Comments on: Apologizing is for leftist hipster losers https://sorrywatch.com/israelihipster/ Analyzing apologies in the news, media, history and literature. We condemn the bad and exalt the good. Thu, 13 Aug 2020 19:26:32 +0000 hourly 1 By: tanita https://sorrywatch.com/israelihipster/#comment-104320 Wed, 17 Dec 2014 20:41:29 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=3303#comment-104320 1.) MAN, Tel Aviv in those shots is pleasant looking. It’s like a clean downtown Sacramento with Hebrew-language speakers. And random brides wandering past.
2.) It always intrigues me how apologies and “sorries” are seen in other cultures. This apology business is largely viewed similarly in Glasgow; you don’t really excuse yourself or apologize for bumping people in the mall, or crossing people’s line-of-sight where they’re obsessing over the types of noodles in the grocery; you don’t apologize on the bus when you have to step over someone to get to the aisle. I mean, I do (or did, anyway), and people look at me and raise a brow and know I’m not from around there – or else ignore me utterly. Or, if they are acquaintances, they say, “What?” And then I have to recreate and annoyingly and pointlessly explain the whole thing. I’ve heard it’s the same for much of Britain (although Wales may be the exception).

For a long time I wondered if this just wasn’t an urban thing, in that city people just have to learn to render each other invisible because they’re used to a population density which requires this, and Glasgow is indeed a mighty (filthy and charming) city – but now I wonder. Americans are often seen as grinning fools abroad – how awful to imagine that even our apologies put us in the role of “damn fool hipster.” Le sigh.

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