Plan me in advance 'cause I am busy

After you move to Denmark, you will have a lot of challenges to overcome if you want to socialize with the locals. First of all they are a little skittish and hard to talk to in public spaces. There is a lot of them, but they keep their head down, are absorbed with their devices and they like to keep their distance. Even if one manages to overcome the first obstacle, their language is hard to understand and even harder to speak as a tiny mispronunciation can lead to complete misunderstanding. 

While working, which is their favorite activity, they want to talk work but they are hard to extend work relationship outside of the work place. And after they leave the work area, if they are not in public spaces they are unusually hard to find. It is like they disappear. If you are really hell bent on socializing with them, you need to find them first without invading their private residences because that will make them even more skittish. So where are they hiding? 

Most likely they are hiding in some organized union involved in some activities that people in the union find fun. So, next logical step is to think about your favorite activity, google it, find out if it exists in your place of residence, see where and when it is being organized and go there.

You may think that it is over now since you are socializing with the locals but, trust me, you are barely scratching the surface. For now, what you are doing is only participating in the activity that you all like to share. But forming a closer relationship will take some time. One reason is that most of the conversations will revolve around the activity you are involved with.

They call it the significant third. It is an activity which everyone enjoys and which serves as a connecting tissue for the people who are gathered around it. So, what happens is that the significant third is an easy topic that comes naturally but going beyond it is a bit hard. But I guess that for you extroverts out there it is a bit easier.

So, you have successfully overcame all the above mentioned challenges and you have found a person you would like to hang out with. Then you are over, right? Wrong! Now you need to fit into his or her schedule, and that is much harder then you think. Danes plan everything and they plan it far into the future. Christmas planning starts a day after Christmas. Family gatherings are planed couple of weeks in advance. In Denmark nothing is spontaneous. Spur of the moment activities are virtually non existent and the absolute worst thing that you can do to a Dane is to cancel an appointment or just barge in unannounced. That makes them go completely ballistics. They will rage! In silence of course because emotional expressions outside of funerals are illegal.

Now you have yourself a potential friend. Be vary though, if he invites you to his home, do not bring presents, you may scare him away.

Loneliness

Stand together by being apart. That is the promotional statement by which Denmark is trying to promote social distancing. But the more time passes the more skeptical I am becoming about how long can that actually be upheld. Because it is going against one fundamental human instinct and that is sociability. We are social animals and that is a fact. If you look back way into the past, way back before modern society, early civilizations, even before agriculture, humans lived in small groups with up to approximately 150 people. So, I guess it is safe to say, metaphorically, that being social is written into our DNA. And today we are being asked not to do it. Today, when we took our social instincts to unprecedented levels, where approximately 55% of human population lives in cities we are asked not to hang out with others. The reasons are completely justified, I do not doubt that for a second. I am just wondering how long we can keep it up? Asking people to do social distancing is not so far away from asking a fish not to swim.

This line of thought started yesterday when my girlfriends sister dropped by. It was the first human I have seen, other then my girlfriend in weeks, if I don't count work and public transport. And I can feel that it is getting to me and my social needs are low. I am an introvert who is perfectly happy with socializing one or two times per week, three times is pushing it and four times is too much. If I am starting to feel it, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for people with higher social needs than mine. Yesterday I talked to a friend who has higher social needs than I do. He told me that when it gets to him, he goes to company offices to have a cup of coffee, but that just gets the edge off. He is having a hard time not hanging out with people.

At least gamers have it easier. We know there are social spaces that are perfectly safe and quarantine approved, where we can be social and where we can play in big groups without breaching the quarantine. I do find it a bit ironic. Until my mid twenties, I would often hear from non gamers: how can you do it, you are just staring in that screen all day, you are wasting your life away etc, etc. Do I need to mention that most of the people at that time were watching television in the same amount I spent gaming? Well, now I am the responsible citizen. So, if you want to hang out with me and be socially responsible, you can find me on Azeroth.

