Warning: this article contains some sweeping generalisations and stereotyping.  Enjoy!

In the UK, many people hold the view that there is a big difference in the culture between the North of England and the South. Sometimes Scotland is included in ‘the North’ but mostly it keeps its own cultural counsel.

The nature of this difference in culture is expressed in a wide range of insults and stereotypes but none so eloquent as a simple, ‘Northerner’ or ‘Southerner’.

For example, those of us who grew up in the North think we’re friendlier than our counterparts in the South. It’s not uncommon in the North for people to chat to total strangers on the bus, in the bank or supermarket or when sharing a table in a busy café or bar.

In the South, people are much less likely to even make eye contact, let alone speak to someone they don’t know. For my overseas readers, if you’ve visited London and wondered why everyone on the Underground looks so grim, it’s because they’re trying to avoid the gaze of all the other people around them.

With my NLP Trainer head on, I started wondering whether there were patterns of language or behaviour that matched this North-South divide…

This is what I noticed.

[Please share your thoughts and observations too]

In the North, when people make conversation they ask questions and invite each other to speak.  It’s usual to be asked questions such as,

“How are you?”

“I like your coat. Is it new?”

“What are you doing at the weekend?”

“Did you get your car/fridge/tv fixed?”

“Why did you leave your job?” and so on.

Northerners don’t volunteer information. They wait to be asked. And they expect to be asked. There’s an underlying belief that it’s a bit rude to talk about yourself unless someone asks.

In the South, the reverse is true. When people make conversation they share a little bit of information about themselves and wait for others to reciprocate. You might hear…

“I’ve got next week off work”

“My new car has been delivered”

“I saw a great movie last weekend”

“I bumped into your neighbour when I was in town”

“The supermarket didn’t have any avocadoes”

Southerners volunteer information and they expect others in the conversation to do the same. They don’t want appear nosey so they don’t ask many questions. The underlying belief is that it’s rude to pry into your life.

This is all fine as long as you’re talking to someone from the same part of the country as you.

But…

Put a Northerner in a group of Southerners and they will not say much. They’re waiting to be asked a question and instead they’re listening to people talking about themselves. They might find an opportunity to ask a question but they won’t volunteer information.

Result:  the Southerners think the Northerner is unsociable, taciturn or just rude.

Conversely, put a Southerner in a group of Northerners and they will be bombarded with questions about anything and everything. They will reply, to be polite, even if they’re a bit uncomfortable will some of the questions. They wouldn’t dream of doing the same.

Result: The Northerner thinks the Southerner is ‘full of themselves’, ‘not interested in anybody else’ or just rude.

I’m not joking about this. My Mum fell and broke her arm. She also banged her forehead and ended up with two black eyes and some truly awful swelling across half of her face. She was staying with my sister while she recuperated. One day my sister took her out for a walk around the village. They crossed paths with a number of neighbours who stopped to say hello. Not one of them commented on the state of my Mum’s face or asked her what had happened to her.

Do I have to tell you that my sister lives in the South?

The fact that my sister lives in the South, despite growing up in the North, has afforded me a few memorable demonstrations of the North-South divide, none more so than this one…

Some years ago when I lived ‘up North’ I went to visit my sister and she took me to her local gym. She worked out while I retreated to the sauna/steam room/jacuzzi.

Later that evening I told her I’d been uncomfortable in the jacuzzi because there was a strange man there who wouldn’t look at me or make conversation even though we were the only two people there.

She looked at me in complete confusion. “What do you mean, he wouldn’t talk to you?”

“Well, exactly that. When he got into the jacuzzi I looked over at him to say hello and he looked away”

“What did you expect him to do????”

The health club I frequented near my home had a small jacuzzi and sauna. It was the social centre of the club and everyone would spend a few minutes there, chatting to whomever else showed up. There would be good-natured teasing about the cold plunge pool and questions about your workout.

That was what I was used to.

Apparently, in the South, it’s completely inappropriate to speak to another person in the sauna or steam room or jacuzzi. Whoops!

I’ve done my best to be impartial about this. It is, however, true that I come from the North and I start most of my conversations with questions.

I would love to hear your thoughts and observations. Am I right about this? Is it a North-South thing or just another way that people can be different from each other?