Non-Americans are sharing the weirdest things Americans think are normal – 19 proper eye-openers

You might remember this fabulous thread by an American living in the UK who listed the weirdest British traits and went wildly viral.

This is like that – but the other way round – after Redditor celestial_introvertt asked this.

“What’s something that as a non-American you will never understand?”

And these are proper eye openers.

1.

‘Children’s beauty pageants.’
BixxBender123

2.

‘Why public toilets have this little gap between the doors that let people make eye contact with you when you … you know taking a shit.’
Avivbb

3.

‘How long American commutes are, some Americans really think it’s normal to drive for a couple hours for work.’
f1redude_YT

4.

‘Jumbo sized drinks intended for one person to drink.’
isendmemetobfevryday

5.

‘Driving with 16, guns with 18 and booze with 21?’
Moedrynk

6.

‘Aerosol spray cheese.’
xk_wiste

7.

‘Average of only 10 days of annual leave. And then sometimes even being looked down on for taking it.’
timeboxparadox

8.

‘Some Americans (note I say some, I’m not generalising here) total lack of awareness about other parts of the world eg I’ve seen things like Africa referred to as a country, people that don’t know Paris is in France etc. It just seems bizarre to me.’
TheSneakUK

9.

‘Why they dont use the metric system?

‘Edit: another thing WHY THE F*CK is the month first and then the day???’
GatoxGalacticos0906

10.

‘Why do aliens always attack America?’
bhosadiwalechacha

11.

‘The importance sports have in college.’
VardamirNolimon

12.

‘Florida Man.’
Defiant-Outcome990

13.

‘Homecoming.’
Fardles_Bear

14.

‘In shops the prices on the shelves are very different to the prices you pay at the till.’
ObviouslyaKelly

15.

‘American who lives abroad here, and I am 99% sure that most non-Americans do not understand how HUGE (geographically) the United States is.

‘When I tell people here that I would regularly travel 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes each way to get to high school everyday, and during all that travel I never even left my city, I feel like I can see their brain’s explode. This is also probably true for people from other geographically big countries like China, Russia, India, etc.’
Psychological-Ant569

16.

‘The sophomore, junior, senior thingy. Americans use it so many times describing their life.’
lordullr

17.

‘Why maternity leave is only 6 weeks.’
medium1cream1splenda

18.

‘The fact that so many people don’t want universal healthcare.’
spacemonkeypantz

19.

‘HOAs. They aren’t really a thing where I am and it baffles me that people don’t have permission to do certain things to their own homes.
Edit: for those asking, HOA stands for Home Owners Association.’
FloofBallofAnxiety

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‘British things that would freak out Americans’ is 59 seconds well spent

Source Reddit u/celestial_introvertt H/T Someecards