Don't touch me, I'm British | Hacker News Reader

Don't touch me, I'm British

ft.com

201 pointstransmit101140 comments

I flit between the UK and Turkey, and the two are both somewhere close to opposite ends on the social scale.

In the UK, you can walk into a pub and talk to people, providing you're not interrupting a discussion, or forcing yourself on the people in the group. It's easier if you're on your own or with one other person to join an existing group, or talk to an individual, but it's not common. You don't make eye contact on the tube in London, but you can talk to people in general outside of London, and especially up north people are more approachable. Do not touch (beyond a handshake at most), unless you're very familiar and there's a high volume of foreigners in the group.

In Turkey (and these are observations as an Englishman so I might be interpreting this wrong), people are extremely friendly and nosy by comparison. Turks are incredibly physical in social groups and don't really have a concept of personal space. In Istanbul women and men intermingle in some social classes and circumstances but not others. A kiss on each side of the cheek is expected when the opposite sex is involved provided you've met before. Don't be surprised if women put their arms around you, tell them their cold and want you to hug them etc. if you're in a social secular group. In more religious or formal groups, things are more separate - men will still hug each other all the time and put arms round each other but women are never touched (unless they're related or married, and not generally in public). When you go out to the country it really varies from community to community and the local culture. The further east the less intermingling with the sexes, but guys are still generally friendly with each other.

The biggest differences between the UK and Turkey are in going out. Turks... good god, Istanbul Turks... You go out around 8-10pm and don't come in till 5am. Getting drunk is a bit socially inappropriate (in most groups) but the party goes on all night.

In the UK, the party normally goes on till about midnight/2am outside, then occasionally continues back at someone's house, but will start between 5 and 8pm. In the UK, getting drunk is not only socially acceptable but expected. Unsurprisingly as the drinking continues, social rules about touching start to unravel.

TL:DR - It's bloody complicated in England, and changes from group to group in Turkey. Grrrrrrr!!!!

In the other cities of Turkey -especially the ones in central anatolia-, young groups have very different culture and their own way to get drunk. My favorite one is to play card games till midnight in a cafe and continue the night in a slowly moving car with a group of people drinking beer, listening anatolian rock&folk music (popular ones; cem karaca, yeni turku, fikret kizilok). We used to have a football match also before starting to drink (then we're parking somewhere far away from the city and drinking outdoor because of heavy amount of perspiration), twice a week. Even though the city I grew up in is a little bit strict&religious, people hugs, kisses each other with no sexual thought. But flirting protocol is not that short/low cost, it requires to do some research FOA, signal revisions, pre-relationship consultancy, tracing, messaging traffic etc

This is one of the things I love about Turkey. No matter what rules are put in, even socially, people find a way to route about it.

Also central Anatolia is an incredible place.

Generalizations but reasonably accurate ones in my experience. I find it far easier to socialize and interact with strangers in the US than in the UK. There's a certain "shock" and disbelief that can appear in the eyes of a Briton if you randomly talk to them in public. I can't blame them though, I act exactly the same way until I leave its borders! Perhaps this is why so many Brits travel and move overseas ;-)

An ancillary point that I've noticed over the years is the relative unpopularity of open social/discussion sites in the UK compared to the US. The UK is Facebook mad, of course, but doesn't really have a locally popular equivalent of Reddit, Hacker News, Digg, MetaFilter, etc. I wonder if the reduced desire to converse with random people has an effect in this scope too.

I find it varies with region of the US, too. Generally people in the South, Midwest or Southwest are more willing to engage in conversations with strangers, and people in New England are less so. I've had people in Massachusetts stare at me and not say anything when I've talked to them (not saying anything unusual, I swear!).

In New York City, though, talking on the street is far easier than in the Midwest.

Most people who live in NYC weren't born or raised there. I could see why conversation would appear to be easy for them (you?). I can tell you though, real New Yorkers don't like talking to strangers.

