Honestly I don't meet the Yanks all that much regularly. I have a couple friends who I see semi frequently, and they're obviously ok. The Americans here at Hexbear are super cool. Since Covid lockdowns are breaking, I've been seeing more of them randomly. And in the conversations with them, I'm seeing a lot of mean-ish comments along the lines of "haha, you did something I'm not used to".
For example, in the past month, I've gotten called out for:
- asking a guy at a literal commie beer event if he was a "comrade"
- using the metric system
- moving away from a boring conversation topic by asking a person what their job is, without a good convo transition
- saying colonisation changed African countries
- saying conservatives care more about aesthetics
- joking that I pray to Lenin every morning (thank you lib for pointing out that this isn't what socialism is)
Honestly sarcasm is good and fine with friends. Like, if the love is clearly there, then ya tease me a bit. Dunno, but it feels like these people treat conversations as a competitive sport. Oh ya, these people are all massive libs as well.
I love to generalize myself tbf do it all the time its just a game, we are just playing as long as everyone reading us understands it isn't real - especially about California lol. For every Californian 'type', there are more 'atypical' in California than there are people overall in other states. I definitely think you are correct there, there is a fake nice problem, there is a smile through the pain problem. But idk Californians are not non-confrontational or repressed by any means. Just wait until someone gets their drive through order wrong