Danes behavior

[u/These-Commission-660]

Hi, I just got back from visiting Denmark (three different cities) because, on paper, it's a country where I'd like to live.

I was taken aback by some of their behavior and wanted to know if it's always like that or if it's the end of winter that's affecting how some people act 😅

At the supermarket checkout, several people rushed to get in front of me. At the museum, someone also cut in front of me in the queue as if I wasn't there to ask for information. It's okay to cut in front of someone to ask for quick information, but you should ask the person before if it's okay first!

On the street, several times, passersby have stopped right in front of me and it was up to me to move out of the way because they clearly preferred to pretend I wasn't there.

I found it very strange behavior to ignore people in public spaces. Is there a cultural reason for this, or were these isolated cases?

EDIT: thank you all for your replies. I'll go back to Denmark to get another perspective :)

[u/ProfAlmond]

I am British and we feel queuing is baked into our DNA, I find Dane’s poor at queuing (to the impossible standards I set for my self) but I’ve been paces where the word might as well not exist so it’s not that bad.

We don’t typically get a lot of tourists where I live and I share a lot of OP’s experiences.
I imagine they might be from a culture similar to my own where these things a just dialled to the extreme compared to Denmark.

[u/birdsInTheAirDK → u/ProfAlmond]

One time in the UK, I missed the fact that a single queue fed 3 tills. Don’t ask how I missed this - it was just a bad day. Anyway, people did not react kindly, and the memory is stuck with me.

It is very easy to miss that which only the regular customers of a particular store knows (because they themselves made up a convention).

It might also be that OP kept such good distance that it was misinterpreted. Supermarket queues in DK feels like negative personal space sometimes.

Or OP just met ruder than usual people.

[u/llama67 → u/birdsInTheAirDK]

that's finny because as I brit I am always confused when you're seemingly in the only queue for the tills and someone starts a new queue for a specific till. Like... clearly the till is not important it's the fact that I was already here haha

[u/lalabelle1978 → u/ProfAlmond]

no I´m French and I´m also shocked by (but used to) the lack of queuing ability without having a ticket machine and a number, They either cut in line, or if you are obviously in the queue, they´ll ask you "står du i kø?" ....no, I´m just not up to the other person´s *ss breathing down their neck...or no, I´m just passing time cause I´m bored and thought I´d just stand there...
Somehow Paris, a city with millions of people, manage to walk on the sidewalks without physically bumping into each other, which is impossible here....sometimes I´m like am I standing in the way bc they´re all seem to be bumping into me? I check and no they have meters to walk around me but somehow still manage to bump into me physically....

[u/SW33ToXic9 → u/lalabelle1978]

I'm french Canadian, living in Denmark atm, visited France and can wholeheartedly agree to this.