American girls respond to stories not with interest or questions but with their own incomplete anecdotes. Tell her you went to Africa developing cost-effective mudbrick huts for the poor and she responds, "Cool, yeah I traveled last year to Thailand and it was so awesome. I love travel!"She offers nothing substantive. She lives as if everything exists as a mechanism to talk about herself. She offers nothing substantive. She lives as if everything exists as a mechanism to talk about herself.