Norwegian Social Highway Code Part II - Revisiting and Moving On

Of my bloggs, one of the sticky-ist of all time is the blogg on the Norwegian Social Highway Code, Perhaps a lot of people wondering about driving conditions and regulations in Norway land there from google, but it has its' share of interested ex pats.

Now I wanted to move on with a look at some of the faux pas and oddities again, but from a rather different perspective. That of a newly seperated man!

In celtic and latin influenced countries, Flirting is an art form. It is a means of communicating humanity to each other, of entertaining and of offering a little love in jest but in fact would be seriousness.

 In Ireland it is a national sport, where flirting in some counties is almost a prerequisite of being served at the bar. The more Gregarious a people, the more they flirt with the opposite sex. We are used to what an innocent flirt is, and by in large I think all these cultures would appreciate that the flirt as a species, is just that. If a flirt leads to a come-on, then we are in deeper water. That is the trouble with scandinavia, the flirt is seen as such an intrusion on personal space as to be synonymous with the come-on. The pale, beautiful faces they turn to the cold when they leave their safe social circles, have often stoney eyes, or are good at half smirking when eye contact from the opposite sex is encountered, or alternatively, the scared mouse, looking down and away and scurrying off to their next socially comforting hole-

Flirting in the frozen, thin lipped north?. It is widely frowned upon by those short, practical hair and square glasses fifty somethings who work in administration and the public sector. It is 'sjekking' and 'sjansing', which translate pretty directly of course. Many younger Norwegian wives abhore flirting too - either upon themselves, by their husbands or especially towards their husbands. Just where does the line go? When does an innocent flirt become a heavy handed, and oft' unwanted chat up ?

Well the boundary is much lower in Norway it seems, for a flirt to become a come-on. This depends though on the situation, and the amount of alcohol consumed. 

Mirroring drinking, flirting gets a bit ridiculous some Saturday nights with everything from boys trying to seranade their potential beaus on Karl Johans Gate, to balding middle aged, married men slinking up to girls in pubs and saying ' du er så fin, kan jeg bli litt amorøse med deg?". Like the Saturday night binge drinking, all restraint and otherwise cultural norms are thrown to the wind, as a deep routed need to be, well, sexual,  expresses itself via well lubricated body language, and anaesthetised inhibitions.

Flirting otherwise is frowned upon. Foreigners try to use the eye contact approach, and then the direct you are the most beautiful and so on, but that is equally as heavy handed as the usual late saturday night mating ritual played out in most towns and cities in Norway. Flirting as we know it has a lower boundary before it is socially unacceptable. The population rate is declining for ethnic Norwegians, and this could explain it. Couples seem to either meet now via drunken nights out, or Tinder. On Tinder one or other party can snake their way into to seeming to be the perfect partner by profiling the other and telling them what they want to hear. Norwegians just dont flirt enough, and end up in unhappy long term relationships which are sometimes more or less financial mergers centred around nicer houses and holidays to Gran Canaria. Or they end up in disposable Tinderland relationships, where their consumerist lifestyles now can be lived out through sexual encounters as well. Three a month or more.

They are deeply unhappy because they cannot flirt sober, or after the usual cocktail party couple of drinky poos. While with one safe partner at a young age, they never experiment enough with eye contact to find out that someone else may actually have a massive biochemistry for them, and they are together with a fish as cold as Lofoten cod.

However that is not to say flirting stone cold sober does not exist at all. On the contrary. But is in some special circumstances. I had noted that while working in a largish company that married ladies where a lot more flirty than I had ever experienced eslewhere. Finally at m iddle age with kids of independent movements, they train a bit more and look nice once again, and like to have it confirmed. Some even dont wear their wedding rings to work (BTW worn on the RIGHT hand) . Now is the time that confirmation that they still are something of a catch, over comes their inhibitions, driven hard in and years of indoctrination by mothers and prudish friends.

Feminists are deeply divided about flirting. Some see it as romantic paff, and a mere preamble to a mans right to sexual domination and date rape. Others see it as empowering the woman with a use of eye contact and body language which maintains a distance, challenges the man to show both masuclinity and diplomacy, and can intimidate the conquerors.

There are though then two methods of actually dating a Norwegian woman, and this goes for the reverse in hetero relationships (sorry, dont know much about LGBT stuff) One is simply the direct approach, say it as it is, no fluffy word flirting. Use some light flirty body language, looking for some receptiveness by mirroring or other signals, and then ask them if they would like to get to know each other better ' Vil du treffe meg en annen gang for å bli bedre kjent med hver andre'. Norwegians will usually give a straight answer at this point, and it does save a lot of those lead ons and vague maybe, want to be nice, responses  you get in Blighty. The Date is not much I know a lot about first hand, but I have mates who still date regularly, Tinderlanders, and they say that girls get either quite flirty and quite positive body language or they dont. If they seem stiff AND start asking a lot of financial questions, they are credit card max'ed out gold diggers apparently. Alcohol in minor quantities is acceptable, and here you actually want to be really near to the bar or have table service, because when Norwegian men, or even women sometimes in the reverse situation, see a foriegner going out and enjoying a drink on an obvious first date, suddenly they are interested in flirting! As if national pride is as stake, or they want to piss on the fine chips you are obviously consuming.

The other flirt, is the non flirt. Here we use a lot of negative body language and see if the other partner looks uncomfortable yet still interested,. This is the passive aggressive flirt, you often see early doors on a Saturday night, where well preened west side boys try and impress Oslo's finest lassies with their designer clothes and swept back Bærumsveis blonde hair.   Here we can also see a bit of reverse pyschology going on, with there being a passive aggressive denial display between two potential mates, only resolved when enough alcohol to float a row boat has been consumed at each respective corners of the mating ring.

Then there is the other anti-flirt. Here you recognise that a girl is or boy is being a little coy and nervous, but also holding out on you to tease and see you are up for the chase. Now you rush in with the rejection anti flirt. You either suggest you need to be somewhere else very soon, or you start the ultimate anti flirt, asking about one of their apparently single friends. This will get the hackles up on any hard-to-get player and show their vulnerability. Youth use it as a kind of attack against hard to get knock backs and demuring. However in trained hands it is a more subtle and effective tool. It is also not usually a zero sum game either. You stand to win either one mate or the other in fact.