The Scandinavian Insider

Ask Hetti

Hung over

Scandinavian Insider’s Hetti Kett gives advice and answers your burning questions on social customs in Sweden.

Dear Hetti,
After a great night out with colleagues, and perhaps a few beers too many, there’s nothing I like better than to recall the funnier or more absurd memories the morning after. In my home country, that would be considered a good source of entertainment for the morning coffee break.But in Sweden, when I bring up the subject of “last night”, nobody seems to want to talk about it. They just murmur into their coffee cups. Now, why would that be?
Hung over, Helsingborg

Dear Hung Over,
If you’ve been living in Sweden for a while, you will have had the opportunity to appreciate how socially responsible, civically minded and reliable the Swedes are as a people. But they do need to let their hair down from time to time, by getting plastered in large numbers.

Statistics show that Scandinavians don’t drink more alcohol units per week than other nations; they just like to have all of theirs in one go. On these occasions, it is usual for everyone to get completely hammered together; there is no sober designated driver to witness the scene, since everyone eventually goes home in a taxi. But there is a very important unspoken rule about this collective shedding of inhibitions - everyone must get equally drunk, and the next day, no one should quote, describe or otherwise refer to the uncharacteristic behaviour that takes place when everyone drops their guard into the bottom of the Absolut.

Because when they have sobered up, the Swedes do not wish to be reminded that they were eating cocktail sausages out of the project manager’s cleavage, or that they performed a raunchy song and dance routine on the table with the cute guy from maintenance.

If you recall all this clearly enough to repeat it the next day, YOU WERE NOT DRINKING ENOUGH. What are you, some kind of spy? The morality police? Decide which side you are on: either dive into the booze with the rest of them and deny all wrongdoing the next day, or stay at home in front of the TV with a glass of milk. 

Dear Hetti Kett,
I’m puzzled about an incident that occurred during a snowstorm, when I was running an errand to a local store with my four-year-old toddler in tow. The store was set back on a large, busy parking lot that was severely iced over that day; delivery trucks were pulling in and out, as well as numerous cars. Coming out of the store with groceries in my arms, I slipped and fell on the ice. I lay sprawled out, and then struggled to pick myself up and recover my scattered groceries. Although numerous patrons, as well as several truck drivers and workmen, saw me fall, not a single person came to my aid, either to see if I was okay and help me collect my dropped articles, or at least take my child in hand to make sure she didn’t stray in front of a car. They simply turned away and went on with their business.

Obviously we both survived the incident without any harm, but it made me wonder.  Since all the onlookers happened to be male, I thought it particularly unchivalrous of them not to aid a damsel (and her child) so clearly in distress. But even setting gender aside, is helping strangers not part of the Swedish code?  Even in supposedly pitiless New York City, passersby always stop to help when someone falls.
Desperately Seeking Answers in Malmö

Dear Desperate,
Slipping on the ice is a fairly frequent occurrence up here in the north, so people don’t consider it dramatic unless the person falling is well over 75, bones are obviously broken, or blood is flowing from the head. In a real crisis, Swedes are on the whole calm, competent and responsible – and their taxes pay for a reliable ambulance service. But when the person on her butt in the parking lot is young and fit-looking, statistics confirm that the fall is more likely to be a mild embarrassment than a serious danger. My guess is, nobody rushed to your aid so as not to offend you by implying that you were weak and incompetent; they would be even more cautious about this precisely because you are female.

Perhaps most importantly, if you are young, healthy and in full possession of your mental and physical capabilities but you still want to be treated as a “damsel in distress” I’m afraid you are in the wrong neck of the woods. It’s unlikely to happen in Malmö, or anywhere else in Scandinavia for that matter. So my advice would be to buy yourself a pair of those funny ice-gripping under-soles that Swedish grannies fit onto their shoes in winter, and keep them in your car.

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