It's not a show, exactly, the chitchat and what you might call excessively polite social markers. It's just the natural way of interacting. Or, the being nice to your front and seethe underneath - that's not, for me, exactly fake. It's just polite. How to explain it? Like, when I'm in traffic, and someone does something inconvenient or incorrect, say they want to get in my lane at the last minute. I don't honk. I wave them in. I always let them in, unless it's unsafe to do so. However, the entire time I'm saying to my self, "Stupid @#$@. Why can't this $@#$#@ learn to drive?" etc. But it would be the height of rudeness for me to express that internal dialogue in a way that the other person could interpret (say by honking or giving them the finger or whatever), and it would be fairly impolite to not let them in if I possibly can. Here, it seems like people have the same internal dialogue, but then they also honk. Or don't let you in. Or both. I don't think that the former is necessarily fake - it's just the standard social interaction. It's not an honest reflection of how you feel, that is true. Or if I'm at the grocery store, about to check out, and I have something I don't want to buy after all - what you do in the midwest is you say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I've changed my mind about these bananas." You might also say, "Can I leave them here?" but it's generally implied. Then the cashier will say, "Sure, no problem," and put them to the side, or she might say, "No worries," or something else reassuring. Here, she just takes the thing and doesn't respond. (granted this has only happened once, so my experience is pretty limited as yet). Now, truth be told, it is probably kind of annoying and not no problem to take the bananas from the customer because someone will have to return them, but the cashier reassures you anyway. You also probably aren't that sorry about leaving the bananas (these things happen and it's a normal part of shopping on occasion, surely the store accounts for this) but the polite thing to do is either apologize or make some other verbal acknowledgement of the minor trouble you're causing. At least this is the way it works in the Midwest. It's not fake, exactly, even though the verbal exchange is largely formulaic and meant to reinforce that everyone is okay with this disturbance (instead of being completely sincere and original comments).

I also think the BBQ variety sounds sensible. I would have made exactly this mistake with the buns and the BBQ, and DH would have been similarly exasperated - except that he does spell things out very precisely, and I still sometimes forget or miscalculate for something he hasn't thought to be explicit about. I am the one with EF issues, though. Maybe it is an EF thing, not a husband thing.

Well, maybe that explains why she was nice after we paid, as we tipped as well as we normally would (not her fault someone gave us the wrong info about the egg thing when we called). We tipped 25%.

Ack, I don't turn left immediately when the light changes. Who knew! If I did that in the Kansas City suburbs everyone would throw up their hands in alarm/exasperation (but no one would honk, because honking is for life/death situations)

Here's another question: if you are at a restaurant, not a fancy one but not like Cracker Barrel or whatever, does the waitress come by every 5 or 10 minutes while you're eating to ask if you need anything, how's the food, let me get you a new drink, etc.? And if so, can you tell me if we did something to offend the waitress (who didn't appear again after depositing our food)? Called ahead, asked about egg in the fish (different restaurant than the first one), was told no egg in fish. Great! Showed up, ordered 2 hamburgers and 4 fish. Brought out hamburgers and at that time (when bringing out hamburgers) she said, sorry, there is egg in the fish after all. Well, now we're here and two kids have food and the rest of us do not. So the only thing (literally the only thing, we have a lot of food restrictions which is why we called ahead of time) left to order is a mediterranean plate, so we order 4 of those and she brings them out. Then nothing else, had to flag her down to pay. ETA: it wasn't busy, (at all) and she was perfectly polite when we paid and were leaving.

It must read fake-nice to people for whom it is not the norm in the way that directness here reads rude/unkind to me (even though the intention in the midwest/south isn't fakeness and here the intention, I guess you are saying, is not unkindness).

The natural beauty is incredible. We spent most of a day in a spot where two rivers meet and there is a beach and rocks and shallow parts and swimming holes, etc. - just some random spot off a highway, with some off-road parking that we saw while driving. Amazing, and not crowded! If there were a place like that in CO it would be packed, PACKED, all the time. and the people there were actually quite nice, now that I think about it.

In the midwest, ime, if you tailgate it means you are mad at the person in front of you, either for driving too slow or maaaybe for passing and then driving too slow. Here they tailgate you if you are speeding, if you are driving the speed limit, if you pass them (even if you pass them and drive faster than they were driving before! they hate being passed), or if you're just in traffic. They tailgate in the rain. They tailgate in fog. They tailgate at night. It makes me batty because the whole time I'm thinking, "You're mad you're mad you're mad." Often I pull over to let them pass (which is obnoxious if I've passed them because I wanted to drive faster than they were driving, because now I have to drive slower again) and they seem to think that is rude too as they sometimes honk. Maybe I need to get used to it, and eventually being tailgated will not read aggression or dissatisfaction to me but just the normal distance between cars. Maybe they are annoyed that I'm letting them pass because they don't see a need to be allowed to pass anyway, they're just driving normally.

Gah, that makes me nervous Frances. Amazing how much culture shock you can have even within the same country! We work from home so we can live mostly anywhere the COL is decently reasonable, but it does make it hard to pick a place.

