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Dating, How To Date in Denmark, Stories about life in Denmark

Dating Danish Men: A guide for the foreign woman

I saw a movie this week. It was the latest in long-running series called Father of Four. The series has been running since the Fifties. As the kids grow up, they just replace them with new actors.

Anyway, in this episode, there was a romance. The oldest sister, who’s about 20, meets a handsome young man with a guitar. What struck me watching the movie was that the male romantic lead was visibly shorter than the female lead. I’d say at least a couple of centimeters shorter, maybe an inch.

Now, in Hollywood, they’d have that guy standing on a box, to look taller, or have the actress standing in a hole, to look shorter. In the Danish film, there was no attempt to hide it. They had them walk side by side through a meadow. I had to admit, I couldn’t focus on the love scene. I kept thinking. He’s really short, or maybe she’s really tall.

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February 17, 2014 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Danish Vikings, or how to find Vikings in today’s Denmark

I play a little game sometime when I look at Danish people. I imagine them as Danish Vikings. It’s easy now that big beards are in fashion on young men. Sometimes on the metro I’ll look up at the hipster guy playing with his iPhone next to me and imagine him wearing a big fur cloak. Maybe a rope belt, with a sword dangling from it.

I imagine him stepping off the boat in Newfoundland in the year 1000, freaking out the local American Indians.

Imagining Danish women as Vikings is a little harder. They don’t usually have the long braids or wear the big golden brooches that Viking ladies used to fasten their dresses. They don’t wear the headscarves the married women used to wear. Of course, you can still see plenty of headscarves in Denmark, but usually not on the Danes.

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January 31, 2014 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and Taxes: “I’m happy to pay”

When I first moved to Denmark and people asked me how I liked it, I used to say that I liked everything here except for the weather, the food, and the taxes.

Everyone agreed about the weather – particularly if the conversation was taking place during one of Denmark’s sad, rainy summers. And some made a half-hearted attempt to defend Danish cuisine – fashionable Nordic cuisine aside, we are talking about pork, more pork, a little eel, and a bit of reindeer – before mentioning the wide availability of Thai restaurants.

But nearly everyone defended the taxes. “I’m happy to pay,” many people said.  Taxes in Denmark are a sacred duty, in a society where very little is sacred. In a recent survey, 90% of Danes said it would be embarrassing to be seen as someone who does not pay their full tax bill.

Fear the taxman

Not that cheating is any simple matter: unlike the rarely-seen and largely passive Danish police force, the Danish tax authorities are ruthless and take no prisoners. They go so far to as use air surveillance to make sure everyone is reporting the right square footage on their real-estate taxes.

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January 12, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

No planned hangovers: 13 years after moving to Denmark, here are some ways I won’t fit in

More than a decade after moving to Denmark, I am pretty well integrated into Danish society.

I’ve learned to speak Danish, I pay my taxes, I bike everywhere, I send my daughter to a Danish school. I enjoy a nice slice of dark rye rugbrød – even when I’m on my own and don’t have to impress anyone with how healthy I’m eating.

But there are a few ways I simply refuse to integrate. I will not do things the Danish way.

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January 9, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Gossip and Scandal in Denmark


In general, Danes are not gossips, particularly about the sex lives of people they know.

It’s partly the Danish fetish for privacy, partly the basic acceptance of all things sexual, partly the lack of naughty excitement about all things sexual.

Danish politicians, for example, don’t have sex scandals. French politicians have sex scandals. American politicians have sex scandals. Danish politicians have tax scandals.

They could be bedding down every night with a chimpanzee and the Danish media wouldn’t touch it.

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December 15, 2013 by
Dating, Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Sex and Denmark

There’s a postcard you can buy at souvenir shops called The Perfect European. You’ve probably seen it somewhere. Last time I went through Kastrup airport, there was a poster version in the customs area.

The postcard has been around since the 1980s, and it has several small cartoons, illustrating each nationality within the 1980s EU, and making a sarcastic remark about what it does best. It says: The Perfect European is as humorous as a German. The Perfect European drives like the French. The Perfect European is as humble as a Spaniard, as organized as a Greek, as calm as an Italian, and serves traditional British food.

And, according to the postcard, The Perfect European is as discreet as a Dane. A little cartoon in the lower-right-hand corner shows a blond Danish man opening his coat to show off pictures of naked ladies.

Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize pornography, in 1969. And for awhile, it was the world’s leading exporter of pornography.

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December 8, 2013 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Danish political parties: ‘Left’ is not leftist, and other tips for voting in Denmark

Last week, political posters went up all over Copenhagen, on streetlights, on bridges, and on train platforms.

The posters are for the local elections this month, and even though the candidates are supposed to take them down afterwards, they usually don’t.

So, the candidates will keep smiling and making promises through Christmas, and through the winter snow and ice. Come spring, you’ll see a faded, battered photo of somebody who failed to win anything at all hanging from a light pole near you.

The ‘left’ party is not leftist
I like Danish politics, and I follow it, even though I don’t follow Danish sports or entertainment. I like Danish politics because it involves a lot of intelligent women running things, with men standing in the background to help them out.

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November 11, 2013 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Just buy more insurance: Crime and Punishment in Denmark

I have a daughter, and a couple of years ago, she buried her mobile phone in the sandbox at school.

She buried her mobile phone deep in the sand, too deep to hear it ring, and then she couldn’t find it. She dug and dug, and then she panicked, and she blamed another girl. She said the other girl had buried the phone in the sandbox.

Pretty soon lie piled on top of lie, so we ended up with a Richard Nixon/Bill Clinton type situation, where the lies were far worse than the original crime. When we finally unraveled it all, I had to apologize to the other girl’s mother.

And I punished my daughter, who was old enough to know better. I took her screens away – her online games and her YouTube access – for a month.

I am an adult bully
The Danish parents around me were horrified.

The idea of punishment, in Danish eyes, is old-fashioned and maybe a bit criminal in itself. From the Danish point of view, almost all problems can be solved by talking about them.

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October 21, 2013 by