[tapland]

You do not talk to others in public. You do not meet new people at the gym, at bars, at anywhere. If you are lucky you work in a small startup-office where employees go drink after work on fridays and where you can get to know them.

American tourists can be heard over all other sound in the metro- and trainstations in Stockholm because the natural level of noise-making is so different.

[selestify]

How do people meet other people to date then?

[magduf]

I don't actually know, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it's the same as in the US: dating apps. How else could you possibly meet people to date? This isn't a joke question, because I honestly have no idea.

The standard ways of meeting partners, according to surveys, have been: school, work, church, friends, family, bars, online. School isn't possible if you're not a student any more (i.e., most everyone over 25), work is generally frowned upon and pretty limited unless your workplace has a lot of turnover (which is bad for other reasons!), church isn't useful if you're not religious (as is the case for Sweden I'm sure), friends and family have limited social circles of singles, and bars are a great place to meet alcoholics. The surveys I've read for dating in America have shown that all these methods (except maybe school) have been declining for a long time, while online has become the #1 method.

[bobl]

To be fair I think it is worse these days than it could be. Over the last 50 years or so Sweden developed a form of egalitarian individualism, which has made social interaction a bit peculiar. But today there is rising inequality which has turned some of that individualism into egoism. At the same time there are a lot of people moving in or out of cities, breaking up friend groups and leaving small towns to their faith. Swedes do quite well socially when it comes to things like non profit clubs. Now everyone is trying to be "international" which most Swedes aren't good at as they are far too concerned about what other people think.