I've been reading a book recently that analyses the behaviour of the English. What really hit me throughout was a) how much rung true with me, and b) how different various cultures are at interacting. The basic synopsis of the English was that we are utterly useless at conversation and need some serious facilitators to talk to strangers which is the reason that we invented most sports*.

What this book also told me, in a roundabout way, is that compliments to sober people should be culture specific**: For the English girl, a compliment from a female friend is always replied to with a deflection and a counter compliment:
girl1: Wow, your hair looks great. Have you had it done recently?
girl2: Ah, this old thing? I need to go to the hair dressers regularly to have it look half as good as yours.

Accepting a compliment about appearance is not the done thing and so deflecting it back at the originator solves the problem. It should be noted that this is only a thin slither of the conversation; whilst the guys had a long discussion about how much beer it takes to get a horse drunk***, the girls could have spent this whole time deflecting and counter complimenting!

Back to the original point, there are numerous threads about direct vs. indirect openers for day game. What I'm asking is; are all of these people asking about approaching girls from the same culture? The inference from this book (as I read it) was that a direct compliment to an English girl would leave her uncomfortable. The Mediterranean Europeans however have developed their conversational skills to the extent where they can actually take a compliment.

It should be noted too that the English have an aversion to making people feel uncomfortable (for example, our inability to give a real answer when friends ask how we are if we're feeling terrible). This serious aversion is what makes the average English person unable to converse with strangers (you can only talk for so long about the only really safe topic of the weather).

Has anyone got comparative experience of gaming girls from England and the more relaxed Mediterranean? If so, how did the openness of your openers affect your success?

*All other nationalities could just talk to each other. The English can't talk to strangers unless we've got something in common to complain about. If we didn't invent sports, we probably invented the rules so that we could complain to each other that the rules weren't being followed.

** Cultural similarity is proportional to drunkenness in this aspect.

*** Lots of blood thus it might take a lot, but not used to alcohol thus making it a lightweight. If anyone ever conducts the experiment, let me know the answer!