Ahoy! It's a Dane!

hard. We are expected to form social relations with the people we go to school with or the people we work with.

You’d think we were stuck in 18th century England where it’s frowned upon to talk to anybody you haven’t been formally introduced to, but the fact of the matter is that this is still kinda of the reality in Denmark.

Of course, almost none of the norms apply to situations in which Danes are intoxicated. When a Dane is drunk, the social norms are different. All bets are off so to speak. This is also why lots of people ‘hook up’ when they’re out partying. That’s usually the first step of dating a Dane. More on that here, if you want to read it – it’s a good read and fairly accurate.

Now of course – not all Danes are like this. We don’t growl at strangers when they approach or anything. But the general consensus is that if a strangers walks up to you and starts talking to you (outside of school, work or private parties) that stranger is either A) Crazy, B) Trying to sell you something or C) A tourist. Maybe even all of the above. Whichever the case, it’s not someone you particularly want to interact with.

It’s not because we dislike strangers. I’m sitting here trying to figure out why we are this way. I don’t really know. It’s just seen as rude to talk to anybody you don’t have any business talking to. It also extends beyond that. Even among friends, it’s really rude to just drop by somebody’s home. If a friend of mine out of the blue knocks on my door I’ll assume some sort of tragedy just happened or that something is really, really wrong.

I think part of the reason why we are this way, is because it’s seen as really rude to just assume that the person you’re visiting doesn’t have anything better to do than entertain you. Now I might be perfectly happy to see you. I might even have missed you. But if you show up unannounced on my doorstep I’m going to be annoyed too, because you’re messing up my plans.

Maybe it’s just that Danes as a population can’t handle unexpected occurrences?

Should something unexpected to occur, you can count on a Dane on handling it with a cool calm. They will always be polite. The most impolite thing a Dane will do might be to just not respond when you’re talking to them. They’ll simply ignore you in the hopes that you will go away. Because that is how we as a population deal with uncomfortable things. We ignore them and hope they go away. They usually do.

But as polite as we are, we don’t like to exchange meaningless pleasantries. The classic one is Americans that always ask ‘How are you?’ no matter what the situation is. Don’t get me started on that one. I mean – do you really want to know how I am? Like, really? You are interested in hearing about the details of my life and my mood? And then you ask me in a setting where they only thing I can possible answer is ‘Fine-thank-you-how-are-you?’ as quickly as possible because it’s a fucking shop and I’m leaving as soon as you hand me my receipt which will be in 2½ seconds.

I got used to that question. I learned to smile and say thank you. But it’s still the definition of being superficial and rude in your relations to strangers. Don’t ask me how I’m doing unless you have 30 minutes to hear me talk about my life, the meaning of it all, and the fact than I’m hungry.

This post got rather long, didn’t it? I'll stop now then - talk to you later.

Toodles

xoxo