OK, very slight thread tangent here, but to me it is interesting why us Brits are more ?closed? socially.
Speaking personally, I am very confident (positively bumptious!) socially yet I know I can be quite reserved with people I don?t know. In fact, I don?t talk a lot about my emotional status except with a very close group of friends, and even then only when something is really troubling me. All around me I see people who work on a similar basis. They are polite and pleasant when you first meet them, and in fact you can get on with them very well on an intellectual level, but at each phase where a friendship becomes more profound - the first time you go out for a coffee, the first time you go round to their house, the first time you are invited to a social event they are organising ? there is quite a lot of agonising about it.
I?m just getting to know a really nice woman, for example, who I see regularly in one context and whose company I enjoy, but I?m debating whether to move the friendship up a level by suggesting we meet up for a coffee outside that context. Why?
Well?firstly, I?m highly selective about my close friendships. I view them as a responsibility as well as a resource in my life and I do have loads of friends already who I don?t see enough of. More significantly from a cultural point of view, I have an inbred notion that, while I am convinced that I am a warm and wonderful human being, spending ages talking about myself, particularly to people who don?t know me, is very dull for them. Obviously this doesn?t apply on the web, thank God
In addition, asking relative strangers questions that touch upon potentially ?difficult? areas for them, which is largely their motivations for doing stuff, has always felt uncomfortable. I don?t think you?ll find many Brits who?ll ask a stranger on first acquaintance: ?so why do you have two children?? or something like that: we?d be too worried that the real reason was some dreadful, hurtful trauma and that we?d then need to spend the next two hours handing out the tissues and counselling said stranger through their reaction, all the while getting more and more panicky about the next tactless thing we?re about to say. Consequently I imagine for people from more open societies, it must feel like you can know a Brit for ages without knowing the first thing about them.
The basic norm of our society is to be emotionally quite self sufficient. Blitz spirit, kinda thing. This means that social interaction is prompted more by a notion of politeness (which is still, despite all the media handwringing, an issue of massive importance here) than by an idea of immediate, intimate, emotional give and take. Unfriendly cliques of mums are just being plain rude, IMHO, but of course, one woman?s ?unfriendly clique? is another woman?s ?coffee group who have just noticed the new mum and are considering (in our slow, British, way) if she would like to come for a playdate?.
Don?t know if that helps, or even reflects other people?s experiences. The plus side of us taking our time about forming friendships is that when we do, they are very precious to us (see my comments above)- stick at it and I promise we?ll come good!