Are you from New York? Reason I ask is because I am and even born-and-raised New Yorkers don't mind talking to strangers (or are you just talking about parts of Brooklyn?).

...just don't be a creep or do it on the subway.

I'm from Brooklyn and based my comment on that. Could be that you Manhattan natives are different, quite honestly I haven't met too many people that were born and raised in Manhattan.

In my experience New Yorkers hate to make idle chat unless they've been given a reason. In general, we're happy to give directions, and we are happy to talk to people if we're in some constrained situation, like standing on line together, commiserating over transportation, that sort of thing. But if we're on the street or in the park and you approach us to talk, odds are good you're homeless, crazy, grifting, or you want us to sign some god-damned petition.

I'm a WASP land surveyor in the Mid-Atlantic region and recently I had to do an out-of-town job in Providence, RI. Our crew stayed in a not-that-busy hotel but the only people other than the staff who would talk to us were an Orthodox Jewish couple who were from Brooklyn. Maybe they just recognised a fellow traveller, but they were quite friendly and conversational on the elevator and in the common areas. People from RI wouldn't talk to us, though.

You can randomly talk to a Briton in exactly one situation - at the pub. The rules are different there, and the booze helps too.

Are you from the UK?

If not, are you from the US?

Do you have a particular accent?

First word of his comment gives it away, 'Generalizations' rather than 'Generalisations' make it obvious he's American.

Or instead of relying on (flawed) heuristics, you could just click on his username, check out the pages mentioned in his profile, and figure out Peter Cooper is a "UK author, entrepreneur [..] digital jack of all trades based in the north of England.:

He's also been known to appear on a podcast or two, thereby dispelling all doubt.

An astute observation but I'm English and living in England; sorry! I write (but don't speak) US English all of the time because 90%+ of my clients are American and I spend most of my time communicating and working with Americans :-)

That aside, I prefer written US English as a "standardized" form of English in any case. British English feels a little parochial nowadays with the Internet as it is. I shall put my flame-proof suit on now..

Oxford English is surely the most 'fun' because they differentiate between -ize and -ise suffixes based on the origin of the word (greek vs. latin/french IIRC). Though as far as I know, most British have standardised on the -ise suffix. In Australia we have definitely standardised on -ise, hence my own spelling. While Americans standardised on -ize.

None the less, I undertook one semester of commercial law at university a while ago and had to learn Oxford spelling for the exam as it is apparently used in our legal system. This is despite the fact that the government's own style guide standardises on -ise.

The Oxford English Dictionary disagrees: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77505?redirectedFrom=generaliz...

I'm a Brit living in California and I've definitely noticed this - in myself and others. At first it's almost shocking, but after a while it seems so much healthier.

The odd part is that I've noticed myself feeling suddenly shy and self-conscious upon meeting other British people here.

Having lived in London for a year, it was a far cry from Greece. Over here, we almost never talk to strangers, although I think I've developed a self-confidence that does allow me to do that and not sound creepy, nowadays. I've found that, in the UK, you can talk to anyone at the pub and it's natural, and in California even more so, but it's not that big of a difference.

Of course, maybe it's just me talking to everyone regardless of the norms, but people respond very well.

I think it's not particular to Britain but to Europe in general (Austrian resident of 6 years currently in Atlanta, Georgia).

Americans are just incredibly friendly compared to Europeans (at least on aggregates).

"Europe" is very diverse from North to South. Your sentence is quite reasonable when you consider Central/Northern Europe, but doesn't quite make sense if you think of Southern Europe.

ido is also currently in Atlanta Georgia ("The Deep South"), which is much friendlier than some other parts of the US. I've lived all over the US and grew up in Georgia. There are regional differences here as well.

European countries have regional differences also...within the same country. In some cases these differences are very big also. Think of Spain where there is still a huge division between provinces and some don't even speak the same language. Think of the UK with Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. Big regional differences.

