What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad?
I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.
Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.
edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.
Male being good at talking and flirting with girls. Where I grew up (south of Italy) you have to be able to know what to do as a young heterosexual man, otherwise girls would completely ignore you. When I was young, italian girls expected "work" from boys, a lot of work. You could not throw money or take shortcuts (I don't know if it is still valid).
When I moved to north of Europe, in 3 different countries, I realized that for north european guys existing was enough to get many girls. It was so easy, girls flirt with you, they literally go after boys. You could do nothing and a girl would start flirting with you. And being decent at talking with girls meant that any average Italian guy abroad was a Don Giovanni.
does this work for lesbians too?
On a night out in Newcastle? Absolutely, sweetheart
UK is one of the 3 countries I mentioned! Nights out in uk were a pretty strong (positive) surprise for me
yeah, guess that should be my next vacation lol!
So everyone in Italy has "acts of service" as their love language? Noted.
If a guy is interested in me, I just expect him to be his best self.
Don't know what to answer.
Normal and healthy mammals relationships start with courtship display https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtship_display.
It is the normal behavior in humans as well. Not doing it would be pretty unusual, and probably worrying.
The difference is that in Italy, girls used to require a long, complex and time consuming courtship. One night stands were not even a thing, they were unthinkable, some fantasy from Hollywood movies.
North European girls not only had much lower expectations from men, required much less effort, but many of them even proactively started the process themselves, flirting and clearly communicating their intentions. This made the process particularly straightforward, but it also didn't allow local men to improve their communication skills. Therefore average Italians looked extremely good with women: charming, listeners, caring... Despite the language barriers
I don't know if it is still valid tough, I have been married for a long time
Is it like that across all Italy, and is there an age group where that kinda does down?
I don't know how it is now. I am an old millennial that has been "out of the market" for over 15 years. It might have changed due to social media.
I can't say if it was all of Italy, because it's rather big. But from discussions with other Italians, it was a pretty general feeling, particularly for those from south of Italy.
Never goes down
That sounds... Tiring