Peaches, coconuts, and how to make friends in different cities

I talk a lot about peach cultures vs. coconut culture, a framework someone (I don't remember who but if you do please tell me so I can properly credit them!) offered me soon after I moved to New York a little over three years ago. I'd had fragments of it in the past - an Israeli, after all, is nicknamed Sabra, prickly pear, for their apparent roughness but inner sweetness.

The Tower of Babel by Peter Brueghel the Old

Peach cultures: places like the US or Japan, where people are outwardly friendly but very tough to get to the core of. I'll never forget my first time in New York as a tween, stopping to reply to every shop worker who asked me how I was as I entered only to realize, more puzzled than offended, they weren't stopping to listen to the answer. Peach cultures, I find, place a heavy emphasis on shame and public vs. private spheres: the amount of social conventions around how one must speak in public, and what one must say when meeting new people, has shocked me in both the US and Japan. The upside is that there's nothing like a woman telling you to have a blessed day when you walk past her in Jacksonville, Florida: cordiality feels nice.

Coconut cultures: well, the opposite. They're unappealing and tough to crack on the outside, but soft and sweet on the inside. I'd put the French, the British, the Israelis in that category. I tell this story every time I want to explain coconuts to the world. Once, my grandmother was trying to enter the building where our apartment was in Tel Aviv. Some workers were drilling in the entrance, and that made it hard for her to carry her heavy suitcase (my grandmother's suitcases were never light) across the entrance hall to the elevator. She stood assessing her options for a second but one of the workers, without a single word or look in her direction, grabbed the bag and threw it in the lift for her. That's a coconut, or a sabra: all function, no form.

Each of these, also, carries its nuances. I've been lucky to get close to four cultures across the fruit groups, and to build wonderful friendships everywhere. My rule of thumb for making friends is being yourself, but there are ways of engaging with societies that make the translation easier: here's how I've done it.

Americans (my only peach culture): this is my most recent incursion into friend making. When I first moved to my neighborhood and most of my friends were either Europeans or people I knew through Europeans, I used to grab a glass of wine at the coffee shop under my house every Friday before going out. I listened to how people spoke, because a coffee shop is the place where every depth and type of relationship meets, from the first date to the best friend or the business meet-up. The first thing that struck me was how tight everyone's story was: people seemed to have elevator pitches for who they were. I remember overhearing (I'm being cute - the accurate name for what I was doing is eavesdropping) two women on a first date engaging in what I would later learn to call trauma-dumping: each shared all of the ways in which they'd been hurt and it felt more like a justification than a catharsis to this outsider. Okay - so: you need a story, or you need something that'll allow people to place you. Personally I'm very against this way of getting to know people and would recommend, instead, only engaging with the people who perk up when you don't pitch. I suggest a quirk, a thought, an opinion as a starter: not everyone will engage - not all Americans like debate, because they perceive argument as a negative. Focus on the ones who don't. They'll be the ones who care as much as you do.

Brits: I miss British culture a lot, which I did not think I would when I left - but maybe spending 8 years in one place influences you, you know. British society is ruled by implicit convention, so much so that even the founding principles of their democracy are tacit: there is no written British constitution. The one problem when rules are unsaid is that you're often scared you might be breaking one without knowing it. British humor is all about what's implied (and God, do I miss sarcasm) and society is extremely focused on being polite. This is, I believe, one of the reasons why alcohol plays such a major part in British socialization: a drop of it allows you to free yourself from convention, gives you an excuse should you step on some invisible line you never knew existed. Not that vulnerability is impossible without drinking. Rather, the first pint together allows you to mutually opt into it, opening up a lifetime of kindness.

French people: the French, I admit it, are clique-y. But they are also the most intellectually curious culture I've lived in, willing to engage in debate and actively seeking out new knowledge within the groups that they form. The clique, therefore, is a safe space that's built by the French to allow you to grow cocooned by people who you know you can trust. When I told one of my oldest friends, D., that I was considering moving back to Paris he told me: ‘that's so great! You'll have our group that you can join!’ He meant: you'll be offered that safety immediately. Making friends with the French requires both curiosity and the ability to demonstrate some amount of personal interest in something: we value craft. Though it seems counter intuitive, the French are not blasé: we simply don't respect excitement for the sake of excitement, and they have a fundamental expectation that one must be well rounded enough to talk about something that is not work eloquently. Have something you love deeply and know a lot about: that's how you get the French.

Israelis: I'm better, honestly, at falling in love with Israelis than making friends with them, which is a function of the fact that I haven't lived there in the way I have other places, despite regularly spending long periods of time there. The reason I fall in love with Israelis is also the key to engaging with them: sabras are doers. My brother and his wife are, in my sense, perfect examples of that. The more I see them, the more I think they exemplify small attentions. They notice when you need water, cutlery, an extra table to set something down. They love by doing, and I love Israelis because they date by building an idea of love together. We'll do and then we'll listen, it's a Jewish phrase that might as well be an Israeli motto. You want to make friends with an Israeli? Do something!

What are you cultural tips for making friends with The Other? Did you have very different experiences than me?