I made a little digression... Let us go back to "real" socializing. How long can you ask born socialites not to socialize? I would say not much longer. And you can slowly tell. Last Friday when I went out to throw the trash, main street in Roskilde was decently full of people. There wasn't as many of them as before the quarantine times but noticeably more. Weather is beautiful, quarantine is up for some time now, of course that people started to slowly give up on it. They just can't take it any more. And people from Scandinavia are good at following rules and regulations and they trust in their governments. So when they are slowly starting to give in, you know it has been a bit too long.

But as societies slowly start to reopen, one problem will still remain, at least in Denmark. Ban on public gatherings for 10 or more people will stay at least until August. So we will be able to see our friends and family but all fun will be put on hold. So we will be able to work and be home and see people one by one but no fun? How long will that last? We are not machines that can just work, work, work. Even Danes need recreational activities from time to time. Their amazing working ethics is necessarily standing in stark contrast to hygge. They will kill themselves working but when they are of, they are off. With a ban on public gatherings way into August will severely restrict their possibilities to be off. In the old Rome it was known that if you want to win public approval you need to provide bread and circus "Panem et circenses". By the time this whole corona thing is over, a lot of people will lose their bread and circuses will remain closed until further notice. We do not have a lot to look forward to, until the end of summer. Work if you are lucky and... nothing, no fun until corona is done and dusted and that can take a while.

Do not insult me with expressing your opinion

The other day we had very interesting cultural misunderstanding. We went for a beer with our friends from the "Croatian getto" and as my girfriend recently started to work for the labour union a lot of the discussion revolved around that and at the point it became a bit heated. She is very passionate about her work and my friends and me are passionate about disucussion and sometimes we do like to play devils advocate as well. So, it was a perfect setup for hanging out with friends drinking beer and just talking, as Croatians do it by default.

At one point discussion became very heated as my friend was grilling my girlfriend and than he popped the question: "But if think that labor unions work is so important why don't you clean staircases for a living and volunteer for the labor unions?" That completely caught her off guard, she just opened her mouth and eyes wide open and stayed speechles at which point we all burst into laughter and in return we got a fuck you guys. But this didn't stop us from continuing and in the end my girlfriend even got a feedback on what should labour unions do to become more relevant and appealing to foreigners. Of course, it was just our personal opinion. We are by not experts on the topic by any criteria.

This what I described is the classical way Croatians socialize. We meet, we drink, we discuss hot and controversial topics, we solve "world problems" and we try to outsmart each other in a discussion. It is almost a sport on it's own and what is most important, none of us takes it personaly. It is just a discussion among friends. And the best discussions are when you are discussing with people who do not share your opinion because at these discussions you get a new understanding of the topic, or the person you are discussing with.

It seems it is not the same in Denmark. Personal opinions seem to have a bit of a dogmatic untouchable status. What happenes in a group of friends in Denmark when a discussion starts is the following. In case you would have a situation wher two people had opposing takes on a certain matter, the discussion would be droped at the point this realization is reached. Allegedly, everbody has the right to their opinions but people in Croatia do too. I would add that, it seems, in Denmark everbody has the right to have their opinions unquestioned.

Second eventuality is that they actually proceed with the discussion but that happenes only if everybody shares the same oppinion on the issue. But this is hardly a discussion. It is more a case of tapping each other on the back while saying "You are right." In Croatian this isn't a discussion, it is rather commenting then discussing.

Third eventality is that people who have an opposing opinions and are brave enough to start discussing would be shunned: "C'mon, why are you acting like that, you are ruining the evening for everybody. Let's do something fun instead."

The only way people can oppose their opinions on a certain matter is if they are in the group where everybody is totally ok with it, which isn't a cultural default.

