Defintely, it’s a waste of an opportunity. But as someone also living in non-English speaking country, it’s surprisingly a lot of effort to make sure I actually expose my self to the language. If you’re work and social circles are all predominately English speaking, you need to take active steps to have meaningful exposure (and you most certainly should!)

I think it’s different now that in the past, because it’s so easy to live in a bubble and spend a lot of time communicating online. Even back in the ‘old country’ I barely spoke with strangers, beside shop interactions. I have my headphones on, listening to music, watching streaming services, and interacting with my friends and family. Now that I’m abroad, I can do pretty much the same thing, I don’t need to watch the local TV channels I can just watch YouTube, I don’t desperately need to make local friends, because I videochat and game with my buddies back home very easily.

It’s taken a couple of years here to realise that without actively pushing myself, I’m not really picking up much of the language. Now I make myself listen to talk radio in the car, and try to overhear conversations on the train, rather than existing in my normal bubble. It’s absolutely worth it, but if I’d been motivated I could have made myself consume shows, radios, etc in the target language back I the ‘old country’. And while there’s certainly more possible language partners to practice with, if they don’t emerge naturally in your social circle, then it’s not all that much easier than finding someone back home who wanted to improve their English to be my language buddy.

Tldr it’s a waste to not learn the local language, but failing to do so isn’t so much “doing something wrong” as “not actively pursuing a challenging but reward interest”.

Two years certainly could be enough, but it really depends what the environment. If OP, like many English speakers who live in France for a couple of years, was teaching English, or studying in an English speaking postgraduate course, and then socialising with a mix of people from different places, who all use English as their shared language… It can be pretty easy to miss out on a lot of immersion.

And the level of language to comfortably phone up a hospital, explain a slightly odd request and be bounced around different departments with the administration… I know plenty of native French speakers who would avoid doing that.

I’m actually surprised it’s as high as that!

I thought it was places that had circumcision that used the death grip, because of the loss of sensation? (but definitely not an expert!)

I did think that after I commented. Mais non, teaching English Linguistics in France.

Teach at a university

I really don’t care. I use Bluetooth headphones a lot and find them convienient, and I bought adapters for the two wired jacks I might use (some fancier wired headphones and a wired input for my hi-fi). Given wires are already a bit awkward I really don’t feel it makes any difference to add a little adapter to the end. I guess if I was wanting to plug my phone into lots of random headphone jacks while put and about, and didn’t want to carry an adapter, it would be an annoyance but it really doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

I do. I use reddit for a few things (even though it sucks. I made my own sub so I could be mod and boost works well

Sorry, genuinely trying to understand here. So are you saying “in movies, women who have strength of character are also shown as being ‘manly’ (big muscles, punches people, etc). Is that how it really is?”

If that’s what you’re asking, I don’t think it’s true. Some movies have women of very strong character, who are physically weak, pacifist, etc. And some movies have women that have strong characters and are physically strong, cabable of violence, etc. And some movies have women who are douchey, flawed characters who can be physically strong.

I’m not sure I see any correlation between strength of character and physical strength, or propensity to violence, for either men or women. It’s more of a genre thing - in action movies men and women are more likely to be physically tough, and in political dramas they’re more likely to be physically weak. And there will be a mix of people with “strong character” and people with flawed or weak characters.

Can you explain a bit more about why you feel it is easier to learn how to enjoy being alone than learn to enjoy being in a relationship?

I defintely struggled with giving up my independence, and still find it hard to be responsible for/to another person. But I finally ended up in a relationship with someone who was also independent and we were in a very casual relationship for five years before we started to admit that we were a couple and another few years before we realised how much we now loved each other. I guess all I’m saying is relationships don’t need to be one way. I have a friend who only dates people who live in other cities / countries, because that way they only see each other occasionally and at pre-arranged times, and that works for them.

But if you really feel you are happier on your own and it’s just internalised social pressure that makes you want a relationship then you could try developing “singleton pride”. Part of the reason gay people historically got into “gay pride” was to help the overcome their own internalised homophobia, because even if you don’t agree with something you still absorb it in your upbringing and it can be hard to get past it.

So, you could try directly telling people that you’re single for life and that your happy with that choice. If you’re worried that society will think you’re a failure for not having a relationship then confront that fear immediately and get it out the way. You’ll realise that most people don’t care, some people will actually be on your side, and the people who do actually think worse of you are wrong so you don’t need to care about their opinions. But if you’re not confident enough in your decision to proudly stand behind it, then of course doubts will sink in and you’ll repeat the loop again.

Don’t think so! Defintely much heavier and more solid than bbq charcoal. I don’t remember it being very smoky, weird less so than wood fires (which have a distinctive and pleasant smell) or peat fires, which were also common in my region but would trigger my asthma. But possibly it was just that I was used to coal? Maybe someone else would have found it gross?

Edit: Doing a bit of research, it seems like historically home fires would use bituminous coal, but by the time I was a child it was anthracite coal that was used. Which only releases 20% of the smoke of bituminous coal. But it’s still a fossil fuel, and not charcoal.

Yeah, defintely not a swifty, but down voted. I don’t know a lot about TS but the little I do she doesn’t seem noticeably goofy. Distinct lack of a case presented by op.

Use to have an open coal fire in my childhood home. Made many a coal fire. It’s very sooty on the hands!

Great song!

Take On Me by A-Ha, when I was four I use to beg my mom to give my change for the jukebox every time we went to the local cafe, then proceed to dance about to it, week after week.

That sounds horrendous!

Been an adult for a few decades now. And, never.

Oh god, yes. I worked in a call centre for six months and it was dreadful. The combination of dealing with sometimes frustrating situations + the anonymity of a voice only call… People were regularly dreadful. Definitely at least 10% very rude people.

I also took it to be a sign of the ‘banality of evil’, that people having a nice time with their friends, eating some nice food, are generally pleasant. But put them in the privacy of their own home, speaking to a faceless stranger, and suddenly they can be awful. But I tried not to judge them to harshly. The design of call centres, with long hold times and staff with no real power to do anything helpful, is pretty much guaranteed to frustrate the most saintly of people.

Totally agree that eating at a restaurant doesn’t mean you see all the subtle ways people are douches. But the comment above was about people shouting, so I assumed that the “10% of people are rude” was meaning obviously and noticeably rude. If it’s just 10% of people are impatient / distracted / not very friendly / kinda annoying. Then sure, but I don’t think anyone would be surprised with such a mild claim.

And as I said, I was a waiter in a busy restaurant for over two years. And the staff spent a lot of time complaining about the job to each other (as you do) and while many customers were annoying, kept changing their orders, or were a bit drunk and laughing loudly the whole time, blah blah, I don’t remember anyone ever complaining about a customer being as rude as I regularly read / see on the Internet. I never encounter a “Karen”.

I’ve always assumed it is just that Internet focusses on the tiny number of extreme behaviours and makes it sound more normal. But then I hear people say things like 10% of people are awful to staff and it makes me think that maybe there’s a real cultural difference.

Maybe in some places. But when I go out to a restaurant, I’m often surrounded by a few dozen other diners, and no one is acting up or shouting at waiting staff. I have seen customers be obviously rude to staff but it’s very rare compared to the number of “normal” interactions. Sure not everyone is friendly and totally polite, but entitled, shouting or just being an ass is an absolute exception, like less than 0.1%. I also worked as a waiter in a couple of different restaurants over a two year period, and don’t remember any incidents either to me or my colleagues.

When I read comments like this it makes me wonder if I’ve been lucky enough to live and work in decent places, and the USA is just an nightmare hellscape, or if the reality there is much more normal and we just hear an unrepresentative sample of it.