways that tell you not to text and drive, while giving you a number to text for more info.”
The fact that we drive almost everywhere
Sure, we have public transportation. But that doesn’t mean it’s convenient or even an option for many Americans.
“Here in the US, outside of big cities, it’s pretty much required to drive a car. When I lived abroad for a few years I was able to survive completely off public transport, the occasional taxi, and walking on my own two feet.”
“Yeah, my partner is from Massachusetts and I (British) saw there was a grocery store less than a mile away and figured I could walk there, as I usually would at home.
I could not walk there.”
“I took a business trip to Richardson, Texas, an inner-ring suburb of Dallas, about 10 years ago (I worked in Chicago)
I remember staying at a hotel and having to go to our Texas office out there.
From the hotel, I could SEE the office. As the crow flies, 5 minute walk, TOPS!
It took me 30+ minutes to get there WITH A CAR!!!”
“I’m British and I lived in Wisconsin for a while. People became immediately suspicious of me when I told them I don’t drive and never have. I actually had to come up with reasons to explain (which I do have) in order for them to be somewhat pacified. But I definitely felt held in a different regard subsequently; for in the UK driving is a choice, in America however, I was under the impression that they thought something was wrong with me.”
The super size of our sodas
Yes, we know. This might be the most predictable response, but it’s also a fact.
“I am in North America on vacation at the moment and I definitely made a mistake ordering a large drink at McDonald’s. Turns out ‘large’ on this side of the Atlantic is about twice as big as the ‘large’ back home. Even the US medium-sized drink is bigger than the largest available in Europe.”
“Never order a large drink in the US unless you want a half gallon drink.”
“Try ordering a large drink at a movie theater over here. They basically just hand you a portable bathtub filled with enough sugar to give an elephant diabetes.”
“Yeah don’t get soda over here they’ll try to drown you in it. Enough soda for a full week served in a bucket.”
“Yes, but do you fill your cups up with ice where you are from? I think U.S. soft drinks are larger to account for all the ice.”
(The fact that we put ice in all our drinks is also oh-so-American.)
The size of our printer paper, apparently?
We know that letter paper is 8.5 in x 11 in, but that’s not the size of paper most of the world prints on. Most use A4, which is 8.27 in x 11.69 in. Much like our commitment to empirical measurements over the metric system, this causes issues when we interact with the rest of the world.
“Letter-size paper vs A4 paper.”
“I work part time at Staples, in the print and marketing department. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had folks from other countries ask why their documents were cut off when they made copies. They’re always baffled that we don’t use the same paper sizes, which I get. It’s especially irritating because A4 is SO CLOSE to 8.5×11.”
‘Worked for an internal law firm in Canada back when everyone printed and signed documents in person. Had a lot of fun with the mix of letter, legal and A4 paper that we’d get on some deals. Especially irritating when sharing a printer and someone prints on your special order A4 paper before you do.”
“This was fairly frustrating when I was applying for my Taiwanese dual citizenship. I would get documents formatted for different countries, and if I don’t check the settings and scale it appropriately before I hit the print button, I’d get an error message, and I had to print out at least 50 pages of stuff.
Also, for instance, my birth certificate, federal background check, and some other papers printed in the US are in Letter size, but once they got authenticated by the Taiwanese government, the authentication certificate they’d staple to it is A4, and the folder it’s contained in looked a little lopsided and sloppy, and it’s mildly frustrating and hilarious to try to arrange it neatly.”
“I had a job where the Belgium office made an app that was hard coded to use A4 paper. If you printed on US Letter paper it would print a little on the 2nd page. Such a weird programming choice.”
The competitiveness of our high school and college sports
Or the fact that we even have competitive high school and college sports teams, apparently.
“I think this is a big one. Most Americans expect/understand American football and baseball aren’t played in European high schools, but a lot of them probably assume high schools still have large soccer stadiums and programs. And that colleges would also have soccer programs. But athletics is mostly an independent entity from academic institutions.”
“There was a split in the 1800’s where america went with extracurricular sports and europe went with club sports and rec leagues.”
“Absolutely insane to me how many people are fervently, truly fanatically obsessed with their college sports teams. Whenever I say the NCAA should be its own minor-league organization and completely separate from schools people act like I told them to bury their own family alive.”
“As an Australian, Americans’ obsession with literal teenagers playing amateur sports for their school always struck me as deeply weird.”
The awesomeness of our ‘sink blenders’
The best part of this one is what everyone calls them.
“Garbage disposers.”
“Disposals.”
“Garburators.”
“Disposaraters.”
“Dispogarbagiozers.”
“Insinkerators. Actual brand name.”
“I love the first time I saw a European talking about one on reddit and they called it a ‘sink blender.’”
“I was going to say this. When my now-wife visited me in the US, she was both enthralled and terrified of mine. Now that I’m in Canada, I find out that it is illegal to have one in some parts!”
The way we shoot the breeze with strangers—and loudly
We’re allegedly a friendly bunch, and we let everyone within earshot know it.
“Chit chat, Americans can start conversations with random strangers & feel completely normal to share their stories.”
“I was working retail in Stockholm for a while and one of my coworkers told me she was surprised by how many customers wanted to chitchat with me, because ‘we don’t do that, generally.’”
“I’ll never forget the feeling of wanting to melt into the earth because I asked for a light for a cigarette on a street in London. The number one reason I enjoyed smoking was all the new friends you can make just by both being smokers. I honestly have no idea why Brits smoke if they don’t want to make new friends.”
“The loudness. My fellow Americans talk SO LOUD ALL THE TIME.”
“I was in Amsterdam last week and all I could hear were Americans talking so loudly. There were so many of them as well… Or maybe it was the same group talking so loud I could hear them from different parts in the city.”
“It’s crazy, I was in Utrecht the other day. There’s probably 150 people drinking outside enjoying the sun and chatting and you can still easily spot the American from a distance so loud.”
“Yeah that’s the first thing that hit me arriving into JFK from the UK, I knew about the stereotype but honestly wasn’t prepared! I feel like at some point in history you had a deaf leader and everyone just went along with it similar to the King of Spain’s lisp.”
For better and for worse, being an American comes with some distinct qualities we might not see until we venture elsewhere. What would you add to the list?
