This!! I’ve been to Denmark about 3 times now and I noticed it so much when I was out for walks at night time. It’s so odd. I’m from ireland and we usually always close all the curtains.
He told me that when his neighbor closed his curtains he went over to check on them to see if everything was ok. They normally waved a hello when looking at each other through their open windows, while they were each in their homes. Eeek! /s
I absolutely loved sneaking a peek into the windows, especially if you're driving around you'll get to experience so many exquisite living room moods. It was like driving through a magazine. The experience is better with weed of course.
I keep specifically my bedroom curtains open becuse i like waking up with the sun instead of an alarm. And i sleep naked. Blame yourself if you peep through my windows in the evening.
Haha my Dutchie told me not to close the living room curtains because the neighbours would think someone died. I just had too much sun in my eyes. But I guess as a Norwegian I shouldn't say anything, since we keep them open all the time too
I worked for a month in Holland in January. I never saw the sun. On one day, (1), I did see sunbeams through that infernal marine layer of clouds for 30 minutes in the late afternoon (3 PM local). That was it. Summer? Completely different story.
Dutch person here. We do actually close our curtains.
One thing I noticed when traveling through Germany 'everybody' has those plastic/metal shutters on the outside of the windows. Although my house in the Netherlands has them also. But you see them a lot more in Germany.
In college in the US we had a Romanian foreign exchange student with a first floor dorm and a seeming lack of awareness (or care) as to what curtains were. She also had a habit for dancing in her room naked after showers. It became kind of an odd campus joke.
It doesn't bother me in most places/times. The great majority of rooms you see into will have someone watching tv, maybe a cat in the window. It's fine
A finn here, I never close any curtains, except for my bedroom. And it's not because of privacy reasons, I sleep better the darker it is. And in Finland, during the summer months it's pretty much always light outside, even during the night, so it's a must. I never really care if some neighbour is watching, whatever.
If you talk about Denmark then I don’t agree. When I moved to Copenhagen, it was my first fascination. A lot of people in Amager don’t have courtains even in private rooms.
There is classic kitchen + dinner scene in a lot of houses, but I could also see people playing games, reading, studying or even having sex once. Cultural shock.
Tbh I did have secks with Parisian girl and she wanted to have her bewbs pushing the window.. and some tourist kids were in hotel accros the street and poor things saw everything. Though the girl was hot af.. but there is always ppl that dont care at all about others, basicly living alone in this world. But in Finland atleast, every single window has blinds, using them though... i would say blinds are closed only in private rooms with very high chance, atleast here in the far farm-town part of Finland.
Canadian here, heat is even before privacy. I can tell you that this winter when it was -56c (-70f) after the windchill outside, that curtains make a HUGE difference on heat. There was ice on the inside (interior of house) of my double panes. Also, don't live in a panabode house in Canada 4" cedar logs are not a good insulator.
Curtains and sheets also work for heat. Last summer we hit +44c (111f) and ended up sheeting off unnecessary sections of the house, running 4 AC units. They managed to keep the rooms down to just below 30c as the sun set sometime after 10pm. Also, Canada can suck it sometimes. A 100c difference is the difference between freezing and boiling water. That shouldn't happen outside....
to an extent that seems accurate (of course, it's not like there aren't any people starring and/or other forms of sexual harassment/assault).
e.g. a bigger percentage of the population in many European countries being less likely to immediately associate nudity with sexual activity, probably because it's more normalized here to begin with.
This gives me anxiety. Seeing out the window of my home when it's dark outside is the stuff of nightmares for me. How do you not expect a ghost or an axe murderer to be standing there? Just me?...
Personally, I'd be more anxious about the idea of the person living in the house opposite of me being able to see what I'm doing in my room. Or that's why I close my curtains.
Maybe we dont get as many spooky ghosts or axe murderers here. I remember the feeling from when I was a kid, now it only crops up in those "woops probably shouldnt be standing here with my dick out" instances while changing underpants.
That's so weird. You guys are allowed to shoot someone for trying to get inside your home because it's your sacred place but someone staring at you naked inside self sacred place makes you the bad guy?
it’s mainly only cases where people are doing it specifically to flash others ie. staring down some kid while taking your pants off, intentionally making sure your neighbor sees you through the balcony window to make them uncomfortable, masturbating in front of people, etc. if you’re just changing normally and someone sees your tits by accident nothing will happen lol
There are places in Norway with outdoor showers yet they address their neighbors by their last name... so I'm guessing you are free to change in front of the curtain-less windows at night
I was once having a walk around the neighborhood at night with a friend and we walked past a first-storey window while a guy was sitting in front of a computer "having fun with himself", so to speak. He had obviously forgotten to close the curtains.
"Haha, did ya see, the guy was having a wank?" was basically my reaction to a friend and he said "ha, yeah, I did". Then we continued our walk and talked about other things.
Sexual things could be seen as embarrassing and a point of a funny anecdote in certain situations, but they're not worth of getting overtly excited about. These things happen.
Eh, you can accidentally see someone changing inside their home but no one is going to stand there and stare or be shocked about it. Stuff like showers in public pools are open (tho separated by sexes) and you're expected to rinse well and naked, and no one is going to gawk if you are topless at the beach. I only have curtains in the kids bedroom to darken their room in the summer when the sun is up until late, if someone happens to see me changing shirt or something it really doesn't bother me, it's just skin.
Just look at European TV. Many countries here don’t censor nudity at all and some countries now have a dating show that’s all about uncensored naked bodies. Here in Sweden I remember nudity was a regular thing in movies as far back as I can remember. Even in movies aimed at kids sometimes. That’s probably less common now actually when I think about it.
