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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3294 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 26, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I thought I could perhaps add some context here

No, don't, stop, you're only making it worse.

It's a cultural difference, it's fine. Cultures are weird, and that's what makes them fun, celebrate diversity and all that. If you try to provide additional explanations like "there's not enough potatoes" you'll just end up looking silly to people who make a fraction of your salary and have saying likes "where there's food for four, there's food for five".

I don't care if people like it or not, I dislike when people get the wrong idea and then spread it. I've seen so much false claims about this and it irritates me.

People are fed, they're just not invited to dinner as a rule. They're not invited to dinner because they're not planned for (and people actually are planning) and because people don't want to presume or irritate other families. That there isn't enough food isn't the only reason, it's one of the multiple reasons that taken together amount to why people might not be invited to dinner.

If people don't like this, then that's fine. It's just that it is not true that people aren't invited for dinner as a rule, it's just a possibility. It isn't weird to offer your kid's friend dinner, if you check with their parents first.

I’m not scandinavian, but it seems to me there’s more to it than these practical considerations. Of course it’s not a question of a lack of generosity. But regularly feeding another family’s child goes against your aggressively egalitarian ethos, by marking one family as poor and the other as rich.

That is not it at all. No one is that poor and no one would even consider that an issue for a second.

It's about the child being an imposition (on that particular day), and depriving the other family of their family time and fucking up their planning.

It's almost the other way around. The more affluent the family is the the more precise their planning will be and the parents time more precious, and they likely have their children's time planned out as well.

That can’t be it, I doubt Scandinavians are more likely to be helicopter parents than Americans of the same class. The family time explanation, I don’t know, you’re not really “losing” family time if your family eats together with your kid’s best friend, not in any practical sense.

It's not the family that offers dinner that's deprived of family time, it's the other family whose kid isn't home for dinner that's losing their family time.

Sorry for being unclear.

I still think your society is uncomfortable with gifts because it implies an unequal relationship and disturbs the law of jante, which also explains the going dutch and the rest of your peculiarities. And it’s just more fun to believe that, rather than your culture being particularly anal about eating times and potatoes.

People are for sure uncomfortable with gifts but a weekday home dinner is too small to be considered a gift, even if it repeats.

Don't underestimate how anal and uptight at least Swedes can be.

People are fed, they're just not invited to dinner as a rule.

Yes, good, exactly, this is what you should stick to! There's nothing more to it.

That there isn't enough food isn't the only reason, it's one of the multiple reasons that taken together amount to why people might not be invited to dinner.

No! You're doing it wrong again! There are no other reasons. All these other dinner-by-default cultures are subject to the same constraints, they don't have infinite food or infinite family time either, but if they have a guest at home, they invite them to join. The moment you start trying to explain yourself with anything other than "them's the rules" you start looking silly.

I'm not on a PR campaign trying to deceive you to perceive us in a more positive ligbt, I'm trying to explain whats going on and how people are reasoning.

Furthermore, I don't think the conditions are the same. Maybe in the general sense they are, people could organise their lives differently, maybe, but in the moment the choices are made the conditions are different. If you plan your meals (and shopping) more meticulously and you have practically twice the female labour force participation rate, having extra meal guests is a larger imposition and such a consideration is more important.

If this highlights a cultural difference then then that may be so, it doesn't make it a factor people doesn't consider and doesn't consider important.

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