How Observing American Tourists Taught Me a Brutal Lesson in Hyper-Individualism
A few weeks ago, I saw a lady bawling her eyes out in an Italian airport security queue.
At first, I thought perhaps she had just said goodbye to someone she won’t be able to see again for a long time. Or she was really sad to leave the country where you can buy a bottle of decent wine for just a few euros.
The American lady froze in confusion. But a group of people in front started to make way for her to pass, and so she snapped out of it, grabbed her backpack and went ahead without saying a word.
Even after her figure disappeared in the sea of travellers, I couldn’t stop being confused at her confusion, though.
I’ve travelled a lot, mostly around Europe and mostly pre-pandemic, yet I never worried that a lengthy airport security line would make me miss my flight — if you’re short on time, you can ask people politely, and they will let you through. I queue-jumped more times than I can count and not once had an issue.
But then I started thinking about all the other times I came across American tourists or expats here and noticed a repeating, and quite depressing, pattern.
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