Getting to know someone

I am realizing that Spanish culture is changing me, more in just the hours I eat, the language I speak most of the time, the clothes I wear, etc., Back in the cross-cultural training I went through a couple of years ago, they talked about us being square headed people going into a round headed culture. Little by little (poco a poco), we'd have corners chopped off our square head, making us look more like (although never fully) a round head. In actuality we'd be more like stop sign heads, or octogons, or whatever. So at the conference I recently I went to in southern Spain I was asked what was one of the things that I either willingly or unknowingly had had chopped off of my square head. I don't remember what I said, but it got me thinking a bit. One of the ways by head's been chopped off and I think is still being chopped at, is how you get to know someone. I don't fully understand it, but I do know that sometimes when I am with americans who live in the US I feel a bit like a weirdo. I am a little less quick in sharing or asking others to share a lot of personal information. I do still ask questions, but I'm finding that I often ask a really general question if I do and that it is more normal to share something about myself and then expect the other to do the same, or vice versa.

Like I said, I haven't figured it out, but I've been told that American culture asks questions to get to know someone (which is true) and that European culture share-share getting to know someone. Recently I meant some people who just arrived to Madrid and they asked me about a million and one questions. After awhile they said, "Feel free to ask if you have any questions for us." Now, granted I was tired, had just answered a million and one questions (mainly about ministry stuff), but my mind was fairly blank. I did ask them several things, but it was then that I told them the whole square-round-stop sign head analogy and how this was one of the ways Spanish culture had changed me a bit.