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[Kagus]

Honestly, it's part of the culture... We've been emotionally distant since back when your closest neighbor was just over the horizon and you only ever talked to them when they had another kid baptized in the local chapel.

There's still a good portion of the population that feels an area is crowded and claustrophobic if you can see your neighbor's house from your front door.

You ever wonder why the Vikings went off to all corners of the world on long and possibly one-way journeys? Yeah.

Village already had like three huts in it, a fourth family is just ridiculous... gotta move somewhere else.

[MrRoboto75]

Nah it's just a graceless decline into the behavioural sink

*Toilet Flush Sound*

[Teneb]

Meanwhile here not acknowledging other people is considered very impolite.

Bus drivers have stopped being huge dicks to me since I made a habit of always greeting them.

[heydude6]

I read about that stuff about Norwegian culture on an article once. On the bright side, according to the article, you guys have an easier time building meaningful relationships cause you don’t have to wonder whether the guy talking to you actually cares for you or is just bored.

Was the article wrong?

[Imic]

In Ireland you don’t talk to random passer-bys on the street. Dear god shy would you ever do that. Greet them as you pass them if there’s no-one else, but dear god, I don’t think I would ever do that unprompted. I live in a small village where everyone knows everyone, and it’s fine to chat every now and then, but when you go into town, the mood changes instantly. No-one here gives each other a second glance. I just don’t see why you’d do that.

[Kagus]

I read about that stuff about Norwegian culture on an article once. On the bright side, according to the article, you guys have an easier time building meaningful relationships cause you don’t have to wonder whether the guy talking to you actually cares for you or is just bored.

Was the article wrong?

Dunno. Normal social interaction is often defined by getting so exceptionally drunk that you have the greatest, most meaningful conversation you've ever had with someone you've just met, despite both of you having lost the ability to speak a few drinks ago.


I'm also a bit of an outlier as far as social life is concerned, having grown up in near-isolation until I was thrust into a highly social environment in a foreign country (and language) at age 18... Don't know if my anecdotal evidence would really count for much in the way of establishing the norm.

I have had meaningful relationships with multiple norskies though, so there's that. There's precisely one person from the army that I kept in touch with, and he's been my best friend since 2012.

[Imic]

Dunno. Normal social interaction is often defined by getting so exceptionally drunk that you have the greatest, most meaningful conversation you've ever had with someone you've just met, despite both of you having lost the ability to speak a few drinks ago.

Interestingly enough, that could summarize Irish social interactions too. We have more pubs than grocery shops.

[ChairmanPoo]

In Ireland you don’t talk to random passer-bys on the street. .

I've gotten random Irish people stopping to talk to me since I arrived. I kind of assumed it was the norm. Maybe it's different in smaller towns?

Fakeedit: the random strangers were sober or at least seemed sober. I'm not counting the drunk ones, who, just like drunks anywhere else, have abnormal reactions

[Imic]

I might just be antisocial.

[Teneb]

I might just be antisocial.

Personal text checks out

[Flying Dice]

P.S. I deleted my post after a minute or so because I thought I was being irrational, making such a sweeping generalization at such an innocuous stimulus. Though that's still how I felt.

That sort of tight-lipped expression can be from a couple different emotive states (at least in my experience). It can be a very faint smile/:| face indicative of commiseration with or acknowledgement of another person in a situation that's not very positive. It can also be more of a teeth-clenching slight grimace where you're acknowledging that an uncomfortable situation exists but don't have a solution to it.

Passing by a homeless person begging for money is an excellent example of the latter in action: you consciously acknowledge that that's a real human being in a bad situation but also that there's nothing you can realistically do to make a meaningful change in their life. It's not indifference. If the person were indifferent to the suffering of others or didn't conceive of homeless people as being real people, they wouldn't feel uncomfortable not looking at them or talking to them. It's a very American thing, really--the discomfort is a specific result of not being able to meaningfully engage in the sort of silent acknowledgement or small talk that would normally pass between strangers.

You might also see that sort of expression if you're at a family reunion and racist old Uncle Larry starts going off on a tirade after having a few too many beers. Or if you see someone beating their kid, or cops harassing someone for no real reason, or someone ranting about some political bullshit, or-

You get the point. The first type is more in line with, say, greeting someone you know in a hospital after a mutual friend or relative was in a car wreck. Or while commiserating with someone you don't know very well who has had a bad day.

[scriver]

People are terrified of how friendly and talkative Americans are.

It's because it's not friendly, it's insincere

Meanwhile here not acknowledging other people is considered very impolite.

That's true here too. We just have very subtle ways of acknowledging each other, most consisting of pointedly not looking in each other's direction

[Tack]

Why is it that so many people that I pass by, I might acknowledge them with a head nod, and they fold their lips into their mouths nervously*? Is it social anxiety? I just want to slap these people across the mouth for making a stupid face at me.

reminded

[Yoink]

People are terrified of how friendly and talkative Americans are.

It's because it's not friendly, it's insincere

That's a heckin' helluva generalisation. Not so in my experience.
Although I did spend most of my visit for the States in a small town or two, and I certainly wasn't sober for a whole lot of it. Come to think of it, the town I spent most of my time in was full of saloons and I spent half my visit in a place called Brewery Gulch, so I'm not sure how many of the folks I interacted with weren't drunk off their asses, too...

[heydude6]

Why is it that so many people that I pass by, I might acknowledge them with a head nod, and they fold their lips into their mouths nervously*? Is it social anxiety? I just want to slap these people across the mouth for making a stupid face at me.

reminded

link’s broken for me. I think it’s cause Vine is dead.