We have all encountered the mildly irritating American friend who returns from a few weeks in Europe — maybe as much as an entire semester! — with a “global perspective.” Maybe they’ve come back with a new pair of shoes, a jacket from Galeries Lafayette or Van Graaf, some bits of useful foreign-language slang, a renewed commitment to grilled fresh fish and the perfect summer white wine. If you’re reading this now, in fact, there’s about a 50/50 chance you have been that American at some point in your life. (I certainly have.)
But the thing about this syndrome — which, in its more cringeworthy try-hard versions, comes with protestations that “I really don’t think of myself as American” — is its obvious and painful effort to separate the protagonist from those other Americans, the ones we eagerly join the rest of the world in deprecating, deriding and lamenting.
