What do Bulgarians Know About the South?

The things one learns while doing the kind of deepdive research required to provide you with cutting-edge material that you can toss out to your amazed friends at the next church social.

According to QR Code Generator – whatever that is – Georgia is the least sociable state in the union. If that be true, you may not be of a mind to share this information with anyone at the next church social because you may not be feeling sociable and apparently neither will anyone else. They are just there for the cookies and lemonade.

Alaska, which is the largest state in the United States – larger than the next three largest states (Texas, California and Montana) combined – and which has a population less than Cobb County but a lot more moose and black flies, is considered the most sociable. I figure since there is roughly one Alaskan for every square mile of territory – not counting the moose and black flies – just waving at another human being far off in the distance probably counts as being sociable.

QR Code Generator, which promises to provide a QR code that will help you “improve the impact of your marketing, enhance customer experience and increase engagement,” doesn’t mention why our sociability should be any of their concern. They are, after all, located in Bulgaria, which is right next door to Ukraine, which makes them very close to Russia, as well. I’m thinking that’s what they ought to be worrying about rather than how much we say howdy and to whom.

It is clear that QR Code Generator has too much time on its hands when not generating QR codes to impact your marketing, enhance customer experience and all that other stuff. They recently released a study on the most searched-for phobias on the internet in the U.S. and concluded the number one phobia is – are you ready? – trypophobia, an aversion to small holes clustered together in a pattern. That includes honeycombs, sunflowers and fruit containing small seeds, such as strawberries and kiwis.

If you suddenly start feeling sociable, you might want to drop that nugget on the group at the next church social and watch them spew their lemonade in amazement. The things I do for you.

It is interesting to note that 8 of the 10 least sociable states are in the South. The only two exceptions are New Jersey and Vermont. This left the Bulgarians scratching their glavas. “While many would expect Southern states, known for their warm hospitality, to rank top of the list,” they opined, “it is interesting to see expectations flipped in the ranking.” Well, kiss my grits and your flipping expectations.

We aren’t antisocial in the South. We are just a bit circumspect with outsiders. My daddy didn’t know much about QR codes, but he knew a lot about being Southern. He used to say, “People from other parts of the country will tell you everything they know, whether you asked them or not. Southerners will tell you what they want you to know when they are ready for you to know it.”

No doubt that’s the case here. A bunch of Bulgarians start asking us about going to bars or music venues or sporting events or how many minutes a day we spend on telephone calls or emails and we’ll sull up in a minute. That’s our business and we don’t see any reason to share with a bunch of strangers where we go line dancing on Saturday nights. On the other hand, Alaskans are happy to go into as much detail as you want just to have somebody to talk to and to get their minds off the swarms of black flies and rutting moose.

QR Code Generator may know a lot about the digital age and URLs and the like, but they don’t know much about the South. We aren’t standoffish in the least. You want to talk a little football, not the kind they play in Bulgaria but real football, and we’ll talk all day. Tell us about Lili Ivanova, considered the greatest Bulgarian pop singer of all time, and we’ll tell you about Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia, the greatest singer of all time, period. Brag about your stuffed grape leaves and we extol the virtues of the Vidalia Onion. No contest.

We are a proud people in the South. You just have to get to know us. Based on the QR Code Generator survey I just read, they don’t have a clue, y’all.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.