- Swedish Culture & Dating
- Swedish Culture & Dating | Dating Tips
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- 14 Dating Culture in Sweden (No.3 is Cute!)
Through the end of the year, BBC Capital is bringing back some of your favourite stories from Dating in Sweden might conjure up dreamy images of candlelit dinners in minimalist Nordic apartments, or snowy hikes with well-toned nature lovers. But international professionals — there are more than half a million foreign citizens of working age in Sweden according to national statistics — hoping to find a relationship face a challenge in a nation that boasts the highest proportion of singles in Europe.
View image of Credit: Moving to a new country is hard, but moving abroad without knowing anyone in your new homeland is harder. How do you cope?
Share your tips with us on Facebook. That might not sound too shabby to a newly arrived unattached expat. But, behind the numbers is a cultural norm that almost outright promotes being single. Swedish cities are full of compact homes carefully designed for independent living. However if I could give one piece of advice it would be to be about 3x more forward than you would be in the US.
Swedish Culture & Dating
I studied abroad in Denmark, and obviously everything that is true for Danes isn't going to be true for Swedes, but I do think there's some cultural overlap. Here's what I gathered from Danish friends and at an orientation spiel for cultural dos and don'ts. My Danish friend used to start compulsively giggling at the mention of "dating" or "going on a date" because the idea was so foreign to him besides in American media. He ended up romantically involved with women by spending a lot of time with the ones he liked and I guess making a move when the time came.
In Danish dance clubs, men would stand around not dancing until approached by a woman.
At my study abroad orientation I was given a heads up that Danes had no conception of "date rape" and found the concept silly and laughable. They said basically that if you go home with a man it's assumed you're doing so because you want to sleep with him.
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I guess here that's considered rape culture or what have you. But anyway, there's a different set of cultural expectations around that.
Swedish Culture & Dating | Dating Tips
And Scandinavians seem more candid generally about sex than Americans, in a non-romantic or romantic context. This is a fun question. As a Swedish man about to move to the US, I'm curious about these differences as well. Based on those sources I get the impression that sex and romance are a bit more structuralized in the US than in Sweden. It's like the US has dissected a lot of relationships, written protocols and manuals, and put names on all the different parts.
Sex or at least some light makeout often comes ahead of romance, or you start as friends and get closer from there.
This isn't as true as it used to be, but the US way of dating and the word for it is a recent import and not at all standard. Maybe that talk about 'exchanging "I love you": Sorry if I judge your culture unfairly, but this highlights in a funny way the difference I'm trying to get at: It sometimes looks like Americans do romantic bonds by checklist.
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In Sweden, we fumble in the dark. I don't know so well how casual and sexual affairs work in the US, I guess they go outside the formalities in any country. You go home with someone from a bar of a party, exchange numbers in the morning and may keep meeting for sex if you're both happy with it and on the same page. The danger-stranger sentiment isn't as strong here and there might be a bit less slut-shaming, which could work in favor of casual sex.
On the other hand, there is overall more social awkwardness and higher barriers to interacting with strangers. In Swedish culture, you usually have dinner with people you know very well. Your best friends will come over for dinner parties, but not your mere acquaintances; those people, you meet for fika. So you might find yourself progressing to having sex with someone long before you go to their house for a dinner date — the most serious of all steps.
Most Swedes live together happily and even have multiple children without feeling the need to get married.
14 Dating Culture in Sweden (No.3 is Cute!)
I know lots of people who have been with their Swedish partner for their whole lives without feeling the need to get married. About Advertise with us.
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