I'm American and I'm also not understanding the comments about pairing identical socks that were purchased at the same time. I just tend to buy them 10 pairs or so at a time, match them randomly, and wear them until individual socks get lost or worn out.
This is what I do as well. All of my everyday socks are identical, so I don't have to pair them up at all after laundry day. I just keep them loose in a drawer and pull two arbitrary ones out when I put my socks on.
