What as a English man should I look out for on a trip to the USA.
I can confirm the suspicion of strangers handing you something. We don’t trust something for nothing.
There are entire YouTube channels about walking up to Americans and trying to give them a $100 bill. Most won’t take it.
Nah that’s fair enough, I get it. It’s a reasonably common thing in the UK - either the person who takes it is a local rogue who’ll flog the travelcard for a quid, or it’ll be used by someone away out on the piss for the night.
I just found it odd is all. Like, if you take it and it works, happy days - you’ve saved yourself a bit of cash. If the ticket gate spits it back at you, then oh well, back to plan A.
It’s cool to hear your take on it though, thank you.
We Americans are very paranoid about things we think are “too good to be true” (don’t know if that’s a phrase everywhere). This may be looking too deep into things, but I honestly think our country’s history of taking advantage of less informed peoples has influenced this - we know what happens when you take the bait, so it’s best to just accept the norm (ie paying your own metro fare) vs risk finding out what happens if they come back looking for what they “gave” you.
I actually sat and thought on this for a second. If someone walked up to me and tried to give me a $100 bill, I’d probably ask a few questions first, mainly, “what do you want?” If they seem genuine in that they just felt like being nice to someone (or even if I got the “social experiment” vibes), I’d probably take it, and ask if I could buy them something small with it (like, if this were outside the grocery store, ask if they wanted some snacks or a drink or something).
I think if I were in a group setting, someone approaching the group trying to give us a $100 bill would probably would be quickly closed out of the circle, and everyone would get quiet and look away until they left, at which point everyone would talk about that weird guy trying to sell us something.
Hi American friend!
I absolutely get it - “too good to be true” is definitely a thing in the English speaking world.
I absolutely get the apprehension - if I was jumping on to a Bee Bus or the Edinburgh Trams with a ticket that some rando was trying to offload, then my Spidey senses would be tingling too.
In this instance though, we’re probably looking at a value of US$10ish, so in my own perfectly subjective opinion, I’d be happy to give it a bash. If it doesnt work, the the ticket gets yeeted and the contactless card gets used instead.
I absolutely understand settling in to the “normal” of buying your own ticket though and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.
