The Incident with the Brit at Bondi

I am an arrogant American.

Who knew? I sure didn't. Not until I travelled to Sydney did I realize that, just maybe, I can be as pompous as they come.

It all happened like this.

On Australia Day, a group of myself and four other girls braved about an hours-worth of public transit to find ourselves out for the evening at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi. We had eaten there with the whole group during our first week together and concluded that thanks to the good food, good drink, and good music, it would be an excellent spot to spend the nation's foremost holiday.

We were largely correct: the place was packed.

It was so packed, actually, that striking up conversations with other patrons was unavoidable. Soon we found ourselves making pleasant conversation with a few locals.

The term “locals” is used lightly here—many who would identify as such come from elsewhere and then take Sydney as their adopted home. This was true of the two men with whom we conversed. They both originally hailed from England and seemed to culturally identify with the British.

We exchanged niceties upon hearing each other’s accents, and I started talking directly with one of the men, a businessman in his early 30s who worked at an Australian finance company.

He confessed early in the conversation that he had a difficult time connecting with Americans. The ones he’d met from New York City and L.A., he said, were all “loud and arrogant.”

I smiled knowingly and thought, “Here’s my chance to prove him wrong. I’ll give him a new stereotype.”

Being soft-spoken by nature, generally embarrassed to talk about myself for too long, and a product of the genteel South, I was absolutely certain that I wouldn’t fit into the mental mold he had created for Americans…but then we started talking politics.

This wasn’t the point of contention: we agreed on pretty much everything and then spent some time informing each other on the political climates our two countries.

The contention occurred when we got up to leave. I parted saying, “I hope I didn’t fulfill your stereotype of an arrogant American,” absolutely sure I had won him over.

He looked at me, “Well of course you did.”

I was dumbfounded. “What did he mean?” I asked.

“Well I mean, it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “All you Americans just always speak your mind.”

I left the conversation disappointed, confused, and—for the first time since my arrival—a bit offended.

The incident with the Brit at Bondi bothered me for several days until we discussed the different parts of communication competence in class. We learned that one of the most important ways to be a good communicator is to be self-aware and consistently ask, "How do I sound?"

That's when it hit me: I was indeed an arrogant American.

When we talked politics, I tried to present myself as informed and confident in my opinions. When I learned that he thought similar things, I spoke freely.

Though I was polite and never talked myself up, I stated my opinions as fact.

My matter-of-fact approach, I think mixed with my youth and inexperience on the topic, made me seem like I thought very highly of myself. As a twenty-year-old, presenting myself as an "expert" on politics in America, I probably sounded arrogant after all. This would be especially true since his definition of the term involved speaking one's mind. Maybe if I had spoken less confidently, or if had acknowledged that I could be wrong, I would have met his high standards of English appropriateness.

Of course, I can't be certain that any of this analysis is true. I do think that after learning about communication competence, that I'm on the right track. I was unaware of how I sounded, and now I'm a little more aware...

and maybe a little less arrogant.