Every country has its quirks, but Americans have a special talent for leaving the rest of the world scratching their heads. While we might think these habits are perfectly normal, our international friends often watch in bewildered amusement. From our portion sizes to our unique measurement system, here are some distinctly American behaviors that make people from other countries do a double-take.
1. Refusing to Use the Metric System
While the rest of the world measures things in neat, logical units of 10, Americans stubbornly cling to our feet, pounds, and cups like they’re family heirlooms. Our insistence on using the imperial system has led to countless confused exchanges with international visitors and some expensive NASA mishaps. Scientists and engineers constantly have to do mental gymnastics converting between systems, while our international colleagues watch in bemused confusion. Even our closest allies, Canada and the UK, have mostly embraced metric measurements, while we continue to measure things in hamburgers per football field. The rest of the world simply can’t understand why we won’t join the metric party.
2. Advertising Prescription Drugs on TV
The rest of the world watches in horror as Americans are bombarded with ads suggesting they ask their doctors about specific medications. These commercials typically feature people frolicking in fields while a speed reader lists potentially deadly side effects in the background. Most countries strictly prohibit direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, considering it a medical decision best left to healthcare professionals. Our international friends find it bizarre that we’re encouraged to diagnose ourselves based on TV commercials. The fact that these ads end with “ask your doctor about” seems like a strange way to practice medicine to the rest of the world.
3. Massive Portion Sizes
American restaurant portions are legendary worldwide, and not in a good way. A “small” soda in the US would be considered a large or even extra-large in most other countries. International visitors are often shocked when their restaurant meal can easily feed a family of four. Our bottomless refills and all-you-can-eat buffets are viewed as peak American excess by much of the world. Even our regular grocery store items, like muffins and bagels, have gradually supersized to the point where our international friends don’t recognize them as the same food anymore.
4. Paying Workers Below Minimum Wage and Expecting Customers to Make Up the Difference
Our tipping culture absolutely baffles the rest of the world, especially the fact that servers can be paid below minimum wage. The idea that customers are essentially responsible for paying restaurant staff’s wages through tips seems absurd to most other countries. International visitors often struggle with calculating appropriate tips and understanding when tipping is expected. The complex social dynamics and math involved in American tipping culture leave many foreign visitors feeling anxious and confused. Our insistence that this system somehow results in better service makes little sense to countries where workers are paid living wages directly.
5. Using Public Bathroom Stalls With Huge Gaps
The enormous gaps in American bathroom stall doors and walls make absolutely no sense to the rest of the world. These gaps are wide enough to make awkward eye contact with someone walking by, which is exactly what bathroom privacy should prevent. International visitors often express horror at our apparent disregard for bathroom privacy. Most other countries manage to build bathroom stalls with proper privacy without any engineering difficulties. The fact that we’ve collectively accepted these peek-a-boo stalls as normal is a source of genuine confusion for the rest of the world.
6. Putting Ice in Everything
Our obsession with filling drinks to the brim with ice leaves many international visitors feeling cheated out of their beverages. The American preference for ice-cold drinks, even in winter, seems bizarre to cultures where room-temperature beverages are the norm. Countries that have been serving wine, tea, and other drinks for centuries without massive ice cubes watch in confusion as we dilute perfectly good beverages. The automatic addition of ice to drinks, unless specifically requested otherwise, is a particularly American quirk. Our international friends often joke that Americans are paying for cups of ice with a splash of drink.
7. Keeping Shoes On Inside Homes
The American habit of wearing outdoor shoes inside the house makes people from many other cultures physically cringe. The idea of tracking all the dirt and bacteria from public spaces onto your living room carpet seems obviously unhygienic to most of the world. Many international visitors are shocked when they see Americans lounging on their beds with their shoes still on. Other cultures have well-established rituals for removing shoes at the door and often provide house slippers for guests. The fact that this isn’t standard practice in America seems like a basic hygiene oversight to much of the world.
