America of extreme expression

an old highschool friend of dario's called the other day... one of the ones that didn't get killed, landed in prison, or went the wrong turn somewhere else. Every day I am upset about the way this school-system has failed (and still does) its students. But this is another story (which I might blog later).

I just wanted to talk about a curious cultural difference I completely forgot about until this old friend of ours called. He's actually a really nice guy. He must be about 28 now. Has three kids. The youngest is 6.
Anyway,...I am getting off the subject again... I'm such a fan of life...
So, as he ends his conversation with me he says,
"ok, then... Love you guys!"
to which I answered fumbling for words for a moment: "oooh,...we miss you, too".
I was embarrassed to have not been able to return the sentiment. This actually happens to me often. My very good girl-friends tell me this sometimes, and usually I manage to say it back but only because I feel put on a spot. And it's not that I don't feel deeply for my friends and that I wouldn't literally cut my hand off for them (is this an English phrase?...). What I mean is that I would give my life for my friends. ...Now, having said that I wonder ... why is it then so hard for me to tell them that I love them. Maybe it's because I just didn't have enough female presence in my teenage years (having grown up with my father and two brothers), maybe it's just me, ... but really I think, it's a cultural difference.
Austrians just don't do that. They don't tell each other this easily that they love each other. In fact, I don't even remember hearing this from my dad that often even though I know, how important we were to him. He actually refused to get divorced unless he gets custody of the kids.

I remember when I first came to the US, as an au-pair. I lived with this family in a suburb of San Diego and the woman came home the first night telling me that she was "starving to death". I was in shock. How could she say something like that, I wondered. How self-absorbed was this woman, with her house, her pool, and her 3 cars? Did she not know how many people on this planet were/are ACTUALLY starving to death? Obviously, today I use the word starve all the time...although, I must say, ...by the time I usually find time to get a bite to eat I really am "staarving". ;)

Other expressions, which would alienate a foreigner are:
"I HATE xyz." ( -> hate is a really strong word. I don't think I ever used it in the German language...except for maybe describing Hitler or the like.)
"fuck this" (fuck... in German everyday language? forget it...haven't heard this ever. It was very shocking to me when my au-pair host-mother used the word for the first time. ..I could understand...maybe the youngsters...but a grown, college-educated woman?? ...today, this is one of my favorite curse-words to vent with. ;)
"motherfucker" (this is probably the worst one. there is just no way you could say this in German... I mean LOOK AT IT!... I only use this word in two phrases:
"stupid mf." and "sexy mf.". The latter is hardly every used, for I am veeery picky when it comes to men.
As you can see, cursing isn't very popular in the German language. The words exist but only the mild ones are really used. And the more education you have the less you will curse but ..duh...that's pretty much the same here, isn't it? ..except for that "f" word. People looove the "f"-word no matter how high up they are.

Obviously, the above are just my personal observations. Maybe they are not true?
Maybe they just applied to my time growing up in Austria. Maybe things have changed.
Heck, they even have cheap talk-shows on TV there now. They also have more than 2 state-channels now and privately owned radio-stations (well, that's been for a while now). So, ... things have certainly changed.