There is a cultural phenomena known as the Seattle Freeze in my home city of Seattle, Washington. This metaphorical allusion refers to the attitude of Seattleites towards people they do not know, or have only recently met. As Seattle has many thousands of citizens who have migrated from other parts of the US, and many thousands who have left Seattle for a short time to attend university in other parts of the country before returning, it is impossible to know who initially coined the term or whence they originated.
My mentor and friend Kurt Plagenhoef believes that this phenomena is entirely related to the geographic location of a place; that throughout the world warmer places have “warmer” people. Southern hospitality can only be appreciated by someone who has experienced the opposite of it. Having just come from Albania, where an invitation to coffee (1 to 3 hours of intimate conversation in a person’s home or other private setting where his wife and other family members might be present) from a virtual stranger is not uncommon, to Stockholm has given me eyes to see.
A warning to my readers as I attempt to broadly generalize a major city and its population in a few sentences with only my limited experience to guide me. Stockholm is much larger than Seattle, much wealthier, and much, much older, but the attitude of the two peoples towards strangers is similar. The people here are very polite in a functional way, acting out of an expectation of being treated in kind. The people of Seattle are only functionally kind aswell.
There seems to be a reluctance to extend the hand of friendship, to close the distance between, to smile or even acknowledge the existence of me as we pass each other on the sidewalk. I find myself making clear eye contact with other men, nodding to them or saying “Hej,” (Swedish for hello) and their response is no response. They simply stare into and past me like one who has already had their energies exhausted by a particularly irksome and challenging interloper.
albaniacalling 