8. Calling Everything “Soccer” Except American Football
Our insistence on calling the world’s most popular sport “soccer” while using “football” for our own unique sport puzzles the international community. The fact that American football involves surprisingly little foot-to-ball contact makes the name even more confusing to outsiders. Most Americans seem unaware that we’re practically alone in this terminology, with even other English-speaking countries using “football” for what we call soccer. The rest of the world finds it particularly amusing when Americans try to explain why our version of football deserves the name more than their centuries-old sport. Despite soccer’s growing popularity in the US, we stubbornly stick to our unique naming convention.
9. Adding Sugar to Everything
The American tendency to add sugar to foods that don’t traditionally contain it baffles international observers. Our bread often contains more sugar than some desserts in other countries. The practice of adding sugar to savory dishes or creating sweet versions of traditionally savory foods seems unnecessary to many cultures. International visitors are often shocked by the sweetness of American peanut butter, bread, and even vegetable dishes. The fact that we’ve normalized extremely sweet flavors in everyday foods makes many of our regular products inedible to visitors from other countries.
10. Putting Cheese on Everything
While many cultures appreciate cheese, Americans take it to an extreme that confuses the rest of the world. The concept of cheese in a spray can is particularly baffling to cultures with strong cheese-making traditions. Our tendency to add processed cheese to dishes that traditionally never included it makes international food lovers cringe. The prevalence of “cheese-flavored” products that contain little or no actual cheese seems like a strange food crime to many cultures. Even our real cheese often comes in unnaturally perfect squares or pre-shredded bags coated with anti-caking agents, which puzzle cheese enthusiasts from other countries.
11. Using Fahrenheit Instead of Celsius
Our continued use of Fahrenheit temperatures makes weather conversations with international friends unnecessarily complicated. The fact that water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees seems needlessly complex compared to Celsius’s 0 and 100. Most Americans have no idea what 20 degrees Celsius feels like, while the rest of the world can’t intuitively understand 68 degrees Fahrenheit. International visitors often have to use conversion apps just to understand if they need a jacket or not. The fact that we’re one of only three countries still primarily using Fahrenheit (along with the Bahamas and Cayman Islands) doesn’t seem to bother us.
12. Writing Dates in MM/DD/YYYY Format
Our way of writing dates (month/day/year) makes absolutely no sense to the rest of the world, which generally uses day/month/year or year/month/day. This unique American date format leads to constant confusion in international communications and data entry. The middle-endian format we use lacks the logical progression of either smallest to largest or largest to smallest units that other systems use. International students and businesspeople often have to double-check dates on American documents to avoid confusion. The fact that 4/3/21 means April 3rd in the US but March 4th almost everywhere else continues to cause headaches in international dealings.
13. Not Including Tax in Displayed Prices
Our practice of adding tax at the register rather than including it in the displayed price frustrates visitors from countries where what you see is what you pay. The need to mentally calculate additional tax makes budgeting more complicated than necessary, especially since tax rates vary by state and even city. International shoppers often find themselves caught off guard at checkout when the final price is higher than expected. Most other countries require displayed prices to include all taxes and fees, making shopping more straightforward. The argument that this helps consumers see how much tax they’re paying seems less convincing when most Americans don’t actually calculate the tax rate during their shopping.
14. Free Refills on Soft Drinks
While Americans see free refills as a standard perk, the rest of the world views this practice as unnecessarily indulgent. The concept of unlimited sugary drinks seems particularly irresponsible to cultures more conscious of sugar consumption. International visitors are often surprised when servers bring new drinks without being asked, assuming it will cost extra. The fact that this practice encourages overconsumption of unhealthy beverages makes little sense to countries dealing with rising healthcare costs. Even the environmental impact of all those refills seems wasteful to more environmentally conscious cultures.
15. Using “How Are You?” As a Greeting
Our habit of asking “How are you?” without expecting or wanting a real answer confuses people from cultures where this question demands an honest response. International visitors often make the mistake of actually telling Americans how they are, only to find the person who asked is already walking away. The fact that responding with anything other than “good” or “fine” makes many Americans uncomfortable seems bizarre to cultures that value genuine communication. What we see as polite small talk comes across as superficial and insincere to many international observers. The ritual of asking and answering this question without any real exchange of information seems like a waste of time to many cultures.
