"Swedish men are shy so you girls need to just ask them out for fika (coffee). Also, because of equality they are showing you respect that they believe you are equal enough to ask them out."
Maybe this is the American cynic in me, but that sounds like a very lame excuse. Of course men won't ask you out if they don't have to! The same goes for women if they believe the other will do the asking. That's not equality, that is human lazinesses.
While that session was quite disappointing to me, I really appreciated the perspective our facilitators had about interacting in Sweden, not just in dating situations. We (international students) were told they were telling us generalizations of Swedish people and culture not to change us, but to prepare us for the reactions we may receive. We were told over and over not to change ourselves. There are ways we can show more respect here such as looking a professor in the eye when you talk to them, but those should be slight adaptations not changes to your personality.
Along with with Swedish Culture lessons, we had more scary sessions on plagiarism and failing our dissertations. Yet, in spite of those sessions, I had a really great day. It was the first day I saw people I knew and sat with them. We commiserated over these sessions and bonded promising each other we would proof read each other's papers and help one another get to the end successfully. I am thankful for the relationships I am starting to build.
I'll leave you with a little clip I was shown yesterday on the generalization of Swedish people. I haven't been here along enough to affirm or refute any of these claims but I do hear them over and over so there must be some truth to them. *warning, inappropriate language and situations may be observed in this video:
1 comment:
Hilarious.
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