Teenage Boys ... Weird everywhere, not just in the US

I wanted to take a minute to discuss the oddity known as teenage boys. Perhaps later I'll write an entry on teenage girls, as they're quite odd too. But in the past few days I've been faced with the realization that teenage boys, whether they be from the US or Denmark, have a culture (and style) all of their own. 

Lets start with their style, because that's the most striking thing about them. For starters, the hair. It is clear that if you are a boy of a certain age in Denmark, it is incredibly uncool to have hair that is brown. Luckily, most boys here look exactly the same, and have the typical bleached blonde hair. Those that were a little more "unlucky" will bleach their hair, but because everyone in Denmark is a blonde-hair afficionado, fellow Danes would be able to spot the bleach job from miles away. Clearly, the reasonable solution is to dye your hair one of three other colors after the bleaching process is complete - hot pink, bright orange, or bright purple. Nothing says, "I never wanted to be blonde anyway" like a head full of hair that, had we still been hunting and foraging for our food, would have been weeded out by natural selection and a lion that happened to be attracted to bright colors. But the hair color is not enough to be a teen of stature in Denmark. Stuck in probably the same mindset women in the US were in in the 80's, boys here clearly think that bigger is better when it comes to hair. It's as if in Denmark, the girls are drawn to whatever male has the longest hair spikes. From a biological perspective, this makes total sense. The more money you have, the more you can afford to spend on the newest, stickiest, and largest quantity of beeswax hair gel. Therefore, bigger hair=more money=better mate. Thank you Darwin.

And now on to the shirts. Sticking with the theme and alliteration "bigger is better" in regard to hair, in the case of shirts, brighter is better. And not just brighter - it seems as if the closer your shirt is to looking like one of those pictures you stare at in an effort to make it 3-D, the cooler you are. (See pictures.)

The wearer of the first hoodie would probably be middle of the road as far as coolness is concerned. He's going bright, which does mean something - however, he's lacking the overwhelming pattern that the wearer of the second hoodie has. As you can see in the third picture, the hoodie in the middle is superior to the hoodies on the side (as indicated by the slightly higher placement in the image) because it is not only overwhelmingly busy, but also induces dizziness and sometimes vomiting upon being seen. Again, this style makes sense when we look at it in a biological perspective. Denmark is extremely (seriously, I mean EXTREMELY) grey. The brighter your shirt is, the more you will stand out against the monotone background. Good thinking, boys.

There's one other style which the boys here have, and I am honestly hard-pressed to explain it away with science. No matter what pants the boys are wearing, they will always tuck them into their socks. Athletic pants, sweat pants, jeans ... all tucked into their white tube socks. It also appears to be a rule that the whiter your socks are, the cooler the style looks. Which means that boys here have impeccibly clean socks, but also look unbelievably ridiculous. It's cold, and Copenhagen is a typical city - therefore no one is going hiking, and as far as I know, Denmark is not home to a mysterious breed of pavement ticks.

That's really all I've got on their clothes, which means it's time to move on to their mannerisms. Smoking is cool. That's all there is to it. You will be mocked if you don't smoke. Clearly, the free education is really doing a lot for the great minds of tomorrow. If you want to add to your cool factor while smoking, you can hold a beer in your other hand, and act boisterous while leaning up against a building. Preferably a brick building. You can't drink in a bar here until you're 18 (I think), but you're free to buy before that, and even before that anyone who is of legal buying age is free to give you whatever they want. And you're also allowed to drink in public. In the case of teenage boys, this means against a building. It is also cool to speak English. Especially if you are using the ever-popular and much overused word "nice." Nice can be used to describe anything. A cold beer, a much-needed cigarette, a joke, a girl, a fine work of art or a refreshing piece of arcetecture. There is but one rule to saying "nice" - you must hold the i. "Niiiiiiice." For anyone out there who has seen Borat, it is also acceptable to say "very nice" much in the same way he does in the movie. It is also considered cool to curse in English. I'm not sure why. In addition, if you want to talk about something that the elders around you may not approve of, you say it in English. Everyone here is fluent, but I guess they figure that the adults won't bother putting in the extra effort to listen in on their crazy teenage anecdotes. 

I'm sure there's more I'm leaving out, but I hope this has given you a taste of what teenage boys are like here in Denmark. The take home point of this entry, however, is that no matter what country you're in, teenages will always be weird. End of story.

Oh, and as I write this, I can't help but think of poor Sebastian, the foreign student from Germany, who was mocked all through middle school for his tucked-in pants, octagon glasses and overall goofiness. But I bet he was considered quite the stud back in Germany.