When I learned about all this I was very surprised. Denmark indeed is a very liberal country. Croatia is in comparison a very closed and conservative country. Danes are easy on black humor, on talking very explicitly about sex. Their media is infamous for insulting other countries or religious groups with potentially inappropriate drawings. Whenever that happeness and the insulted party asks for an appology the media in question just replies that they have a right to the freedom of speech and the government backs them up. So how do you go from this approach to free speech to Danish citizens self-censoring themselfs when they realize that one of the people in the group has an oppinion that is contrary to their own? It is just one of many things in Denmark that looks at least a bit contradictory.

How to meet a Dane

I come from a country where socializing was very straightforward, or at least I thought so. You go to kindergarten, school, university, work and on the way you meet people that you like or don't. You hang out with the people you like, first in neutral territory, mostly cafe bars, sometimes nightclubs. When a relationship becomes a bit deeper, visits to each other homes become common. I guess some people go to restaurants but that was never a big thing in Croatia. Socializing with people you meet on work was never considered inappropriate. And that is it, pretty straight forward right.

In Denmark, it is a bit different. Picking up people from school or university is normal and of course it happens, just like in Croatia. Hanging out with people from work privately is looked down upon. They are first and foremost colleges and should be treated professionally.

Unions

But if you move in to Denmark and you want to meet Danes and get some Danish friends none of the above is the way to go. Danes have something they call Unions. Unions are groups of like-minded individuals that share the same interests. They form a group around that interest and pursue it together. Imagine whatever hobby you like: darts, pool, cycling, role play, board-games, books etc. In Denmark, every middle sized city should have one. That is the way to meet Danes. 

I am currently a member of CIWIB. It is a union for board games. We meet once a week, every Wednesday and we play board games from 17 to 22. The thing with unions is that, nobody joins a union for hanging out, but for the pursuit of the common interest. Socializing comes in a package with it. In my group social mingling is happening while the group is forming, during a dinner break and while it is dissolving. In those moments people get to know each-other and chat about their lives and problems. It is also important to note that even that way it takes some time.

But even with that, people that move to Denmark potentially could have problems meeting Danes. With high Danish working ethics and a lot of time dedicated to work, after spending time with family, there isn't a lot of time to hang out with others. Meeting people on work, while it would be easy, isn't really an option because colleagues are just colleagues and not friends. Hanging out with them outside work is considered inappropriate.

There are two additional elements that makes meeting new people a bit hard. One is the so called Piper Act or privacy in public act. When you boil it down it basically says that when you are in public you shouldn't be a nuisance to anyone in anyway. To put it in other words, all people in public spaces have the right to their privacy. This rule translates into real life that people do not interact with anyone unless it is unavoidable. Fx. sometimes, when I am in a train I need to park my bike on somebody else bike, then I need to ask "Where are you going off", so we can figure out in what order to park the bikes and that is it, that is the only interaction people have with each other. Of course it is usually difficult to meet other people in public spaces. Piper act places an additional hurdle to it because people don't talk at all to each other in public spaces. So basically, chatting up others is virtually impossible.

Danish high paychecks heavily influence the social life. You, would think it makes it easier, but it actually makes it harder. Because everybody has high paychecks, including the waiters. That means, when you go out, you will pay for a beer around 50 kronas. One average night out could cost you around 1000 kronas and that is a lot even for danish pay-checks. And it is apparent in Denmark that Danes adapted to it. Most people are hanging out in private apartments through out the year, during summer months people barbecue a lot in the parks and there is a lot of small street festivals you can attend with your own drinks that you get from the stores. Going out to eat is reserved only for a very special occasions. 

So, when you take all these elements of Danish culture makes meeting new people a bit hard. So, how to approach it then? Well, if you want to meet foreigners, language schools is a good place. A lot of people there doesn't have a lot of contacts in Denmark so they are very open to make new acquaintances and mostly they find other Danish people very cold and distanced. But, you will not meet Danes there. If you really want to meet Danes, think hobbies, google them in the city where you live and go. There will most likely be a group that does it. Go there, meet Danes and be patient. They are a bit like a bottle of ketchup, you need to shake long and hard and for a while nothing will come out, but then suddenly so much will spill out that you will want to return some of it back into the bottle.