Interesting… the first day at work I was already greated warmly, I was offered to privately to join diskgolfing and a lot of other activities with coworker. Then also meeting more people when doing them and finding a lot of very nice and warm people who, if I made more effort, could be very friendly with.
My experience has been completely opposite, even compared to Denmark(where I studied).
Can confirm, is almost impossible to find Norwegian friends in Norway. Not as difficult to find friends from other countries in Norway tho.
A culture thats based on not bothering other people, being quiet and not interfere with others!? nooo waaay….
Yeah well, there aren’t that many Norwegians to begin with…
Yup. We can be cunty like that. It can be hard enough for Norwegians making Norwegian
friends too, when they move to a new place for example, especially out in the sticks. After the courtesy greets you´re quickly forgotten if not taken in by one of the local cliques.
If you want this confirmed, just hop over to r/Norge (Norwegian subreddit) and count how many times a week people ask how to get friends
Yeah sorry about that, my friends from childhood use up mu about 1day/week of social energy. We cant all be this introverted though? I got a couple friends who reguarly makes new friends, but tbh most are not very socially active
How many are oil expats from Houston— coming from a 4000 sq ft house with a pool, a gadener, a house cleaner, and plenty of cheap wine for mommy….. to Stavanger or Bergen where it rains all the time, 2000 sq ft is considered a sizable home, etc…. plus many Americans only stay for two years for tax reasons—- and even I won’t invest in those friendships. Plus they send their kids to the international school, so they have no friends in the neighborhood.
Norway is great- compared to most countries, it is culturally similar to the US. I have loads of friends- and a great non-oil job.
I came from a country with rampant corruption, miserable wages and public infrastructure held together by duct tape. You have no idea how happy I am that my biggest problem is that it is somewhat difficult to fiend friends.
I live in Norway , and have met Polish , Hungarian and Dutch people ,we also invited them for Christmas ..They are ” users ” of hospitality it does not go both ways .
Sounds like a dream
Yeah i’ve tried to get friends for years but it was always like a 1 way kind of thing were i was the only one keeping in touch and asking about doing stuff, felt like i was bothering them and when i stopped contacting it all stopped. So i gave up on trying to make friends and i’ve never been happier
I see similar complaints among immigrants on other social media. It has not at all been my experience, but I actually think that the biggest problem is simply that the social infrastructure isn’t there to assimilate newcomers.
I had moved country, and moved within other countries, so I was confident & had good ideas about how to make new friends.
However, when I moved for work in other countries, there was a social network in place that introduced people to the community offerings, work clubs, etc.
And most communities have web sites that explain the community life, clubs, churches, schools, history, etc. While kommune websites offer part of that, the social aspects are nonexistent.
Then on top of that, Norwegians generally assume that everything is ok, if you don’t ask. If you ask specifically about making friends, they usually just say that most Norwegians stay with their friend group from school.
They don’t give newcomers a step-by-step guide on how to make Norwegian friends, and the culture is just different enough from other European countries that this…. would be really helpful.
Most people have a very loose definition of friendship. If someone smiles at you or if you eat lunch together at work that doesn’t make you friends. Social media “friends” also don’t count nor do neighbors that are being neighborly.
The opposite also stands true. If someone doesn’t smile at your jokes or if they’d rather eat alone or if they generally just don’t know you exist it doesn’t mean they’re “unfriendly”.
Northern Europeans fall under this last general description. They can be good friends once you get to know them and if they enjoy your company.
True friendship is like respect. It’s hard to earn, easy to lose and never owed.
I’m a french guy living in Norway and 95% of my friends there are Norwegians.
How did I do that?
I joined a Dungeons and Dragons group.
They don’t want to be your friend because you call yourself “Expat” not Immigrant.
Well if you insist on calling yourself an expat thats at least half the problem solved.
I lived there a year as an exchange student when I was 15-16. A small rural town and I LOVED IT. They are warm and loving but I could see it being hard if you weren’t accepted into a host family and were just trying on your own to make friends.
In the first couple of years of me living in Norway, my impression was that most people here are as cold as the weather. Over the years, I’ve also realized that I’m an introvert (or have become an introvert). I think I came from a country were the majority of the population are generally extroverted so it was easier to connect with people and make friends …but here in Norway, I think most people are introverted too like me.
I completely understand that socialising is awkward as fuck especially when you don’t have anything in common or don’t understand the same references. I know that I had a few norsk classmates and coworkers in the past that wanted to be friends with me but I just couldn’t relate to them, especially since I don’t enjoy drinking alcohol.
I think overall, right now it’s not easy to be friends with me either. So I am not sure if it’s just that the locals are not open enough or if it is just me that is the problem at this point. “It’s not you, it’s me” XD
People on the interwebs are nice tho.
I don’t know, when I visited Norway back in 2003 the people seemed so nice and chill throughout every place we visited. But that just goes back to how much I witnessed how much of an incredible place Norway was. Just an awesome place. Thank you Orvin (guide) and Osvald (driver).
Heh, the only baffling part to me was how the polite-but-cold people I knew everyday turned into overly friendly and touchy quasi-Mediterranean drunken pests, only to revert to their usual self on Monday morning in class/office.
