Visit a public house in Scotland

“One story of the trip goes as follows…As a small group of six visiting the Isle of Bute, we stopped at a local pub for a pint or two. The weather was more than fair—sunny and mid seventies. It was early afternoon and we sat outside a virtually empty patio save for a table of four off to the right. As Americans we value space and don’t want to crowd the other table, so we instinctively sat well to the left. After our beers were drained and the conversation shifted to dinner, we made moves to leave, one of the gentlemen at the other table says loud enough for us to catch, “Well my only regret is yeh didn’t set closer to us. We could have learned one or thing or two about one another.” This delightfully shocked me because everything in my cultural upbringing had me programmed to feel that space and privacy are to be respected. It never would have crossed my mind to greet the other table first, especially when traveling as a group.”