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7 Signs Your Best Friend Is Australian

Australia
by Sarah Katin Sep 30, 2014
1. You’ve learned to speak Australian.

You first met your Australian best friend 10 years ago while teaching in a dodgy language school in South Korea. She rolled into work that first morning claiming to be ‘buggered’ and saying she was going to ‘pike’ right after classes. You thought your fellow co-teacher might be… going hiking? Who knows? She had a bloody thick accent, but an instant friendship was formed nonetheless.

Discussions regarding the subtle nuances between Aussie vs. American English quickly followed. Now you let the Aussie lingo rip without a second thought. You don’t even realize you’re doing it anymore. They just sound like normal words. That’s not to say other people don’t notice. They do, and they find your word choices rather odd. Whatever. Those yobbos can mind their own bizzo.

2. You love Vegemite.

You even order it off Amazon, and you don’t buy into the whole ‘it’s the same as Marmite’ philosophy. Vegemite is the only philosophy when it comes to strong punchy B vitamins in a dark tar-like spreadable substance. You put only a light coating on your Salada as you know not to overpower your tastebuds with that salty, yeasty, malty mess of pungent flavour. (By the way, that’s how you spell ‘flavour’ now.) You can feel the B vitamins taking effect. Basically, making you a better person. Mozzies won’t touch you now, so dengue fever and malaria are one less thing to worry about. Good onya!

3. You go on pie quests.

You frequently accompany your bestie on pie finding missions throughout LA. Not fruity sweet pies. You’re on the hunt for hearty meat pies in a very specific crust. It needs a delicate, tender, flaky crust. Much like puff pastry. It can’t be the heavy lard-ridden kind your Grandma uses for apple pies. You stand with your mate in solidarity at a local pie shop—a supposed purveyor of authentic Oz pies—as she explains to the non-Australian owner in great detail how that’s NOT a pie. You nod your head in fierce agreement and mentally do the line from Crocodile Dundee: that’s not a knife…

p.s.. While we’re on the subject of food, you can slam a Tim Tam like a champ.

4. You know what comes after Aussie Aussie Aussie…

…Oi Oi Oi!

Aussie!
Oi!
Aussie!

Oi (Repeat.)

Not only do you know this, you’re often the one starting it.

5. She has a different perspective on spiders.

While camping, you happen upon a freakishly large beast of a spider. It’s probably escaped from some laboratory where they do experiments on normal spiders to see if they can even make freakishly large beast spiders. They can. You yell across the campsite and describe this eight-legged monstrosity to your friend.
“It must’ve had babies. There’s heaps over here that look exactly like what you’re talking about only much, MUCH smaller,” she shouts back.

You investigate and quickly discover your spider is actually the runt.

6. Your name has been changed.

You’re no longer Sarah. You’re Sares. Everyone you meet through your best mate will call you Sares. This is fine because they’re mostly Aussies and they pronounce it S-airs. Americans will call you Sars and you’ll feel like a bird flu.

On the flip side, you have no idea how to address her family and friends. You know his name is Warren but they all call him Wazzaaaaaa! Then there’s Davo, Benno, Karza, Prustar, Smell, Morgy, Lozza! You often end up doing some kind of awkward fusion of their real name and the Australian version of their name because you feel uncomfortable committing to either. You find it best to avoid using names all together.

7. You know Chris Hemsworth was in Home and Away

and little brother Liam was in Neighbours. Toni Collette will always be Muriel, and Eric Bana is Chopper. Or maybe you have a particular fondness for him as the passionate kickboxing son-in-law in the iconic film The Castle which you’ve seen half a dozen times because your best friend is Australian. In fact, when you show her this listicle, she beams and tells you it’s going straight to the pool room!

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