Why wouldn’t you move to Europe? And if you were considering it at all where would you try and why?
Just to be clear the question was meant as: what do you find repulsive in Europe that you would never move here? Asking because I wanna see if my view on Europe is similar to yours and it is from your replies!
Edit: Thanks for all the kind replies!!
31 comments
I like it here
Not much different from America. It’s certainly not cheap. I left America a little more than five years ago to Vietnam
Cause I don’t wanna
All my stuff is here…
Why is this phrased like leaving is the default and staying is a conscious choice?
I don’t speak fluent French, Spanish, German, Italian, Greek, Polish, Russian, or any other of the myriad of languages spoken in Europe.
– I like it here
– My family lives here
– I would prefer to not learn a new language
– I hear actuaries get paid less abroad
– I hear it’s a pain to transfer professional credentials
1. All my stuff is here.
2. I’ve built up a pretty good rapport with the guys at the deli down the street from me and I don’t wanna mess that up. They know what I like to order depending on the time of day and they often “forget” to ring up my Nesquik. You can’t just walk away from a relationship like that.
3. I feel like moving to another continent would impede my ability to go to the amount of Mets games I usually do.
4. I’m concerned about the dragon situation.
Why *would* I move to Europe? Nothing specifically against Europe, but I live in the U.S., and I’d need a good reason to move elsewhere. No such reason has ever come up.
The people whom I know and love are in the US.
> Why wouldn’t you move to Europe?
My life is here. Europeans seemingly have a hard time understanding that Americans are not ready to leave their friends, family, homes, job, and the comfort of the familiar behind. Furthermore, we understand that Europe is not that much different and certainly not much better, it’s simply not worth it for most Americans
> And if you were considering it at all where would you try and why?
I lived in Denmark, I had an opportunity there and took it. It was fun but there’s a reason I came home.
I enjoy visiting more. I do a lot of international business trips, and my wife and I love traveling. I’d rather let Europe keep it’s charm and be a visitor. Once you move somewhere the charm wears off and it’s just not the same experience.
Also, I don’t want to board a flight every time I see my parents and extended family. Maybe later in life we’d attempt to retire there, but who knows?
The immigration process is very difficult if you don’t have specific in-demand skills or a *lot* of money. The average American has neither the required skills nor the means to move to Europe.
Even moving to Canada is very difficult, and unattainable for most.
Language barriers & the logistical difficulty of having to get all my stuff there.
I make fat stacks here. Europeans make less money that goes less far, even before taxes.
All of my family os here. If I need to go to them for an emergency, the US does not restrict interstate travel. If I needed to go here during the height of covid, and I was outside of the US, I’d be stuck wherever I was, or at least prevented from returning.
I don’t want to give up my standard of living.
The much bigger paycheck, bigger house on more land, my cars. Stuff like that. I love my consumerist culture where I can get pretty much whatever I want for relatively cheap and easy.
I don’t want to sit on a bus or train with 60 other people because I can’t easily afford a car, or to pay $12/gal for gas to put in it if I could, and try to convince myself i like it better this way. Because I won’t.
Same situation with my house. I’m not going to try to convince myself living in an apartment (flat?) smaller than my current downstairs is better because I can walk to a store and a cafe.
I *do* wish we had the biking infrastructure that some places in Europe have, that would be awesome. And I wish we had your candy…and I will defend your candy to the death. Ill show up to defend your candy in a V8 truck with a bunch of guns too.
I like where I live. Beyond that, two main reasons:
1. I am an extremely picky eater and I’d worry about being able to adapt to local cuisine. It would be rough.
2. The restrictions on freedom of speech make me a little ill. Just as a recent example, officials in Czechia threatening imprisonment for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ([source](https://balkaninsight.com/2022/03/01/czechia-mulls-penalising-support-of-ukraine-invasion/)), and similar talk in Germany ([source](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/28/displaying-z-support-russias-invasion-ukraine-could-illegal/)), is disturbing to me. Even if I do think it is a horrific travesty, it shouldn’t be possible for someone to be arrested just because they disagree with their leaders.
I moved there for two years. I failed at making friends, learning the language, and just making a life there. Also, comparable jobs take home pay was around 60% of what the US is.
