Owl, I hope your thread does attract responses from abroad. I, too, am unemployed. Yes, things get said to me that make me feel like your emoticon (banging head 'gainst wall.) It hurt me when, at a depression support group in my town, when someone said that there are lots of jobs in the field I worked in and he can't see why I am having trouble. I truly believe this person had absolutely no idea how rude the remark was. It was said, I believe, to make me feel encouraged. So, I am going to add on "dumb" to rude. I agree with Jaded, above, in that here in the US our culture of self-reliance goes extreme at times. So - like - if I don't have a job, then I am a burden to society. Since becoming unemployed, I avoid my neighbors. They're nice and we got along great, but they asked things they had no business asking. Now I feel like I'm an object of pity within the small complex in which I live. Again, none of them seemed to have any idea that I don't need to be interrogated. So I politely pulled away from them. But, I feel like there is this huge stigma on me. You raise a good question. How would I be regarded in another part of the world, especially Europe, or even nearby Canada.