It's a matter of scale. Country-level differences are far more significant. I don't think you can compare the cultural differences between someone of the "deep south" and NY, to those of, for instance, Sweden and Italy.

Yes, I lived in Germany for a time. However, many of the states of the US are the size of countries in Europe. And there are substantial differences in terms of mix and percentage of Ethnicities, religions, etc. I lived in Washington state, which is apparently Mormon country more than other places I have lived. I have lived in Columbus Georgia, where the population is nearly half white and half black. Very, very few Hispanics, Asians, etc. On the West Coast (where I lived in both Washington state and in California), there are a great many more Asians than there seem to generally be on the East Coast -- which makes logical sense since it is physically closer to Asia but was something of a shock to me when I first arrived on the West Coast. I didn't expect the West Coast to be as different from the East Coast as it was. I figured I was 'still in America' and it wouldn't be all that different. I was wrong.

I don't buy your last paragraph. Britain has some seriously large open discussion forums such as Mumsnet and Money Saving Expert. Those are well known by the average person in the street and have some serious political weight.

Also: don't confuse London's relative hostility with the rest of the UK. The north is especially friendly and welcoming. Much more so, than say, New York.

I reckon that although Britons as a rule wouldn't normally strike up a conversation with a stranger, the culture of "politeness" means that if found unexpectedly in a conversation with a stranger, they will continue unless they really do actually have somewhere they need to be.

I would say a lot of Brits really do enjoy talking to people, not as an obligation of 'politeness'. The culture of politeness is more likely to be a cause than a symptom. (Speaking for myself) I find it hard to talk randomly to strangers because it's imposing on whatever they may be doing at the time.

Watch for Brits asking each other for directions, or for the time, even in plain view of a clock tower. It's sweet in a repressed kind of way.

> The UK is Facebook mad, of course, but doesn't really have a locally popular equivalent of Reddit, Hacker News, Digg, MetaFilter, etc.

There are plenty of UK people who read these. I expect the reason there aren't any popular UK-specific equivalents is simply that most English-speaking people on the net aren't from the UK, so any English-language site is likely to be dominated by non-UK people (unless its content is UK-specific).

I don't know how big it is, but I believe b3ta.com is predominately UK.

True dat about German nudity. I lived in Germany a few years and sang in a few choirs (one very good way to learn good pronunciation, actually) - after one concert, everybody backstage changed clothing. Together. I was about 19 at the time, and I'm from Indiana - it nearly killed me.

"it nearly killed me."

Proximity to an unshielded nudity core can have that effect.

The Nude Bomb?

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081249/ -- safe for work)

What's funny is most of the people in Indiana ... are German.

There are people with German ancestry, sure. But having parents or heritage from a country does not make you a countryman. People in Indiana who don't speak German, haven't lived in Germany for a substantial part of their lives, and don't know much about Germany aren't Germans. This is probably a good example of that.

Thanks for explaining America, captain obvious. I said "What's funny" because it's supposed to be a joke.

You should read this: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Most" is pretty inaccurate. And I don't consider people who can't pronounce "Schwartz" to be German, do you?

I mean, I don't speak a word of Gaelic or Shawnee.

Very true - you can be walking through the Tiergarten in Berlin on a sunny day and stumble across a group of nude sunbathers. You know, just sunning.

Oddly, in Britain this kind of thing happens quite a lot -- most older men certainly aren't shy about showering naked in public after swimming, for example.

Thinking rationally, being shy about our bodies doesn't really make sense -- are there any logical reasons why nudity isn't ok?

No it doesn't make sense, but its somehow culturally ingrained. Asia has a very different view, such as Japanese Onsen where everyone is naked in the big group pool, but you don't put your head underwater, no sir.

Public baths are segregated by gender.

They weren't before Western culture got involved.

For a long time humans have been using their intelligence to bypass evolution pressures. Nudity isn't necessarily the 'natural' state of being for most humans.

You can't "bypass" it, you can only redirect it. Natural selection always applies, you merely get to influence the environment in which it happens a bit (and in practice, almost always forget to account for second-order effects).

