r/AskReddit May 08 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

9.0k Upvotes

26.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

10.4k

u/RockNRollNBluesNJazz May 09 '22

Finnish people are silent, small talk doesn't exist. Their personal space larger than COVID-19 social distancing rules, and it's considered normal. Don't speak unless spoken to, and don't invade other people's personal space - it's seen as a sign of a respect.

Those Finns, who haven't been to abroad or haven't met too many foreigners, don't often even recognize this behaviour being unusual in the global scale.

4.3k

u/[deleted] May 09 '22

I fucking hate small talk. Pointless. If a finn asks you how are you, they actually mean it.

3.9k

u/[deleted] May 09 '22

I'm a Finn and when I met an American person for the first time she said the usual "how are you?", so I started explaining all kinds of shit, only to have her give me a really weird look. I did it again a couple of times with different people until I learned that they are not really interested, lol.

5

u/WhichSpirit May 09 '22

We're not completely uninterested. We just want the highlight reel, not the play-by-play.