Culturally it is not a normal gesture here, like it is in other countries. That's all there is to it.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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To clarify, I'm talking about men who spend a lot of personal time with each other, I'm not talking about first time meeting. What level of physical affection is comfortable for male friendships?
Side hugs, fist bumps and punches on the shoulder.
Air kisses beside both cheeks if you’re in cultured society (French influence).
Hand holding and full contact kissing of adult males is considered romantic, not friendly.
It’s an interesting clash of cultures that resulted in this weird situation.
It sounds like you can apprecuate the conundrum.
Yeah; I’ve got friends from other cultures, so I’ve witnessed this particular culture shock many times. As a multigenerational native of the area, I always found it odd even before I learned that other cultures do things differently.
Considering how clear the local message is that in order to fully respect somone you keep a physical distance from them, no affection of any kind, it's made the people of this city for cold and have no soul.
I'm more comfortable with immigrants than Canadians.
Please try not to take it personally. It's just a different culture. Here's some more elaboration on the topic: https://freelymagazine.com/2019/03/29/to-hug-or-not-to-hug-physical-contacts-vary-across-cultures/
There's also a tragic aspect to the low-contact culture. Episode 17 of Season 1 of the show Welcome to Wrexham actually explores this topic really well: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/126929-welcome-to-wrexham/season/1/episode/17 (also just a great ⚽ documentary)
Thank you for those links, I sent you a message on Masta