Dug up one of Daniel Gardner’s old vlogs from 2007, where he talks about the awkward lack of guidelines we have to fall back on when it comes to choosing appropriate ways of greeting people.
I suspect many people can relate to this, I think especially here in Sweden. Swedes are probably the most socially awkward people in whole Europe, and we know it. We write about it in our blogs and magazines, and it’s a common subject among our stand-up comedians. You’d think after all these years humans have walked the earth, we would’ve figured out how to appropriatly greet eachother - yet we haven’t!
Personally I feel slightly more conflicted; I’m a hug-loving, socially functional Icelandic, trapped in a shy, socially awkward Swedes body - and the Icelander in me is tortured by this! Let me explain.
In Sweden, we don’t like touching. We greet orally, on more formal occasions we might even shake hands. Some people hug, but mostly just their closest friends and relatives, and it takes guts. “Yeah, we’re huging - what’cha gonna do ‘bout it?”. In Iceland however, you usually don’t get away with a simple handshake, no. Prepare for the full on hug, including a great kiss on your cheek. And don’t be surprised if the person within 10 minutes have started calling you “darling”. Sadly, this wouldn’t be possible to do in Sweden without the person involved and everyone around you assuming you have a sexual connection. It’s sad though. It’s such a powerful form of greeting, so full of character!
The latest real greeting-conflict I encountered was this summer in Belgium. I was going to meet up with a new-found Internetz-friend and his wife, whom I’d never met before. As I was waiting for them to arrive to the place we’d decided to meet up on, I asked myself the question I always ask before this kind of meetings. “Do I apply the cold, Swedish handshake-greeting, or do I go for the proper, warm Icelandic kind?”. I figured the Swedish one was the safest bet, and wrong, wrong I was! When they arrive, I put my hand out there, infront of my friend for him to shake. For a mere millisecond I see the confused expression on his face, like “umm okay”, before he accept my hand and shake it. “Okay, screwed that greeting up. But what about her, I’ve never met her before, surely she must expect the handshake?”, I think to myself and move my hand over to her. She looks back at me with an even more concerned expression on her face, like “what’s wrong with you?”, slightly shakes her head and give me the proper, full-on hugs-and-kisses-greeting - and just like that she convinced me that this girl, she’s awesome.
Damn my Swedish blood! I don’t even like handshaking!
As it sat down it brought forth from its glorious deck of cards, the Queen of Hearts. Her gaze was kind, her visage beautiful, but behind it hid an insanity that constantly struggles to escape its vessel. She too stood resolute as she spoke the sacred words.
‘Pool! No, wait… I mean Poker! Fix it or face my fierce Jack of Clubs!’
We all do as we are told in such situations. Fear of the Club is no laughing matter…
Had to quote my colleague on parts of his weekly poker friday intro e-mail, since I strongly sense he based parts of this character on me. You know, the insanity, the obsession with pool and poker, and my threats of what happens if we don’t get our weekly poker.. The kind gaze and beautiful visage is however obviously inspiration fetched elsewhere.
Listening to this one a lot.. A LOT today. Like, over and over and over again.. But the original version on Spotify. This video is what started it though, it has been popular among my friends on Facebook - both the Icelandic ones and the Swedish ones. Beautiful.
I have many memories with my ol’ female friends from elementary school where we’d all hang out together and share long, wonderful moments full of laughter; maybe around the lunch table, or in that hidden section in the library, or in the corridor outside of our classrooms. Attached to these memories are unfortunately also the memories of how whenever I threw my own attempts to be funny out there, I often found myself the only one laughing. As if that wasn’t bad enough, some smarty-pants girl could hit me right back with “Yeah, that wasn’t even funny”, or “Wow, you’re really laughing at your own jokes?” - like that was such a terrible crime.
It was okay, they still liked me plenty for my other amazing qualities, and I liked these girls a lot too. However, with time this successfully got to me. I’d keep my mouth shut, spare them from my bad jokes and just keep laughing at theirs. I guess you could say our humor wasn’t quite compatible.. Or, if you’re optimistic like me you can see it as me having a wider sense of humor than them ;-)
This stuck with me throughout high school and even on college. And, since I personally was quite shy and withdrawn, jokes were the only thing that really kept me out of my shell. Killing that off just left me with.. Shy and withdrawn. Thankfully, I still had smiling and laughing to hide behind.
A very important person in my life, a close friend, once taught me something that came to have a big meaning to me many years later. Something that completely changed my approach and helped me embrase myself more. We’d been living together for a while, and even though his sense of humor was one of the things that drew me to him to begin with, it was now driving me insane. It had come to a point where I found it so very hard to laugh at his jokes, which to me was very serious. I always wanted to be able to reward a joke with a good laughter, but I was running out of laughs! So one day in desperation, after one of his, according to me, bad jokes, I said with a tormented voice “But.. You’re not funny!”. I expected a hurt and disappointed look on his face, but what I got was a cuddly smile, followed by him wrapping his arms around me, kissing me on my forehead and saying; “It’s okay that you don’t think I’m funny, I think I’m funny. I love you just as much anyway”. Now, at that point I found the response quite useless since I’d still have to bear with the “bad” jokes, but today I’m so inspired by this. It’s amazing how small events in our lives can do so much!
