Quote: (08-11-2016 07:30 PM)pater familias Wrote:
I’ve lived in Spain for a while.
Deep discussions, yes, I got them, and deeper than in the US. But for this, you need to have friends, and having friends in Spain is much more "complicated" than in the US: it takes time. In Spain, friends are for real and not just temporary acquaintances to do activities as most Americans just have. Actually, after having lived in the US for several years I came to the conclusion that Americans don’t have friends, just acquaintances. You guys move too much/too often to have any real friendships. The family component is very important, as well. It looks like you have not had
Question: how many times did you move during these ten years?
Feminism? Yes, it is exactly the same shit. Spain is importing American feminism, not the other way around. Thank you, USA.
Jobs/Career? I totally agree. If you are ambitious, get out of there ASAP.
Re: Friends -
My experience has been the opposite. For the exception of a FEW PEOPLE who I can count on on hand, I find the Spanish quite shallow. It is not uncommon to spend time with someone here and then travel abroad and have them forget you or just not care to keep in touch or send a card. I'm not discarding your experience, but my experience has been the opposite.
I agree, to some extent, about "acquaintances" in the US...but that's because we are very individualistic and love our personal freedom. We do not like to be limited to a location or "tribe". That's one of the things I really find limiting about Spain. People are obsessed with "what their family" thinks or what others think, but not enough individualism for my taste. People in many cases would rather choose unemployment instead of moving from their town. Most Spanish dress the same, eat the same, NO DIVERSITY whatsoever...very dull people in general and one thing I find really scary is that, for example, if you wear a red shirt (just an example) and one person says "oh aren't you hot with that?" I swear EVERY SINGLE Spaniard will make the EXACT same comment. It's almost like they conspired beforehand to make the same comment.
As to your question about moving, I have lived here actually more than ten years and have not moved anywhere else. But I find Spanish people like to put people in boxes. If you are American, you will ALWAYS be "El Americano" and make comments that are totally ignorant as in, if they are serving hamburgers people say crap like "oh you should feel at home, hamburgers for dinner". As if Americans only ate hot dogs and hamburgers.
I do consider myself ambitious and even the Spaniards ask me astonished "WHY ARE YOU HERE??" They are right and that is why I have decided to pack my bags and leave this place. I can get sun and palm trees in many US locations if that's an issue.