But our most intimate moments aren't the only times in which we Americans overestimate our own abilities. Here are some other things Americans erroneously assume they are good at.
Tolerance: Many Americans, myself included, are quite tolerant. You know, do your thing as long as you're not hurting anyone. Seems fair enough, right? But America as a whole is rather the opposite. We've come a long way since the days of segregation, yet racism is still rampant. The Arizona racial-profiling law, and others like it coming to a ballot near you, are evidence of this. Something as silly as not allowing two people of the same sex to marry is still widely popular in the majority of the country, and we still have senators who think gays and sexually active, unwed women shouldn't be allowed to teach. It's no wonder a young man recently offed himself from being outed by his roommate in college. That's a bad sign America. A real bad sign.Embracing other cultures When we say we love Mexican food, we are actually saying we love American Mexican food. These are two very different things. Mexicans, for instance, don't put twenty different ingredients into a burrito the size of a small infant. Shocking, I know. Same goes for Thai food, sushi, Chinese food, etc. Everything we call ethnic in America is really just absorbed by our insatiable blob of a culture, watered down, soaked in corn syrup and doused in salt to fit our taste. That way, we feel good about being worldly while never actually having to leave the safe bubble that is 'American food.'
Nation Building We are really good at installing dictator puppet regimes, giving them weapons and aid and then having them turn on us at a later date. We've got that down pat. We're also really good at giving loans to impoverished countries, only to have interest rates sky-rocket, and conveniently taking over their economies and sending in U.S.-based companies to run the place when they can't afford to pay us back. Apparently, we were also pretty good at infecting our enemies with STDs in the 1940s. Actually creating an environment that fosters peace and democracy for years to come in foreign lands -- we're not as good at that as many of us would like to think.
Sports Just because we always bring home a truckload of medals at the Olympics doesn't really mean we're good at sports. The only reason we get so many is we send over so many damn people. The odds are clearly stacked in our favor. Forty Americans versus two Belgians and a dude from Ukraine: I wonder who's going to medal? In fact, it's pretty shocking when we don't get a medal, just based on the sheer number of athletes from the U.S. in every single discipline.
We also tend to think our sports are the best, when Rugby, Soccer and Cricket are clearly more interesting than Baseball or American Football. (Sidenote: how badass of us to be the only country in the whole world that is adamant about calling a sport that requires constantly kicking a ball with one's feet soccer, while maintaining that a sport primarily concerned with holding a ball with one's hands is called football. It only makes sense when you take into account the immensity of our ethnocentric pride.) Even if we're not the best at absolutely everything -- though we do come close -- we still do our best, and that's what matters, is that we try, right? And if it's any consolation, we still beat Canada at Hockey.