I personally suspect prudishness about clothing is related to how important clothing was, historically, in a given country. For example, Britain is very cold, very wet, and the British used to sail all over the stormy oceans in wooden boats. Consequentially, clothing would have been extremely valuable for warmth.

Same for the Swedes, but they get naked at the drop of a hat.

Time to move to Sweden

I just heard an echo in my mind of Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation saying "Any. Hat." What is it about colder environments that the colder they are, the less clothing the natives wear? :D And I agree wholeheartedly with many of the assertions in the original post. Particularly the assertion that alcohol was distilled so that we Brits could build up the courage to reproduce. :)

I like this theory and shall adopt it as a perfect explanation until i hear otherwise.

I don't see naked people in Saudi Arabia.

That's because clothes are important in the desert. It's not intuitively obvious at first, but the right clothes shield you from the sand & sun, combat dehydration, and actually keep you cooler while also keeping you warm during cold desert nights.

Yes you are right. Apologies for snarkiness.

One observation though, even the aborigines in Papua would cover up their privates in little tubes or bits of hide. I thought this surprising.

Why? In my experience an nudity in a non-sexual context does nothing. I have never been aroused by changing clothes with other people. It seems that the brain has a switch that is quite independent of nudity, which makes sense in times when people didn't wear clothing.

People get uncomfortable with nudity for reasons other than arousal, eg., feeling unsanitary, a sense of privacy with respect to physical features and grooming, etc.

Similar story, except it was mixed showering after martial arts practice in Germany. It wasn't especially uncomfortable, but I was thinking, "my friends back home are never going to believe this!"

I know this is a particular case, but want to share anyway.

I always heard in Mexico that German people were very cold and dry. When I visited north Germany about 4 years ago, I was introduced to my aunt's mother-in-law, and as I'm accustomed I went right up to her, gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Well her reaction amused me, she got in a very cheerful mood and I got an extra spoonful of food at the table. :)

I've had to teach myself to touch everyone I meet (on the bottom of the elbow, or top of the shoulder), and start conversations with strangers in any situation. I've met a good number of friends this way, and if the touching is done properly and subtly enough, it can instantly create a warmth that is hard to achieve any other way.

And yet, when you say it on the internet, it just sounds creepy.

I suppose this is because touching people (and social interaction in general) comes naturally to most people, but not necessarily to people who spend time commenting on discussion forums on the internet :-)

Only because he couldn't touch you while saying it.

I remember reading a comment the other day from someone who misunderstood the sarcastic tone of a previous comment. Paraphrasing 'it's so hard to discern nuance or sarcasm in a comment'.

It would be a lot easier to parse if we hadn't collectively decided that emoticons were rendered passé through misuse.

(=゜-゜)ノ UTF is in style

Only because I can't upvote more than once, have to say I bust out laughing at this one.

I definitely love this method. I learned this in a workshop and was amazed at how people reacted as opposed to the tapping on the back. Works well for groups as well. Always approach from the side or the front.

We have a sales/marketing guy that does this. It's clearly a learned/trained pattern of behaviour (maybe you can hide it better!). Nobody ever mentions it, and acts in a friendly manner. However, when he's not there pretty much everyone comments on how creepy it is and how patronised they feel.

Just something to consider - not saying that's the case with you, but this is a classic area where immediate or obvious reactions are often very different from inward feeling.

I agree, nothing sets "I will not buy your crap" more firmly in my mind than a sales person that touches me physically.

I always wonder about this - I used to be completely touch-avoidant, and trained myself to be less so (As you can probably tell, I'm not a sales/marketing guy). I don't think I'm unnatural about it, but how can you really tell?

It's only blown up once.

Some people could use to leave the canned pitch in the elevator.

Just noticing the parallels that something social delivered too perfectly polished seems like a computer generated face with perfect symmetry, e.g., totally fake.

You probably meant "i.e.". "e.g." means "for example".

