Adjusting to Social Interactions In India after living in the USA

When I moved to India from the US, I was clueless about Indian social interactions. I was visiting Google Hyderabad, and my US friend introduced me to her friend from the Google HYD office, and said “She’s a friend. Meet her”. So I met her for lunch. This girl ignored me in the most beautifully cinematic way possible — she came late for lunch, slammed her plate in front of me, gave mono-syllable “Yea” answers and spent 30 mins heads down texting on the phone, while apologizing “Sorry, just give me a min” in a maximum non-sorry energy — “sorry-not-sorry”. I wasn’t sure why she met me in the first place. I realise now It was just a cultural expectation mismatch.

What I teach in my sessions with NRIs, is that In India your experiences oscillate between extremes. Usually people are super friendly and then you find this girl.

We can only assume why she did that: 1) She genuinely had work to do. (Yea right) 2) She was jealous of this girl who came from USA. “I’ll not give her bhav”. 3) She was just doing her duty for her friend and didn’t care to meet a new person. 4) She was in a bad mood.

You pick.

After many years in India, my approach to meeting friends-of-friends has been refined. Yea, yea, I gotta give a “Maximum Adjusted ex-NRI” of the decade award to myself (the trophy will be a $ sign and when you ask me how I felt receiving it, I will be very specific, Indian-style, and say “good-good. accha laga, very nice” :))

Here are the changes I have made to meet random people: 1) Don’t reveal too much about yourself before meeting. People tend to want to meet your online version rather than who you truly are as a person. 2) Be fully alert during conversations. If you get a hint the person is not taking you seriously, politely excuse yourself. 3) Do your homework on random people before you meet them. Have a contingency plan to katofy in case things don’t go well. Meet in a cafe — you can leave as soon as 20 mins.

Any other tips?