Last week I had what can only be described as a "fucking shit day".
In England, when you have a fucking shit day, the remedy is to tell everybody about your fucking shit day, and revel in the sympathy that comes in the form of other people telling you about their fucking shit days. You all laugh together about how some days that you think are going to be normal days SUDDENLY turn into fucking shit days! Through this cleansing ritual, everybody purges. The cathartic venting of the fucking shit days leaves you feeling ready to face the next fucking shit day.
This is not what I have experienced in Sweden.
If you tell people about your fucking shit day, one of two things will happen. Either:
1. You will get a lot of "Åh nej, vad synd" (oh no, what a shame) which is probably heartfelt, but coming from a culture in which people don't really express their sympathy through high-pitched pleasantries, everything just sounds diabolically fake.
2. Uncomfortable body posture and rapid subject change. Fucking shit days are shit, nobody wants to think about them right? Quick, make the person who had a fucking shit day feel better by not thinking about it!
After my venting of this particular fucking shit day went catastrophically off the rails, I got to thinking about exactly why Swedish people are so uncomfortable in taking solace in the fact that other people's days are just as fucking shitty as their own.
And I couldn't help but think about how every fucking shit day, or every fucking shit facet of every fucking shit day, is often turned into a thinly veiled but totally ridiculous positive aspect. Like when my driving instructor looked at the rain lashing against the windshield through a foggy grey haze of blääääää and suddenly came out with "Oh fantastic! Now it's autumn!" I was so thrilled that she was using a bit of sarcasm I actually laughed! Until she followed up with "time to light the candles, wear comfy clothes and get cosy at home!" and I realised she was being totally unironic.
I constantly wonder how people here are able to sustain hours long conversation about running and going to the gym, when those are, realistically, obligatory time devourers that detract from ACTUAL HOBBIES and PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT. But now it completely makes sense, doing repetitive exercise is so dull that it must be MAGICALLY TRANSFORMED into a positive, lest people actually start discussing something negative and we all have to get uncomfortably shifty and change the subject of conversation. So now we all have to talk about how great it feels when to have "träningsvärk" (training aches) and how some shoes that somebody purchased for running are so himla fina (blooming lovely).
Look at IKEA. Everybody knows that it's actually Dante's undiscovered next layer of hell going round the place, but somehow couples and families make a day out of it. What better representation of the Swedish ability to put a happy face on a dog turd is there than the global effect of IKEA. "Oh we have to go and spend money on crappy furniture to fill our home with utilitarian things, instead of buying all the cool shit we though we could have as kids when we imagined being adults and having money!! Yaaaaay! Let's clap our hands everybody and buy some sub-par, poor quality lingonberry jam!" Cue several hours of dead time looking at a mock up of a house you'll never have, followed by getting home and pretending you've accomplished something.
The big dream of most Swedish people is family life, why has nobody here got the message that family life is basically the epitome of drudgery? Oh wait - they have got that message, and they relish the challenge. If anyone can make the shitty nappy changing, weekly food shopping, temper tantrum throwing, super stressed school running, never ending laundry doing, relentless time slipping, constant lack of sleep giving destroyer of personal life dreams that is family life into a super happy fun time, it's got to be Swedish people.
If you're going to have a family, at least revel in the joy of sharing how shitty that makes you feel with other people. If the time you have to spend burning calories is greater than the time you spent enjoying the consumption of calories, at least burn a few of them in a circle jerk of anger with other people who feel the same. And if you have a fucking shit day of any kind, it is your privilege - nay! it is your RIGHT to have your shit day affirmed, confirmed and appreciated by fellow shit day havers.
Otherwise you might end up like my old neighbours; your anger (that you thought was magically transformed into joy) just bubbling up inside, ultimately culminating in you throwing plates at your partner during a blazing row at 4am. Then again, people in adjacent flats listening through the walls probably just told themselves: Oh nice! Now they have less washing up to do.
