Finnish small talk is something that practically doesn’t exist. Not in the way that it exists globally everywhere else in the world. In Finland there’s a saying “vaikeneminen on kultaa,” which roughly translates to “silence is gold.”
If a Finnish person feels like they have nothing interesting to say, they stay quiet. A question like “How are you doing?” usually is taken very literally in Finland.
My favourite examples of Finns trying to avoid small talk is the classic bus stop-situation. It’s like we almost have an internal ruler inside us since every distance between strangers is almost precisely the same. Just close enough to be in the bus stop-area but as far away from disturbing someone elses personal space/letting someone else disturb theirs.
Still, even though Finns are quite limited in their day to day-conversations to other people, you can guarantee you will always get a quite honest answer to everything, but in a way that doesn’t necessarily offend you. Finns have a good backbone and even though we don’t always have time for small talk, you’ll know when a Finn likes you.
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