That is not your culture! He understands, and I am sure he was still glad you listened to him speak!!!! Don't feel bad op!

Accidents happen OP I'm sure he isn't holding a grudge

I hope he had a good breakfast.

If he wants to follow those "rules" you shouldn't feel bad. If women in low cut tops look at me on the street I have to spend the rest of the day bear foot :/

All you can do is apologize. And maybe it's a lesson we can all learn, to just ask in the future, mind if I take a seat? I'm sure that in many cultures it's frowned upon for a man to sit with a woman (especially a woman he doesn't know). Plus it never hurts to ask!

I feel like that goes against everything this FML is saying. She talked with him and sat down with him to learn more about his culture and religion. In no way would that lead to the assumption she figured that his culture was 100% exactly like her's, wherever she's from. It leads to the opposite assumption in my mind. Plus, even if she had studied that culture, I doubt every little rule and social cue is written in a book. She made a mistake, one she had no idea was a mistake until it was too late. She's human so it's only natural to make mistakes like that. At least she was doing it because she wanted to listen to him and learn more rather than to invade his personal space and be an asshole or something like that.

Sitting down to have a conversation with someone of a different culture to learn about their culture and religion is the complete opposite of assuming they share the same beliefs. She made a mistake, she's human. Even if she had studied about the culture of the place she was going or or monks in advance, not every little social cue and rule would have been recorded. It's no one's fault really, still a sucky situation for the monk and OP probably feels bad already.

And I can only surmise that you're from the land of **** heads that judge a whole lot of people based on the actions of a select few.

His job to tell you. After all, none of us are mind readers.

Just because it has no meaning to you, doesn't mean it has no meaning to him. It's a bit ignorant to call his beliefs stupid just because you don't understand them.