Then the pandemic hit, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, and was furloughed for 6 months. As in I was paid to do nothing and not go anywhere for 6 months, but barely enough to cover rent and groceries.
I loved lots of aspects of Europe, the job, the history, being able to see so many countries so close together…. But I’m not built for living there full time. I wouldn’t mind going back, but just to visit or maybe a shorter work stay or something
* I like being close to my family.
* I like my current friend group.
* I’m already introverted and adding a cultural and communication barrier to make new friends sounds daunting.
* Europe is pretty, but so are a lot parts of America. I’m not sure moving to Europe is worth the whole rigamarole of uprooting my life and going through the paperwork to move.
* I’m more of a somewhere person and less of an anywhere one.
I wouldn’t move because my friends, family, career, and property are all here. The hassle and costs of uplifting and moving my life are not worth it as I would be set to gain nothing that I would want or need by moving across the world.
In no particular order: My wife is here, my family is here, my job is here, everyplace I’m attached to is here, a lot of people really don’t seem to like Americans or immigrants in a lot of Europe so being both at the same time seems like a not-fun time , there is such a thing as a naturalization process that I can (and likely would) be rejected for so it’s silly to think of it as just “moving there” like its another town, I am not rich enough to be an exception, I’ve had to move about seven times in the last ten years and that’s enough for a while and there’s an actual war going on in Europe right now.
All my family is here.
My friends are here.
My guns probably wouldn’t be welcome.
I’d probably annoy the natives
Why would I want to? This is a very weird way to phrase the question
I feel like I stand out enough being a black guy with shoulder length braids in some towns here.
Why would I want to be a needle in a haystack overseas? I don’t have anything against the continent of Europe but I just have zero inclination to uproot my life and move some place not knowing the language just so I can truly feel what’s it’s like to be a minority
I’ve already spent 5 years working in Africa, and more years essentially just fucking off in Europe. One more year in South American countries. Everything I owned was in my backpack, so I could just save up enough money to fuck off to another continent.
My first real “America is my true home” moment was coming off the airplane when I returned. Totally “this is where I was meant to be” moment.
I would never move to Europe though. Never ever. My relatives there are nosy motherfuckers and they’d be up in my business 5 seconds after I moved. At least in the US I have some decent expectation of privacy.
I moved to a country in Europe. I can give a single example of why others wouldn’t based on my experience:
– It’s certainly not easy.
I assume you’re from somewhere in Europe, most likely UK. What are your reasons for not moving to Australia? Let’s keep it closer to home, why haven’t you moved to France? Another example, if you’re from Germany, why haven’t you moved to France?
Yours is a nonsense question. I say that because there are 70 million people who live in the UK, why’s it not an empty island? I know that UK includes Northern Ireland, I’m just using the one island as an example. What reasons do they have for staying in their country when the rest of Europe is so close?
– family
– stuff – for lack of a better word
– career
– schools
– language barrier
– children
There are many reasons for a European not to move to another European country. Those same reasons apply to Americans. Why should they move?
I don’t think I’d qualify to immigrate quite frankly. But it also sounds like a huge hassle.
Because there are no compelling reasons for me to do so.
Pros:
* history/tourism
* food
Cons:
* I’m a gearhead and have four cars. Would be unworkable and/or extremely expensive there.
* I like my pew-pews.
* 99% of my friends are here.
* 100% of my family is here.
* Cover-ups of rape/grooming gangs because of political correctness.
* EU bullshit.
* Anti-American sentiment/lecturing.
Too many people on too small a space, no football, my dogs are here.
I enjoy being able to practice my culture without hearing racist remarks from Europeans.
Making a big move would involve losing a lot, even if it was just across the US, much less across an ocean. I don’t see any significant gain to offset that.
* I have no desire to leave North America.
* Europe is too far from family.
* Apparently there’s not so much wilderness like we have in America in a lot of European countries?
* I’m really glad to be back home within a set time after visiting Europe (or really any other continent). The little cultural differences start adding up over time.
* I’d miss the food.
* I’d miss the convenience.
* I’d miss the space.
* I would be making much less money, and I would be spending a lot of money on long flights to visit family.