Originally Posted by
Dandelion
Depends on the Westerner. A Romanian ex-coworker got offended at me because she thought I saw her as Russian for saying 'Ilya' is a male Russian name. A Dutch female coworker working was named 'Ilya', a topic she herself joked about. Her (the Romanian woman's) surname is also means 'Russian' in Romanian to boot. But no, I know the difference between nationalities. The fact I understood half of what the Russian coworkers there were saying in the canteen didn't help neither.
But I always saw her as a Romanian woman. Just pre-emptively on her high horse.
I get where you're coming from, but I got lumped together with those weird donks not knowing anything about geography by that individual.