Around ~2008 I was in a Barcelona hostel and met a guy there. He started speaking and I interrupted him excitedly…“Oh you’re American!!”.
He looked down…the weight of pain curdled the air around us. You could sense deep sorrow welling beneath the surface of this man. He paused for what felt like an eternity to compose himself,
He looked up with a piercing, but harrowing, stare and said “No, I’m Canadian…”
I’ll never forget that moment. That sheer depth of emotion is something I haven’t experienced before or since.
Did I silently murder this poor Canadian soul? How do Canadians cope with the mistaken identity?
It’s only happened once and it was a fellow Canadian. For some reason they said I had a southern accent?
Meanwhile some American friends who have heard my voice were all like, "you sound soooo Canadian!“
I was at a mixer (science conference) in California once, and was talking to a colleague when from behind us, out of nowhere: “did you just say aboot?”