I'm not doubting your story but maybe it's to do with intentions? A slimy salesperson who fakes warmth and friendliness in an attempt to ingratiate himself would rub me up the wrong way as well, but when done sincerely I really appreciate it and make an effort to do it for others too.

I suppose it is possible that everyone i know secretly resents it and gossips behind my back about my creepy touchy feeliness but I don't think so. Indeed, they reciprocate, which would be pretty counterproductive if they actually wanted me to stop.

I was pretty much taught to never touch anyone in middle school. I attended a private school that assessed 15 “demerits” for Personal Contact Infractions. Really put a kibosh on my teenage and college years romantically and I am still paying the price to this day.

The information that the smooth touchy people deduced automatically: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edh2GQHZmtI (in case this link dies, it's Lance Mason's "How To Kino")

Be prepared for this to fail more or less dramatically every now and then. Some people just don't like to be touched; I've met them.

I'm generally extremely uncomfortable touching people, even some people that I know pretty well.

Depending on the exact situation, the kind of touching discussed here would result in either me flinching/pulling away, or being less subtle in my expression of dislike, in a strong Glaswegian accent.

I can't help but think that you are doing something that you think works but in reality doesn't; if anyone decided to touch my shoulder it would definitely break my current concentration and make me wonder what the hell you are getting at, just seems like cheesy friendly guy with no regards to personal space.

If you touched my elbow I'd probably just walk away (as an american raised male it just seems so wrong).

It would probably be different though if it wasn't someone who I just met and had an accord with.

In america the physical proximity and touching thing man-to-man is usually a power move. Alpha-dog moves into your personal space and puts a hand on your shoulder to emphasize who's boss. Or sometimes it's just done to throw the other guy off kilter. Be careful with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNKNAK60AXk&t=1m10s

Far different from a light touch on the elbow and "can I speak to you a second" or "you look familiar, have I seen you at _x_" but point taken.

T-shirt idea:

For your own safety . . .

(Back)

. . . don't touch anything on this side without permission.

(Lower back)

And if you're reading this and not a kid, pick yourself up and reread the above. Have a nice day.

I'm from the UK, but if a guy went up to me and put his arm around me while talking to me then that's what I consider it to be, too. There are a couple of guys that try to do this sometimes, and I've never quite been sure what the correct response is.

Stop moving and stare them in the eye with a vaguely irritated look.

Another rather lazy article, playing on boring stereotypes, pedestrian anecdotes and uninteresting conclusions. We're all aware of national stereotypes, and we're used to seeing lame stand up comics riff on them, however it's unusual to see the FT stoop so low.

If Simon Kuper (a Brit, though one with a sheltered upbringing it seems) thinks Brits are reserved and prudish, I suggest he visits Glasgow, Newcastle or indeed any city on a Friday or Saturday night. I dare say he might witness similar revelations if he were to explore other cultures further, rather than drawing on boring clichés.

An example of the partying culture in parts of Britain can be seen in these pics of the late-night crowd on a Friday night in Cardiff, Wales: http://www.pbase.com/maciekda/cardiff_st_mary_street_zone

Definitely not "reserved" and "prudish", if you ask me... but I've never been there, so I don't know how far this is from the truth.

That's really very typical of every UK city. It's a product of the late night binge drinking culture here, people don't act like this when sober and in day to day situations.

In Glasgow it is normal to talk to people in almost any situation, it's the same in Ireland as well.

And in Edinburgh, which is an hours drive away, it's not really the done thing.

Had I been aware of this in my youth, I would have cultivated a French accent and kissed every female within range, little girls, grandmothers, even pretty girls. I am sure I would have been happier.

I picked up a French accent in about 6 months during which I lived in Brazil and met a ton of French people. I also watched a couple of French flicks.

So it's never too late.

I have loosened up mightily as the years have gone by, but these days it seems to be more grandmothers than sweet young things.

