English women treat me like I'm an alien from outerspace

Michelle, that was fascinating.

I also have a busy life and don’t have lots of time to spend socialising (most of us probably do), but I don’t consider having a cup of coffee with someone to be a huge imposition on my time.

And I would never turn down an invitation from anyone unless I actually had a conflicting appointment, sincerely felt that they were up to no good, or was facing a difficult work deadline – in which case I would postpone the coffee date to another time. How rude!

Your housemate’s girlfriend’s description of British women sounds like they’ve never outgrown the high school clique mentality.

Wow. This is fairly horrendous stuff to read, speaking as a bona fide Englishwoman from Sheffield, South Yorkshire! All the more so because I recognise enough of the reaction in myself to know that we do probably make it difficult for our US sisters to make friends. Don’t get me wrong, I think the examples described above are awful, ill-mannered and downright rude…I swear I have never done the EBS thng But I have to admit I do know the feeling of recoil when faced with this social situation…
I am an outgoing British woman, extrovert (and loud!) by UK standards. I’m also a psychiatrist. This is making me think really hard about what it is that gets in the way of making friends with women from the other side of the Atlantic. For me, I think it is about boundaries. As was said above, we live on a little island with lots of other people and having the right to be by ourselves (sometimes even in the presence of others), and have this right respected, is part of the culture. Lack of respect for boundaries is something that is associated with youth, ignorance, bad manners, lack of guidance… think a stranger’s child climbing all over you or a puppy jumping up and licking your face. I think there are some women who are overwhelmed by the extroversion (although I am extrovert- sometimes even brash- and either don’t cause the same recoil or don’t notice it if I do Some may even be made so anxious that they dissociate- but my guess is that there are a good few more who simply see it as bad manners, or social ignorance to have their boundaries invaded at the wrong speed in a certain social setting. And usually the stranger in a group of women would be playing it safer to wait to be approached by the old hands, rather than taking matters into her own hands and starting up anything more than the vaguest of interactions. It could be seen as presumptious. And, in a circle composed of less enlightened humans, you will be excluded if you appear to them to be bad mannered, childish, ignorant/ impatient of cultural norms. There is something terribly threatening to the average Englishperson about having those boundaries invaded. And a cup of coffee is never just a cup of coffee, it confers aquaintanceship, a lessening of the ability to avoid a relationship if it turns out to be awful, a pathway to further rights like being phoned at 3am when the boyfriend leaves, having to babysit for kids in times of emergencies etc etc etc And how would you trust someone who doesn’t recognise the boundaries in the same way as you not to keep overstepping them? We all have had nightmare ‘friends’/ work colleagues who drain us emotionally even if they don’t demand more material support, because of a disregard for appropriate boundaries and a sense of entitlement to attention and involvement. I wonder if these fears are what triggers our English defences when faced with someone who ‘comes on strong’.
I am being devil’s advocate here, btw. I don’t normally feel any of this stuff consciously. But also trying to give an honest opinion of my generic English responses, in the hope that it will be of some use. All the stuff I have read above and on the rest of this site makes me think that there are a lovely bunch of american women wandering around the UK trying to make the best of us socially stunted creatures!
re the blokes- well, I guess the women will be rolling their eyes at their menfolk’s attraction to something a bit exotic and different. And if they are paranoid or have poor self-esteem…well- you become a threat through no fault of your own.

BTW- UK boundaries don’t seem to apply to t’internet, have you noticed?

I was hoping for responses from British women.

Ros, your post was very informative.

I can see why someone wouldn’t want to start a friendship with someone who would be calling them drunk at 3AM, but it takes quite a few casual cups of coffee before a friendship will reach the 3AM phone call stage, if it ever does.

Here is something that happened to me.

A long time ago, my husband bought me a violin. I never learned how to play it, and it just sits in its case at home.

Recently, I was having a casual conversation with a female acquaintance, and she said she was a violinist. So, just to continue the conversation and to show her that I was impressed with her talent, I mentioned the violin my husband have given me and I said “Maybe someday you could teach me how to play it.”

Big mistake.

I could immediately tell that I had said the wrong thing.

So right away, I had to say “You know I’m only joking, right? You know I’m not really asking you to teach me how to play the violin, right?”

The conversation basically ended after that.

If that had been an American woman, the conversation would have went:

“Maybe one day you could teach me how to play.”
“Yeah, sure.”

and then we would have moved on to talking about something else.

Actually, I’ve had this experience with British women online. I was in a fandom for a British entertainment with people from all over the world. While British women couldn’t EBS/BBS others online. They did have a habit of making very selective responses to comments and IMs. iEBS?

There were nested rings of acceptance with real inclusion only reserved for a core group, all British. Runners-up were Commonwealth and Europeans, with one or two Americans who already held established status before their arrival. The Variables were people, generally American or Canadian, they didn’t want to alienate because they’re talented enough to possibly be useful later, but kept things fairly impersonal just in case, or relational aggression if they challenged the core group’s authority. The Ballast were extremely deferential Anglophile Americans that they could use for grunt work, or as backup in a conflict with an American. The Rabble was anyone who wouldn’t be useful and Americans in general, who received no communication at all, or iEBS if they put themselves forward.

Nothing on a comment thread or email has the immediate confrontation that prompts social anxiety. These women hadn’t known each other since they were kids, and had only introduced themselves a year or two ago. They befriended brand new women, if they were British or Australian. They weren’t especially reserved or demure in their online identities. It was purely about power. Constructing and enforcing a hierarchy with them at the top.

For the record, I was considered a Variable. They were always polite to me publicly, but I caught them talking trash about me privately (via their own technological incompetence). It didn’t matter, because I already loathed they way they treated others, and kinda knew they were full of it when they were “nice” to me. It drug down the whole atmosphere of the fandom, and was one of the reasons I left it. And definitely THE reason I will never get involved in a British-based fandom again…no matter how over-the-moon I am for Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston. ~girliesigh~