Care and Feeding of Your British Man

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.

Don't Use A Handkerchief In Iceland

One of the most obvious indicators of cultural difference between the Icelanders and Brits is the attitude to nose clearing.

In Iceland it's considered disgusting to blow your nose in front of other people. You are expected to do this in the lavatory.

Even more disgusting is the use of the handkerchief, apparently because the user not only often inspects the outcome of the nose-blow, but then puts the handkerchief back in their pocket.

Brits that visit me here are disgusted by the Icelandic way of clearing their noses; it's done by simply sucking hard up the nose, then swallowing the product.

It's normal to do that in company here, whilst sitting at one's desk or even at the dinner table. It's not considered spectacularly rude.

Most Icelanders that I know will, upon departure of a handkerchief-using Brit, animatedly explain to their friends how disgusting they found it to watch the Brit use the handkerchief at the dinner table.

Most British and American expats that I know find the suck-up-the-nose habit a bit gross.

The strength of the tradition for handkerchief use amongst Brits is illustrated by a story from an ex-colleague: he went to a fairly generic grammar school in Wales and explained that they had a strict rule that every boy must carry a clean hankerchief at all times. The headmaster would periodically check this by asking everyone to stand during morning assembly, then thrust his hand into his pocket, retrieve his hanky and raise his hand. Anyone failing to hold a hanky, or even committing the crime of holding a soiled hanky, was punished.

How To Ask The Time In Iceland

Asking the time in Iceland is not the same as it is in the UK or the USA. It's one of the best ways to show the social differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic approaches.

If an Icelander were to ask a Briton, the Icelander would come across as abrupt, possibly pushy, even rude. He'd say "Hey, what time is it?", and nothing more. He'd expect a short answer: "Quarter past ten.", to which he'd reply simply "Thanks". He may even not say thanks.

A Brit, on the other hand, would do the full humble-polite-apologetice routine: "Excuse me, er, sorry to bother you, but could you tell me what the time is please?", then when told would reply in similar detail: "Oh, thank you. I'm in such a hurry, off to this meeting, you see. Anyway, thankyou...".

What's interesting about it is that this sort of expansive courtesy and choreography come across as affected, possibly even silly to the Icelanders. The two societies' approaches to this are neatly polarised: the Icelanders value pragmatism and simply do not have the hundreds of years of social tweaking or the influence of the Victorians or the French aristocracy from whom the Brits learned their affected ways. To them, asking in a direct way is polite: it doesn't waste anyone's time and allows the exchange to be over quickly, meaning they can rapidly get back to important things like surviving the winter.

The Brits would find the Icelanders' directness simply rude. Curt and interrupting, their social efficiency would socially unbalance the Brits, who are unused to having their personal space invaded without warning.

What's interesting about this is that both cultures can cause friction, possibly even offense or annoyance simply by trying to be polite, or at least 'polite' as it is defined in their own social frame of reference.

It took me a few years to really grasp this and whilst I learnt to adapt and suppress my learned reactions, there are still times when something grates or I find myself needing to make just a little bit of effort to understand that the Icelanders are not trying to be rude. I find it interesting to realise how ingrained are the social rules that I learned for the more than thirty years that it took for me to find my way to Iceland.