Why? It's just a kiss on the cheek, like you would shake hands. It doesn't mean anything... We do this in Greece too, every time you see someone again (or maybe meet someone for the first time) it's customary to kiss them, usually twice.

And it generally isn't a kiss, it's more rubbing cheeks and making a smacking sound, the heads are parallel.

Yep.

I live in a small town (Sedona Arizona) with lots of international tourists, many I talk to while hiking two or three days a week on our local wilderness trails. Mostly, everyone seems to want to talk to a local, but perhaps they are just trying to be extra friendly visiting a foreign country.

I consciously try to be helpful with visiting tourists and suggest fun places to visit in our area. Even though I would prefer to carry a sidearm in the wilderness because of mountain lions, etc., I don't because I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable: I think that people from most European countries aren't used to seeing people carry guns.

Here in the USA, we do seem to have interesting behavior regarding hugging friends of the opposite sex vs. same sex. At least in our circle of friends, men almost always hug friends' wives in greeting but we only hug each other on birthdays, after especially good dinner parties, etc. - mostly special occasions.

An omission would be the Chinese -- I think we are one the most repressed. Close friends never hug and conversations are always awkward in first encounters. Love is often expressed in terms of gifts and 'formal' attempts at the opposite sex, boys often chasing girls; formal in the sense that flirting doesn't happen often, instead, you 'be nice' to the girl...

That whole close friends hugging thing among Americans must be regional. In Indiana, I think we've only started doing it lately because other people seem to do it. Or something. It's always embarrassing.

Among men, anyway. Women have different rules.

This surprises me. When I was in China 10 years ago, I certainly noticed (as a Brit) how normal it was to see people walking down the street hand in hand. It didn't seem to matter if they were two guys, girls or, err, any other combination.

I wonder if things have changed or if it was a regional difference. I was in Shenyang at the time.

Yes, I agree here. The couples love to hold hands etc...

What I meant before was when the boy was still chasing the girl...! Apologies for the confusion :P.

I agree. As a chinese guy, i've never even hugged my parents.

Fix that NOW. Don't waste anytime showing your parents love.

Kissing (an acquaintance) in the UK happens a lot - one cheek, sometimes two. I the fact this guy was surprised says more about him than the population in general.

>Kissing (an acquaintance) in the UK happens a lot - one cheek, sometimes two.

The only times I've really seen this is with upper/upper-middle class - ladies-wot-lunch and all that - and at some schools. Generally it's only been women kissing.

The only people I cheek-kiss outside the family are close personal friends and even then only a few and it's not a measure of closeness or strength of friendship (strangely).

I can imagine it's common in some areas of the South?

Yey, different countries/cultures have different traditions. Film at 11. If you want to be useful, set up a site/wiki that can describe the different traditions in different countries. That would be useful.

http://wikitravel.org/ does a reasonable job of this. Obviously it's difficult explaining the culture of a nation in a few dozen paragraphs, and doubly so on a wiki.

For example (http://wikitravel.org/en/Britain#Respect):

    Allow some personal space between you and others in queues and elsewhere.
    You will usually find this in such places as cinemas. Generally, unless
    people know each other, you will find they will usually choose to fill up
    every row of seating and keep as much distance of possible until there is
    a requirement to sit directly next to each other. Exceptions are in very
    crowded situations where this is impossible, like on the Tube.

That's the case in the US as well. I think it's common courtesy more than anything else. Same reason a man doesn't take the urinal immediately next to another that is being used, unless he has to. It is courteous to give people their personal space so long as it's convenient to do so.

I think in some cultures this may be seen as insulting, if personal space isn't as freely given as part of the culture.

I think you approached this article with a different set of expectations than I had. It felt like a personal essay early on for me. I don't think it's meant to be an empirical distillation of the ways in which a few cultures are different from one another. I found it to be elucidating in the way that a standup comic might be (I recognize the pattern, but never thought of it concretely; e.g., 'Guys always leave the seat up.') Maybe you have a more broad exposure to different cultures than I have.