Some social norms can just suck it. I like the girl I’ve restored in me - the girl that won’t stop trying for the laughs, and the girl inside me that laughs and claps at them no matter if they succeeded or failed. Both of them are really important, and I don’t really care that much anymore if others appreciate them or not. I’m far better off with them than without them. Thankfully, to my delight I’ve somehow managed to surround myself with people that appreciate this side of me, that give me laughter even though I’ve even realized myself half way through the joke that it’s a terrible one. What’s even better is that some even brighten up my day by throwing all they got back at me, putting me in a state where I’m almost falling to the floor laughing! Then there are still some people that think it’s important to inform me my jokes aren’t funny and that forces me to swallow my own laughter - but that’s okay, I love them just as much anyway.
A former lover actually used this on me a while back, or something like it. Like, instead of saying he has an array with the size of one, he said he had a pointer that was pointing at me. Some men just know how to sweep a gurl of her feet! :D
Usually I don’t mind the articles LinkedIn suggests for me in my inbox, but the first headline “I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore” by Dan Pallotta caught my attention well enough for me to actually read the three “teaser”-lines included in the e-mail, which then caught my attention well enough for me to actually click the link and read the whole article.
I only really have one word for this article that actually matters, and that is “Word!”. But you know me, I won’t stop there.
The thing I’ve struggled with the most throughout my life is to really understand what people are saying to me. For many years I felt really, really stupid, and I’d do my very best to hide it. I would avoid taking subjects further, or even avoid some people all together so they wouldn’t figure out how dumb I am. Now I usually just do what Dan does and tell people to clarify. The people that knows me the best don’t even make me say it, they know that a silent pause means “try again”. Actually, they know it so well that one time one of my friends mentioned “thralls”, and I didn’t respond he didn’t think twice before he said “A thrall is a kind of slave..” so I had to stop him and say “yes, I do actually know what thrall is”! But I like how this has turned out, how well received it has become that I tell people to clarify instead of being ashamed. I know people respect me now more than ever, and see my value more clearly - which results in me gaining a greater respect for them for being smart enough to see my smarts, even though we don’t quite speak the same language.
Not all people understand this of course - I’ve met people that really put a lot of effort in talking as abstract and fancy-smancy-technical as they can and bash on me when I don’t respond with the same terms and mind my “language” like that. That’s usually where I give them a huge smile and then walk away to find someone else to talk to - I’m really not here to tickle your balls.
I like keeping things concrete, detailed and clear, and I love when people communicate back to me in the same manner. In the long run, that’s the language people are most likely to understand, no matter length of field experience or work position. One of our great software testers actually reminded me of this when I tried the technical talk on her, she mentally slapped me on my fingers and said “girl, how can you even fit these words in your mouth?” (this even though my mouth is pretty big :D), so then I’d take it down to my real level, and she’d understand exactly what I meant.
If you would or already do support a charity, which one gets your help? I’ll be honest, I care more for animals and nature than people, so that makes the list a lot shorter in my case. I believe we should defend the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves. Not to mention we’re the ones who brought it all onto them …
Still I’m interested to see what people give money for. And do you choose to yourself or get convinced by people in the street?
I have such a hard time deciding on what’s the most appropriate to support, and even more I worry about that the money I’d donate would end up in the wrong pockets.. And I never give myself time to figure it out properly, so I just end up giving nothing! I know, I’m awful. Meanwhile I tell others how important it is to support various causes, or donate. Like those times in Mallorca last year where every time we passed a begger I’d say to my brother-in-law “oh, shouldn’t we give him/her some money?”, he’d give them a few of his money and I’d go “all good now” - I would not take my own wallet up and give them some myself, no sir! The worlds biggest manipulative hypocrite, that’s me! :D
I used to dream of a time where I’d afford to donate, look up several causes I wanted to support.. Now I have more than enough, but find myself completely lost. Meanwhile I spend plenty on comfort and convenience - it’s so bad my own father has started calling me.. A Capitalist!
I burn for supporting the Swedish organization Friends, which is working to prevent bullying in schools and on work places. What stops me is that my money is more likely needed elsewhere, but on the same time this becomes so personal to me since I as so many others had to suffered through it. Otherwise I’ve looked at all the categories you mentioned; animals, nature, starvation (people). I guess one idea is to give little to all.. Or something ;-)
Belgium, please help me, before my soul is completely lost!