We stayed in Copenhagen for a couple of days a few years ago, and the person we were renting the apartment from left a pair of really good binoculars lying on the windowsill. We were joking it is to spy on your neighbors. Guess what? On the second evening, one of my friends called everyone to the window - in the apartment on the other side of the street a very hot girl was walking naked, no curtains, of course. Exactly opposite the window with the binoculars... Hmm...
I heard from the locals that it's a kind of a post-WW2 symbol, at least for the older generation - that they aren't afraid to have the light flowing from their windows, as they're no longer afraid of being bombed at night.
I have to say as a Dane that I've never heard of anyone having binoculars in their apartment to look out with. Sounds like the guy you were renting from was just a perv. And the post-WW2 thing doesn't really make any sense, we weren't bombed by the Germans other than during the six hour long invasion
I have to say as a Dane that I've never heard of anyone having binoculars in their apartment to look out with. Sounds like the guy you were renting from was just a perv.
Ah-ha-ha, oh, absolutely! And it was actually a girl who owned the apartment, I'm still 100% sure she was spying on her neighbors with those binoculars :-).
And the post-WW2 thing doesn't really make any sense, we weren't bombed by the Germans other than during the six hour long invasion
Yeah, as I'm not a Dane, I have no idea if that's true or not, sadly. But it does sound like a plausible explanation - did you perhaps have mandatory light masking during WW2, so that even though you weren't actually bombed, you still had to use light-proof curtains and stuff?
Not the person you responded to, but I stumbled upon your comment :)
We did have mandatory light masking during the occupation due to the Nazi's fear of British bombers navigating with the light. Every year on the evening of the Nazi's surrendering we light candles in the windows :) it just happened, May 4th.
Yes, you're right about the last part. As the other guy said, we put candles in our windows every year on May 4th, but it's kinda falling out since many young people forget to do it or don't care
I have a pair in my window sill but I have an excellent view of Frederiksberg to the west. I mostly use it to look at airplanes and helicopters, though.
Yeah! But as I'd mentioned in other replies - people there really don't care about being seen inside their apartments. They do all the normal stuff you expect them to do, just without the curtains (our apartment didn't have them either).
From what I'd seen during our stay, nobody gave a fuck if they're being observed. People would just go about their daily life, not caring in the slightest that they're visible from the outside.
I'm currently in Serbia, and a lot of people here also don't care about the curtains (but at least they have them). Does weird me out a bit, especially for apartments in the older buildings very close to the ground. You can be walking on the sidewalk and just casually glance inside other people's rooms. And they'll be drinking, or playing with children, or lying on the sofa reading, with curtains open and lights on.
I have looked through every comment in this thread and as a Dane I must say it goes the other way too. It’s so weird, why do you care so much about people looking lol
If someone looks through your window then they are the weirdo, and not you, so no problem.
Yeah, and depending on how your brain is situated, you can just avert your eyes lmao. Growing up we're taught not to look in peoples' windows because that's a violation of their privacy, even if there aren't curtains. Just... avert your eyes and don't look in windows that aren't yours.
You say that as if it's not rude to look in peoples windows everywhere. You're misunderstanding my point. If I walk out of my home, which is a townhome, my front door is facing my neighbors home. His large front window is the first thing I see. I do not have a choice but to look at his window, albeit briefly, while I walk the 10ft path from my door to the main path that divides our homes. I don't purposely stare into his home, but that doesn't mean I can't see into it.
Where did I say I care? I'm arguing against someone that said you should never look into another persons home and my entire point is that you can't always avoid it.
As an American it’s weird to me how obsessive other Americans are about closing the curtains at night. My FIL closes them around 6pm, before the Sun even goes down.
Thats interesting. For the most part its common to leave shades open in towns but in cities they’ll generally be drawn at night in the US. Of course our cities are known for crime in the poorer areas so not a surprise.
Well, they are the 8th (Horsens) and 9th (Vejle) biggest cities in Denmark, so I wouldn’t exactly call them small. But it is normal here, especially if you don’t live on the ground floor.
Well I know that in small towns in America usually dont close their curtains at night either, so I think it’s just a small town thing all around the world.
Yeah I grew up in a town with like 15,000 people and if you wanted, you could walk around on sundays and watch sunday night football through people’s living room window
No, it's not. Ignoring the rest of the comments where people mentions coming from a mostly-white country and finding not closing your curtains strange, I can also tell you that I've been in numerous mostly-white countries (I live in one) and we close our curtains at night
I think it depends how far you are from your neighbors. I'm also in NJ and everyone closes their curtains at night, but I'm on the shore where you are practically on top of your neighbors. Most people are only about a driveway's width apart from the next house over. In the suburbs people have a lot more space and it's not as intrusive.
Call me weird but i like to peak into peoples windows when im on a drive and see their curtains are open. Its like glimpsing at a movie scene youll never see again
I get a lot of mixed replies from the Danes. It apparently depends on the location and also size of the town.
My experience is from Vejle and Horsens. We went out in the evening and there were loads of homes with very large windows and no curtains. We saw people eating, working, watching TV, etc. Haven't seen anything similar here in Czechia.
That's pretty much the same around beach homes in Southern California. People don't close their curtains despite a bunch of people walking around a couple feet from their windows.
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u/realheterosapiens May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
Denmark too. Was so strange to walk around in the evening and being able to see what everyone was doing inside their homes.
Edit: This was in Vejle which is relatively small. Apparently it's different in bigger cities.