A wiki on cultural differences is a really good idea, though.

One thing you also have to know about France: the number of kisses on the cheek vary from one place to another. Check out this website: http://combiendebises.free.fr/ I come from the south (Hérault département) and now live in the suburbs of Paris. I have to remember that in Paris it's two kisses whereas in the south it's generally 3 (sometimes it's only 2). It can be really disorienting, and awkward when you make the move to do the last kiss when really it's already finished. Fun times.

I'm from Britain, live in the US with my American wife, and find it hard to recognise these behaviours in anyone I've met who is younger than middle aged.

I'm from Britain, line in Canada with my Canadian wife. Ditto.

People here go from repressed up the wazoo to open and friendly as anything. Being in my early 20's, this is what I've seen all my life.

Claiming Britons don't like to be touched is wholly misleading as I hugged most of my friends, even my guy friends. Girls didn't avoid touching you. Put it this way, for a term of English origin, I had no clue what cooties was nor had I heard it mentioned growing up from anyone. It took me associating with Americans and Canadians to even hear the word.

On this topic, I've noticed that North America is seemingly the only country with a sociopathy over touch. Back in Yorkshire I remember getting served at bars and convenience stores and people would slap change into your hand frivolously. Here in Ontario there's this anal-retentive dance that people try to give you change but refuse to touch you to actually give you the damn change. They'll try to slot the note into your hand and drop the change from like 4 inches, it's psyco-level bizarre.

I guess this is the difference when you grow up in an area with a history of mining, fishing and farming. People aren't afraid of touch.

Ha, definitely. There seems to be some kind of bacteria neurosis embedded in the baby boomer psyche. I'm always astonished by the bottles of alcohol hand-sanitizer EVERYWHERE. And the hands-free paper towel dispensers. And the automatic flush toilets. With disposable toilet seat covers.

Yet somehow, nobody covers their mouth when they cough!

That's because of the SARS outbreak.

This is a little more deeply engrained than from an outbreak of a single disease. The thing that is bizarre is that Ontarians respond to disease similar to how the Japanese cultural response has been to radiation.

The only thing is Japan had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. Ontario has at most one outbreak of an infectious disease, which didn't really do a god damn thing; 44 Torontonians died from SARS... but by the average incidence of accidents over 5100 Torontonians literally died because 'shit happens'.

It's so completely bizarre to an outsider. I mean if this is a corollary to all North Americans, if I go to New York I expect everyone to duck and cower on the ground whenever they hear the sound of a plane. But they don't.

The exact same thing with the change also happens in New Zealand and it's quite annoying! Now I wonder what could have brought it about in both countries.

I'm british and just turned 30, i consider it normal to kiss someone when meeting them. The only potential point of awkwardness is knowing how many kisses you're meant to give. Depending on the person it can be between 1 and 3 kisses, 2 is a safe bet but there's always people that are surprised by the extra/missing kiss.

(British, spend significant amounts of time in the US/France)

It varies hugely depending on context, even in London. For example my main group of friends in London is unusually tactile (for anywhere in the world). A kiss on the forehead, a slap on the arse, a hug for no particular reason in a completely asexual, gender- and orientation-nonspecific is completely normal[1]. There is no frickin' way I'd extrapolate from that to any other friends groups, let alone work colleagues, anywhere in the world.

[1] I have a theory that it's because we're all incredibly dysfunctional and run each other on the same code paths we'd use for cats.

Here's another data point. In South Africa, in black African culture (can't be more specific than this, unfortunately), it is considered polite to enquire after someone else's health when greeting: "hello, how are you". Or rather it's considered rude NOT to enquire. The standard response is "I'm fine thanks, and you?".

When I listened to talk radio in South Africa years ago, I remember white people calling in, and wondering why the automatic response to the phrase "hello" was often "I'm fine thanks and you".

