Today I was out shopping, in a store with pretty conventional supermarket-style checkouts.
This of course meant that the normal challenge of shopping with a trolley needed to be managed. Most people seem to do ok, simply pulling the trolley behind them as they unload, then once fully emptied, moving it to the output end of the checkout. They then wheel it out to their vehicle (word carefully chosen so as to not alienate the 4x4 drivers) and leave the trolley either at some jaunty position in the parking lot, or if they display levels of social awareness that bely either the fact that they are foreign or that they have lived for a while in a more populated place, they wheel it to one of the collection points.
The shopper in front of me in the queue -let's call her Sigga- had no such ideas. She dragged the trolley behind her, but her purchases easily fitted into one bag, so she didn't need to wheel the trolley onwards: she just lifted the bag and started to stroll off. And left the trolley directly in my way. See picture.
So what this meant is that if I had done nothing other than walked straight ahead, I would have walked straight into her discarded trolley.
What shocked me most about this is the total disregard for other people. Once again, my fellow skerry-dwellers are showing a sociopathic level of igorance of those around them. It clearly never even occurred to her that the trolley was in my way. What did she think was going to happen to it? Would it suddenly dematerialise the moment she took her hand off it? Clearly not, since she gave it no thought at all.
This leaves me wondering what would have been a good way to react. In hindsight, it would have been fun to just walk ahead and bump the trolley into her back, forcing a reaction. Though arguably a more grown-up approach would have been to just say "Excuse me, are you planning on leaving that there? It's right in my way!"
What should I have done?
The cultural difference between Iceland and real countries is rarely as clearly defined as it is in relationships between Icelandic women and British men.
Here are a few simple pointers to help you keep things on the right track.
Opening car doors
British men will open car doors for women. They do it because they are trying to be polite and kind and show that they're not rock-apes. Icelandic women have a tendency to find this embarrassing and weird, or even misinterpret it as a threat to their powers of feminist world domination.
Solution: Accept it gracefully, say 'Æ,takk fyrir' and be pleased that he cares about you. Doing anything else, including laughing or explaining to him that you know how to work the handle on most car doors, is a cold rejection to him. It's like saying 'Yuck, no!!' when someone offers you some coffee or harðfiskur.
Don't call him stupid
There will be times when your man does something without thinking, something ill-informed or simply inappropriate. If he's normal it won't be malicious but probably just an oversight. The Icelanders tend to not understand the import of their words and will say something like "Why did you do that? That was stupid!", without realising that it's a deep, deep insult. When a Brit hears the word 'stupid' he will interpret it such that you think he's a complete moron. The Icelandic school system doesn't teach the finer points of the import of such words and they tend to get used without people really being aware that they're insulting people.
Solution: Be more diplomatic than you can even imagine. Imagine you're talking to your Amma, and use that tone. I know it feels ridiculous, but that's how it has to be. Your man will be grateful and receptive and not grumpily crawl into his cave.
Don't ask for help on his behalf
So the front door at home isn't closing properly. Your man is an accountant and your frændi Siggi is a húsasmiður. Of course the obvious thing to do is invite Siggi round for a coffee and to fix the door.
To do this is just about as deep an insult as you can give to your man. You're assuming that he hasn't a clue how to fix what is probably quite a simple problem and you haven't even discussed it with him. To go behind his back is deeply disrespectful to his intelligence and powers of delegation.
Solution: Gently point out the problem, in a non-judgmental way, i.e. NOT "When are you going to do something about that door? How many times do I have to mention it to you?", rather: "That front door seems to be getting worse. What do you think we should do?"
Allow him to make the decision for himself. If he's a normal guy he probably won't mess it up. Doors are generally not that complex. Under no circumstance whatsoever should you mention bloody Siggi.
Don't 'help' him drive or park
This one is only tenuously connected to the Anglo-Icelandic cultural (Almanna)gjá, but I really don't care.
When you arbitrarily help your man to find a parking space, or tell him which lane to be in while he's getting to know the finer points of Reykjavík's labyrinthine road system, you're in grave danger of insulting him without realising it. Most men will interpret any driving 'advice' as the highest form of disrespect unless delivered in diplomatic tones that would leave many a UN ambassador weeping in envy.
The point is this: he knows how to drive. He knows how to park. He was doing these things just fine before he met you.
Solution: Start from the point of assuming that he knows what he's doing and he knows where he's going. Showing a British man that you've assumed he knows what he's doing is extremely respectful. His actual level of skill is entirely irrelevant.
Do say: "You know fastest way to Kringlan from here, right?"
Don't say: "LEFT lane! You need to be in the LEFT LANE, stupid!"
Be gentle: play nicely
We're back to the old social evolotion issue. Iceland is a land of pragmatism, in which it's ok to be so curt whilst asking the time that foreigners are offended. This is because only twenty minutes ago, everyone was living in turf houses and gnawing sheep's heads to survive.
This means that when, my dear Icelanders, you think you're talking straight and trying to make a clear point, you're probably being so direct your typical Brit will feel like you're nagging or even attacking them. This particularly applies to men that haven't been here long enough to develop the industrial thickness of hide needed to deal with it.
The problem is, of course, that you don't know you're doing it. You're doing what you call 'talking'. Ok, then it's time to redefine 'talking' to mean something that doesn't leave your man feeling like a Guantanamo inmate.
Solution: Be gentle. Talk slowly. Pretend you're talking to Amma. Breathe.
I know that some of these points may refer to male-female relationships in general, but the differences are amplified by the yawning cultural gap between Icelanders and Brits.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because both groups are mainly white caucasians and have roughly the same number of limbs that they start from the point of being essentially similar: that's a rookie mistake and a dangerous one. It's much better to start by assuming that they are fundamentally different, then trying to find the similarities.