Yes, the toll roads! I did learn that what they want at the toll road is for you to hand them the money and say nothing, or maaaybe "Good Day" as you drive off. Took me like 4 toll road exchanges before I realized this. Also they are all cash toll roads (!) and they are all staffed with people. The only toll road I'd dealt with before on a regular basis was I-70, which is electronic when you take your ticket and takes cards for payment.

The expected response ime would be "I'll go ask someone, can you hold?" or more casually, "I'll go ask someone, one sec" (and then they disappear)

Oh, I didn't think about the insurance. We don't carry dental insurance, we just cash pay. Maybe she was waiting for me to say, do you take X Dental Insurance? or something.

The bolded: Ah, this is where I've been going wrong! To me, "I'd have to go ask someone" reads as "I have no interest in doing this and am going to make you directly request that I do it so I can't refuse but really I'd rather not and you're wasting my time" while to them it reads "please tell me to do this if it is really required in order for you to eat here"; to me, replying "Yes, please go ask someone" would be the height of unkindness - so direct! so demanding! - but to them it is just the next logical step in the conversation. We work from home and we lived previously at 8500 feet in Colorado in a very small town, so pretty used to isolated winters, but I think maybe more people in Colorado are "from away" and so there is less sense of separation in that way?

If I am more direct myself will they be friendlier? Or are they not thinking of it as being unfriendly and I should not take it personally?

Or you call them on the phone to ask about whether their fried fish has egg, and you say, "Hi, I'm calling about your fried Haddock. Is there egg in the batter?" And they say, "We only have the fried Haddock on Tuesdays." And you say, "That's cool, we could wait until then. But does it have eggs?" And they say, "I'd have to go ask someone." And you say, "Okay, that's cool." And they just wait on the line, and you realize at that point that something has gone wrong in the conversation but you're not sure what. Or you call for a dentist's appointment and say, "Hi, I'm a new patient in the area. I'm looking for a cleaning and maybe to have a cavity filled." And they say, "You need an intake appointment first." and you say, "Sure, that sounds good. When is your first available appointment?" And they say, "There's a lot of paperwork to do at the first appointment so you need to be 15 minutes early." And you say, "Okay. when would the appointment be?" And they say, "No, there's a lot of paperwork. We'd need (x form) and (y form)." And you say, "Sure, that works. Can you get me in in the next couple of weeks?" And they say, "I'd have to go check the appointment calendar, but first let me finish telling you that we need z form and then you'll have to have the intake appointment before any cleaning or x-rays and the x-rays are charged separately and (etc)." All of which is said in an exasperated tone of voice, at this point.

Maine (midcoast and downeast Maine) and southernish Vermont

Everywhere I drive, especially in a small town or city, they tail me. Or what would be considered tailing anywhere else I've lived - 10 feet off my bumper. I drive the speed limit or I speed. Where we were staying for a month while looking for a long-term rental (a vrbo) they had a lady come to mow the lawn once a week. She brought her kids; they did some of the mowing. The next-to-last week, she knocked on the back door to give me something to put inside while they mowed. She must have been looking through the windows into the playroom or something, because she said with a very flat stare, "You all have a lot of cleaning to do." I said, "Yep! Kids!" in that sort of cheerful what-can-you-do-tone that you use when commiserating - and she just kept staring, flat expression, no reply. I realized afterward maybe she was being critical? Or something? Or I am not sure. At grocery stores if I make any sort of chitchat at all it clearly makes the cashier uncomfortable 95% of the time (there are the occasional chatty ones). personally I'm not great at chitchat and had to train myself INTO it in the midwest, so I don't mind, but I feel weird when they say something like, "are these the gala apples?" and I say, "Yep, they looked great! Bet my kids will eat them all before I get one, though." and they look at me like I'm insane. At a small town gas station (coastal Maine) the cashier mumbled the price and I wanted to know if it was over the $6 minimum to use a debit card so I said, "I'm sorry, what was it?" and she replied, "ELEVEN THIRTEEN." (again with the flat stare) Went to look at a house to rent in small town downeast Maine (waaaay up there); it had been listed as available now. Got there, was a nice enough house but smelled rather terribly of cat and dog excrement and the walls were covered in marker and paint was peeling and had some holes in the walls, etc. Landlord said, when do you want to move in? We said, well, in the next week or two, but we can wait longer if necessary. Landlord said, well, you can move in right away and finish the cleaning yourself. Any relatively minor traffic error (having to change lanes, slowing down to look at cross-streets, etc.) is greeted with honking and the finger where in previous places I've lived the reaction would be exasperated sighs and disapproving expressions. There is a lot of honking in general. Like 5x normal amount of honking. And flashing. I accidentally put a molded package of bagels in my cart at the local organic grocery. When I checked out, the bagger said to the cashier, you have to take these bagels off, she took a package of molded ones. Cashier was exasperated and bagger laughed (at me, I thought). I felt ashamed of grabbing molded bagels. Weird reaction, right? I dunno. It's stuff like that. Went to grocery store 15 minutes before close, was looking at ice cream trying to pick one. Lady next to me says, can I help you? (she has a cart with stuff in it and no uniform). I say, nah, not unless you can tell me whether I want chocolate or coffee. she says, no, because I work here and I could hurry the process along for you. I thought at first she was being friendly but then maybe I responded incorrectly and she got offended? Or maybe she was never offended and I just took offense at being hurried along? Or maybe it is rude in the NE to show up 15 minutes before close? I just don't know.