There's this whole odd thing recently in New York where people in Manhattan want to do the French air kissing on the cheeks thing. You never quite know who is going to do it, and what the proper response is, and being from Texas its all rather awkward. There are no hard and fast rules anymore, people pick things up from movies and travel.

The author writes, "Americans hug friends of the opposite sex, but during this hug only their shoulders touch, and participants end by rubbing each other’s backs as proof that the hug was nonsexual."

This is so true. There are 3 types of hugs: the sideways hug (as the author mentions), the "A" hug where just the tops of the bodies meet, and the full on bear hug. If you get an "A" hug after a date, that's not a good sign. ;-)

Missing research which suggest the type of hug and psychological meaning behind it: pelvic proximity (or touching) and lack thereof.

Men and women in Western cultures routinely[0] shake hands to introduce themselves. That defiantly counts as touching. Somehow the author managed to forget this.

[0] Mike Arrington being an exception. http://techcrunch.com/2009/05/09/hand-shaking-is-so-medieval...

If you'll permit my analogy, a handshake is to a signature on a form, what a hug is to a personal note. Completely different.

A handshake is to a hug, what a signature on a form is to a personal note.

There, fixed that for you. ;)

Heh. Thanks

As an American I dont think a handshake = touching. A handshake is such a common ritual that I barely notice it. If someone touches me on the elbow or wrist, I am instantly aware.

Isn't that exactly what this article is about? In other cultures "Did you touch each other?" might get a "no" response even after a kiss. In others, people who look at each other longer or more often than is the norm are forced to marry or will be tried for adultery (or be attacked for showing insufficient respect)

If only the French would respect this. I don't want to go around kissing every acquantance I make. Seems like a guaranteed way to spread germs. Yet when you go to France you're almost forced to do this - last time I was there I really did want to say 'don't touch me, I'm British.' Except I would need to say it in every separate encounter. Only solution would be to stay there long enough to cultivate an effective 'miss me with that shit' demeanor/manner.

I think you were not lucky because on my experience kissing is not the majority even in France. I would say it depends on the context. At work peoples only handshakes. In others situations the norm is: men handshakes men, and men kisses women (if it's an acquaintance, otherwise only handshake). In south, if you know well the other guy you may even kiss him (really weird)! And In families, everybody kisses everybody.

I can't really agree with this article. I moved from the Netherlands to the UK, and I was surprised to notice that any Brit who you've met before at least once will give you a hug the next time they meet you. In the Netherlands hugs are reserved for very close friends and family.

Also, I've had people talk to me on the bus, in the queue in Tesco, etc. Quite unusual to me as well.

I always found it strange to shake a woman's hand when meeting. In Brazil they kiss on two cheeks, which seems more natural to me. Guys always shake hands.

If she's a gf/wife/friend of a friend, I'm not about to enter into a business negotiation with this woman, so why shake hands.

Sometimes a delicate and formal hold of the fingers, slightly raised, is more appropriate than a handshake.

I grew up and was taught this method when shaking a lady's hands, and to have a firm, dry, handshake with men (as a judge of character).

I know it sounds silly, but it's built in to me now and I'll walk away from meetings thinking about the handshakes of the people in the room as much as the content of the discussion.

In a related note, I hate limp handshakes. I don't judge the person based on it, but it puts me off and maybe sets the mood a bit.

It CAN (though not as a rule) imply a personality type (or just apathy on the part of the individual): http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...

http://www.ecs.csus.edu/career/articles/article58.html

How interesting. I do have a limp handshake, because I feel too strong of a handshake can be off putting. I don't tend to like people with strong handshakes, because it feels like they're too controlling.

There's middle ground, though.

> In France, a kiss from a pretty acquaintance can generate a frisson

Isn't that true of most places?

I'd just like to point out that the phrase "skinny dipping" originated in America. We also shake hands with strangers. So, at the least, the getting naked and touching claims are questionable.

I'm surprised by the eye contact comment. As a brit, I definitely rate eye contact.

Complete and utter bollocks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com