As a Finn, something that I have always appreciated about other Finns is the fact that we have comfortable silences. I am a very social and talkative person, but of course I, as well as everyone else, have those moments when I do not have anything to say. Not because I am upset or in a bad mood; sometimes I just want to be quiet. Since I have quite many friends from other countries, I have noticed that this is not the case everywhere – some people feel the need to fill every moment of silence with meaningless blabber or they will feel awkward, whereas Finns tend to get overwhelmed when there is too much noise around them.
Something that I feel is related to the silence is honesty. When Finns talk, they usually mean what they say and can be quite straight forward with it. At first, this can make us seem blunt and maybe even rude, but we are not really used to circling around subjects and sugarcoating everything. Once you get used to it, it is actually quite nice to know that when your Finnish friend says something, you know they mean it.
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