We moved to New England from the midwest via Colorado. We move a lot so I am fairly used to adapting to new social rules, esp. mild ones - how to navigate your cart in grocery stores, how fast to start going again after pausing at a stop sign, whether to wave to people walking by your house, etc. New England has been a whole 'nother level of adjustment. I am finding it very difficult, to the point that I am even kind of depressed about it. I think the constant, repeated negative social interactions are taking a toll. Do you have any advice about how to make this adjustment easier? Self-talk that you do, or scripts you practice in your head, or anything really. Also, related: are they really ruder here than in the Midwest and Colorado (and Oregon and Texas)? Is it just that I am so out of touch with the social rules that I am pissing them off inadvertently and they're reacting like pissed off people and I'm taking it too personally? Or is it the normal mode of interaction and eventually I'll adjust to it and not feel rejected/aggressed against all the time? Help! The area is so lovely and the water is so clear and the houses and little towns are so nice. And there is a lot of good vegan food and good produce. I don't want to hate living here.

I have never heard anyone use it in real life but have read it. I read it in my head as sof (like soft without the final T sound).

In English I'm pretty sure we'd need to use two or three words to describe the sound (although susurrus is just gorgeous and also I think very apt and I'm impressed that Tanaqui thought of it - but if you want connotations of louder than that, there's no direct word that I know of). Maybe a very dull roar?

The problem, socially, imo, isn't that it is hard to tell whether a person is male or female. Even for females who are adopting socially typical male patterns of dress/physical presentation or even have altered voices to some degree, or males who are doing the reverse, it's usually pretty easy to tell still that that is what's happening. What isn't easy to tell is whether this person is doing it because they want you to think of them as the opposite sex (that is to say, as their non-biological gender - the language around this is hard to get precise) or whether they're just a girl who likes short hair and no makeup, or something. So you don't know whether to address them with their biological sex pronouns or with the set of pronouns associated with the way their hair is styled or the way they're dressed, or something else entirely. Of course it is possible and easy to speak directly to someone without using pronouns - but to speak about someone (which you do sometimes have to do), esp. when you don't know their name but even if you do, gendered pronoun use is a natural and common part of the English language. I don't think you're going to convince most English speakers to give up gendered pronouns just to avoid offending the sensibilities of a very small portion of the population. Maybe someday, but I doubt it.

I'm fairly certain Maize is not planning to be not-nursing any time in the relatively near future. For women who keep having kids more or less until their fertility wanes (which I think Maize is one, but I could be mistaken) and who nurse for at least a year, the body is almost always either pregnant or nursing or nursing and pregnant until maybe age 40+ somewhere. That said, I find it easiest to lose weight (and naturally do lose weight without much thought) during the period between weaning my current baby and giving birth to the next one (I wean around age 1- 1.5, when I'm generally a few months pregnant with the next baby). But if Maize is tandem nursing, she may not even be taking that break, so hard to find a time when her body isn't producing for someone else. ? I have more or less resigned myself to having the same progression of body types as my mom, although she was skinnier as a young woman (pre-pregnancy). I am 5' 2" or 3", 115 in high school, 125 or so after first baby, 135 after each other baby, give or take 5 lb. Mom was more or less the same way (taller, so different numbers, but relatively the same). Then during menopause she gained 5-10 more lb, which stayed on until she was about 60 and she became a sort of fit, thinner old lady. She's in better health than I am in some ways as she is a swimmer and can swim miles (although she smokes and always has, her cardiovascular endurance is much better than mine). Anyway, all that to say that you might do better just to say, look, I'm going to make sure I am eating healthy food and I'm going to add regular exercise to my life, but I'm not going to worry too much about the weight itself until I'm done having babies (unless you go too far past your set point). To get back to a set point - say 160 for you, or 135 for me if I've gotten up to 145 after having a new baby (this happens to me), is not as hard as trying to get down to my ideal weight, kwim? And it normally involves 2 months of rigid calorie tracking and exercise - I get back down to 135 or 130 maybe and then I'm good until the next baby.

Why are you measuring the nuts? ( I don't mean this judgmentally, just as a matter of curiosity)

What works for me (when it does work) is to change my life situation so that exercise and improved diet become inescapable. It's hard to manufacture these circumstances, though - can't exactly make yourself so poor that you can never afford snack food or junk food or eating out, and hard to give away your car so that you are forced to walk everywhere. But maybe there are some ways you could create an obligation, at least around exercise, that makes it something both necessary and inescapable? So like, commit to volunteer for some physically demanding work, or join a family hiking club, or something?

Do they have to be canvas or can they just be reusable? We have had a variety (a wide variety) of different kinds of reusable bags, and my favorites are strangely enough the Natural Grocers plasticky ones, the brightly printed ones that are $1 each. They're cheap and they last forever. We moved with them - like used them as packing boxes. Their canvas ones are not well made.