The 10 Worst People Who Studied Abroad, and How to Mess With Them

Well, it’s just about the end of the semester, which means America will once again be flooded with thousands of college students coming back from that life-changing four months they won’t ever shut up about known as “study abroad.” And while most kids come back from this experience with a new perspective on the world and an appreciation for other cultures, many come back, well, just effing intolerable.

So if you’re reading this and preparing to return home, or waiting for your buddies to get back, or just remember the colossal tools who used to come back and pollute your ears with their nonstop tales of international interleague, here are the 10 worst people who come back from study abroad, and how to seriously mess with them.

Before he left, the only soccer player he could name was “the guy married to the Spice Girl.” Now he wants the sports bar to change the baseball game so he can watch something called “Man City?” Yeah, nice scarf.

How to mess with him: Ask him his thoughts on the upcoming Barclay’s league championship between AC Milan and Liverpool, or if he thinks Messi could do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke. Watch the bullsh*t fly.
 

Though his new foreign girlfriend is slightly more believable than the Canadian one he met in summer camp, at least that one wasn’t using him for a green card.

How to mess with him: Tell him they’re going to start charging for Skype.
 

Anyone who’s ever watched half an episode of “Coupling” knows they call it the “loo” in England, pal. And calling your cellphone a "mobile" now because that's the cognate in whatever language you studied is only teaching us that you’re a pretentious douche. 

How to mess with him: Make up new American slang words he missed while he was “living” abroad.

You know what exactly nobody wants to hear when he’s stuck in his third hour of traffic on the 405? How it’s NOTHING compared to China. We know, there’s people starving there, too. That fact doesn’t make Brussels sprouts taste any better.

How to mess with him: Make him drive. Everywhere.
 

Apparently, if the US were run by the people in whatever country he just came back from, we’d have no diseases, 100% employment, no homeless people, cars that get 400 miles to the gallon, free pizza on every corner, absinthe fountains, and houses made out of rainbows.

How to mess with him: Open his wallet, take out half the money that’s in there, and tell him that sh*t don’t come cheap.

That’s cool how in BA you can get a steak, a bottle of wine, three appetizers, and a Tango lesson for less than what you just paid for a New York Strip. But you know where we’re not? Argentina. That’ll be $57.

How to mess with him: Tell him you know a place where you can get the same deal. Then drive to Applebee’s.
 

It’s amazing how three months in Australia has completely undone 20 years of speech patterns you learned growing up in America. Funny how you don’t see Aussie exchange students from Boston going back to Sydney saying “Maaaah! Turn awna cah radio, I wawnna listena da Sawx.”

How to mess with him: Tell every girl he talks to he’s from Ohio.

Because we all enjoy sitting at the best Italian restaurant in the city and hearing how the food is so much better in Italy where every restaurant apparently sources its ingredients from tiny hillside farms owned by old men named Salvatore who’ve spent their entire lives herding goats and picking tomatoes themselves.

How to mess with him: Ask him to define “terroir” and explain the difference between marinara and red sauce.

Nothing quite like a guy who’s spent his life reaping the benefits of American culture and affluence who spends four months in Europe and then won’t shut up about the American Rat Race, how we do everything wrong, and are trying to ruin the world. Four months does not a life make, bro.

How to mess with him: Ask him how he passed 10th grade history.

Though it may be commonplace in “Bar-THE-lona” to go out to dinner at 11pm, sit there for three hours, and then hit the discos, you fail to remember that the local P.F. Chang’s closes at 10pm. And no, egg rolls do not count as tapas.

How to mess with him: Tell him he needs to see a speech therapist about that newfound lisp.