Sunday, August 9, 2020

Emotions

If it could be possible to make emotional expressions illegal Denmark would be the country to do it in. Personally I find it interesting because up until I moved to Denmark I was trying to act that way. To keep my emotions in check and not let them show but after I moved here I saw how unhealthy it can be. Denmark is especially good place to see it because it is the cultural default. When you see someone expressing emotions a bit more intensively in public, it is a foreigner. The levels to which Danes are capable of suppressing them is sometimes worrying but impressive at the same time.

In public spaces they just go about their business with serious looks on their faces. Only emotional expressions that you can see are gentle smiles on people when they are talking to someone on the phone or while looking at their phones.

My friend from the language school told me a story about her neighbor. One day she went out of her building and she met her Danish neighbor. She said hi, while he told her that he had lost his dog. While he said it, he had a stone face with no emotional expression it while uttering the sentence in a perfectly flat way, 0 emotions. She commented, but how can he do it that way, he must be dying inside? And he is, they all are but they are culturally drilled not to express them.

But, when we are talking about public spaces, I can understand that to a certain extent but I am completely perplexed with the fact that they carry that behavior patterns to their home and private lives.

On multiple occasions my girlfriend told me that one thing she loves about me is that she can have an emotional fit and that I will not take it against her. And that makes her everyday life much easier because she doesn't have to keep her emotions in until she boils over but she can slowly vent them out whenever. That way she can feel a lot more like herself at home.

I was confused by that and told her that I don't see how else should it work. It is our home after all and if she can't be herself at home, which includes venting emotions, where else could she do it? And that was me assuming too much. I assumed that at home nobody needs to keep their emotions in check including Danes. It is after all personal space, where all the masks and social roles are off and you can be yourself without any of that baggage. But, it seems I was wrong.

Even in Danish intimate relationships it is not ok to be overly emotional. For example, if your partner has an annoying habit that you really dislike and you tried to explain it a couple of times in a calm and composed maner to stop it, it is not considered as appropriate to tell him, in a harsh tone of voice and a bit louder: "You will fucking stop doing this or else!"

As I said, I was taken a back with that, so I asked what happens when it comes to the point that you want to bash his/her head into the wall (metaphorically of course). Allegedly at that point, you buy a nice bottle of wine and when your partner comes home you tell him in a steady and composed voice: "Honey, we need to talk," while deep down inside you want to kill him, because you are about to explode.

Then the discussion about relationship problems can start but the couple will still try to keep their emotions in check. But at least in this situation they may start flying a bit and people still can get angry.

I will admit my bias coming from a country where expression of the emotions isn't suppressed, on the contrary. When your partner notices that you are acting a bit strangely, you will get a question, is everything ok? In some cases it may lead to a discussion and emotions may fly high but things will be settled after.

I must say I am questioning how healthy it is to keep your emotions constantly suppressed. We are all humans and we all have them and it is not possible to deny them.

But then, Danes outsourced that part to the professionals. Going to psychologist and couples therapy is quite common in Denmark. But that is a topic for another post.

I will conclude this post on a personal note. When you take too temperamental Dane and a bit too cold Croatian you get a couple in which both sides are thriving because emotional expressions are welcome but they don't fly too high.

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