What my European wife actually thinks about America

My wife is Venezuelan who lived in Portugal / Germany and Spain for 13+ years and now lives in the United States.

Over a dim sum lunch I asked her what she thinks about America and was shocked about what she noticed.

Here’s a few of my favorites:

Normalized drug usage. We were watching Firefly Lane (tv show) and the news anchor starts snorting cocaine and having a blast dancing around. We see this content on shows, movies and social media all the time. I didn’t notice it. When you think about it, the drugs are super illegal and it’s pretty wild how much our media just shows that drugs = people having fun. This is not the case in other countries.

Companies are too sensitive here. We disagree on this one but she thinks American companies coddle their employees way too much. “How are you FEELING about work,” “I don’t want to hurt their feelings,” etc… she thinks it’s way over-indexed here. I am not sure I agree at my company AppSumo but in Europe she feels its more strictly business. Less all the time making sure the person feels happy and they should just feel happy they have a job!

Subscriptions. Everything here you have to subscribe to. DisneyPlus, period tracking app, our baby camera, sleep tracking ring, grocery ordering, Everything. Kinda wild where in Europe it was phone, tv, internet and they were all on 1 bill. It’s also how the culture here accepts subscriptions way more than other countries.

Drinking alone. Here you can sit on your couch, drink a beer and it’s totally normal. (author’s note: I’m drinking a beer alone even while writing this article.) So it’s true! It’s not social. Other countries it’s only a social act where you go to a bar or a friends place to drink but never alone.

You can make a career here in services. There are nail salon, painters, waiters and more that can make good money in America. Live great lives. Those jobs make less money and don’t have as much opportunity in other countries.

Selling all the time. When you have a problem, you are 1 search away from finding something to buy to solve it. People consume less internationally and don’t always default to trying to buy things. On the other side she loves how entrepreneurial the country is that people are always coming up with new solutions to problems. Ie. I bought a drain lifter for our shower.

Less debt. In America you work to pay what you have. In Europe you save to buy what you want. That sounds about right. Look at our country’s debt-GDP ratio compared to Spain.

Women dress sporty. In Europe you only wear leggings and tight clothes to the gym. Here you see basically women in underwear when you’re at the airport, dentist or anywhere.

These are generalizations but I tend to nod my head at most of them.

I don’t think my wife has a negative judgment of America good or Europe bad, more just the differences in countries.

It could also be a timing thing as internationalization spreads, job wages are getting equalized, ubiquitous social media that more and more countries could converge on similar cultures.

Originally published as an article on X on 2026-01-23.

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