It’s not you, it’s the culture

(except when it is you)

Let’s talk about talking.

It is much less common here in Romania than in the US for people to engage in casual small talk with strangers. My reflex to start a conversation with every Uber driver or greet a cashier with a friendly smile and “Buna Ziua! Ce mai faceți??” (Good day! and a polite “how are you?”) gets me a lot of baffled looks.

There are two responses to this overt friendliness that I have encountered: Who is this weirdo and what are they doing? and “Oh! You must be American!” Why is this? Is it my accent that is so terrible they instantly know?

Well, yes, probably so on the accent, my American-accent is immediately apparent to everyone I have spoken to whether I start with Buna Ziua, Bonjour, Hola or Ciao. If you ever wondered if people can tell what country you are from from a single word or phrase, let me be the first to tell you – apparently.

But, accent aside, the reality is actually more cultural. Americans small talk – and that is not a norm here. I am having to constantly remind myself that my friendly “How are you doing today?” can actually be interpreted as rudely invasive: if you don’t know someone, why would you ask about their day? Why is conversation even necessary? Silence is comfortable. Forced conversation can be awkward.

I wonder if this resistance to “casual chit chat” can also be traced back historically. It was not long ago in Eastern Europe that loosely chatting with a stranger could be risky under certain regimes. That historical cultural memory shows up in interactions, and I especially notice it in people that are in my age group and older who would have experienced the communist regime here in Romania.

Now, this is not to say everyone is rude or impolite – quite the opposite! I am learning to enjoy being able to shop without having to feel like I need to engage in conversation with every shopkeeper of every store I enter. It’s transactional here, but not disinterested or rude: there just isn’t an expectation for chit chat about the weather or how my day is going.

As I return to the same places over and over again – the library, the coffee shop, the security desk to get an office key – I am slowly building actual relationships with people. Rather than a collection of polite interactions, I am gaining sincere interactions through the repeated contact, not the meaningless small talk.

The exception to this is when conversations flow naturally, or when I attempt to speak Romanian. My attempts are often met with an immediate friendliness and pronunciation assistance. I cannot say I have been given a “good job!” yet by any of my repeated interactions ordering coffee or dinner, just daily corrections and practice for how to properly say certain things, but the participation matters more than praise.

Friendliness and intrusion are separated by a much thinner line here than I am used to. Now that I am learning how to see where that line runs, I am more aware of how these everyday interactions unfold.