It’s kinda hard to get past the initial layer of “discretion”, but honestly it didn’t bother me, and I felt quite at home, coming from a similar culture (seafaring people living on unfavorable land)
21 comments
Interesting… the first day at work I was already greated warmly, I was offered to privately to join diskgolfing and a lot of other activities with coworker. Then also meeting more people when doing them and finding a lot of very nice and warm people who, if I made more effort, could be very friendly with.
My experience has been completely opposite, even compared to Denmark(where I studied).
Can confirm, is almost impossible to find Norwegian friends in Norway. Not as difficult to find friends from other countries in Norway tho.
A culture thats based on not bothering other people, being quiet and not interfere with others!? nooo waaay….
Yeah well, there aren’t that many Norwegians to begin with…
Yup. We can be cunty like that. It can be hard enough for Norwegians making Norwegian
friends too, when they move to a new place for example, especially out in the sticks. After the courtesy greets you´re quickly forgotten if not taken in by one of the local cliques.
If you want this confirmed, just hop over to r/Norge (Norwegian subreddit) and count how many times a week people ask how to get friends
Yeah sorry about that, my friends from childhood use up mu about 1day/week of social energy. We cant all be this introverted though? I got a couple friends who reguarly makes new friends, but tbh most are not very socially active
How many are oil expats from Houston— coming from a 4000 sq ft house with a pool, a gadener, a house cleaner, and plenty of cheap wine for mommy….. to Stavanger or Bergen where it rains all the time, 2000 sq ft is considered a sizable home, etc…. plus many Americans only stay for two years for tax reasons—- and even I won’t invest in those friendships. Plus they send their kids to the international school, so they have no friends in the neighborhood.
Norway is great- compared to most countries, it is culturally similar to the US. I have loads of friends- and a great non-oil job.
I came from a country with rampant corruption, miserable wages and public infrastructure held together by duct tape. You have no idea how happy I am that my biggest problem is that it is somewhat difficult to fiend friends.
I live in Norway , and have met Polish , Hungarian and Dutch people ,we also invited them for Christmas ..They are ” users ” of hospitality it does not go both ways .
Sounds like a dream
Yeah i’ve tried to get friends for years but it was always like a 1 way kind of thing were i was the only one keeping in touch and asking about doing stuff, felt like i was bothering them and when i stopped contacting it all stopped. So i gave up on trying to make friends and i’ve never been happier
I see similar complaints among immigrants on other social media. It has not at all been my experience, but I actually think that the biggest problem is simply that the social infrastructure isn’t there to assimilate newcomers.
I had moved country, and moved within other countries, so I was confident & had good ideas about how to make new friends.
However, when I moved for work in other countries, there was a social network in place that introduced people to the community offerings, work clubs, etc.
And most communities have web sites that explain the community life, clubs, churches, schools, history, etc. While kommune websites offer part of that, the social aspects are nonexistent.
Then on top of that, Norwegians generally assume that everything is ok, if you don’t ask. If you ask specifically about making friends, they usually just say that most Norwegians stay with their friend group from school.
They don’t give newcomers a step-by-step guide on how to make Norwegian friends, and the culture is just different enough from other European countries that this…. would be really helpful.
Most people have a very loose definition of friendship. If someone smiles at you or if you eat lunch together at work that doesn’t make you friends. Social media “friends” also don’t count nor do neighbors that are being neighborly.
The opposite also stands true. If someone doesn’t smile at your jokes or if they’d rather eat alone or if they generally just don’t know you exist it doesn’t mean they’re “unfriendly”.
Northern Europeans fall under this last general description. They can be good friends once you get to know them and if they enjoy your company.
True friendship is like respect. It’s hard to earn, easy to lose and never owed.
I’m a french guy living in Norway and 95% of my friends there are Norwegians.
How did I do that?
I joined a Dungeons and Dragons group.
They don’t want to be your friend because you call yourself “Expat” not Immigrant.
Well if you insist on calling yourself an expat thats at least half the problem solved.
I lived there a year as an exchange student when I was 15-16. A small rural town and I LOVED IT. They are warm and loving but I could see it being hard if you weren’t accepted into a host family and were just trying on your own to make friends.
In the first couple of years of me living in Norway, my impression was that most people here are as cold as the weather. Over the years, I’ve also realized that I’m an introvert (or have become an introvert). I think I came from a country were the majority of the population are generally extroverted so it was easier to connect with people and make friends …but here in Norway, I think most people are introverted too like me.
I completely understand that socialising is awkward as fuck especially when you don’t have anything in common or don’t understand the same references. I know that I had a few norsk classmates and coworkers in the past that wanted to be friends with me but I just couldn’t relate to them, especially since I don’t enjoy drinking alcohol.
I think overall, right now it’s not easy to be friends with me either. So I am not sure if it’s just that the locals are not open enough or if it is just me that is the problem at this point. “It’s not you, it’s me” XD
People on the interwebs are nice tho.
I don’t know, when I visited Norway back in 2003 the people seemed so nice and chill throughout every place we visited. But that just goes back to how much I witnessed how much of an incredible place Norway was. Just an awesome place. Thank you Orvin (guide) and Osvald (driver).
Heh, the only baffling part to me was how the polite-but-cold people I knew everyday turned into overly friendly and touchy quasi-Mediterranean drunken pests, only to revert to their usual self on Monday morning in class/office.
It’s kinda hard to get past the initial layer of “discretion”, but honestly it didn’t bother me, and I felt quite at home, coming from a similar culture (seafaring people living on unfavorable land)