<rant>

As I prepare to leave Estonia, I've come to reflect on what has so soured my experience and driven me away. Although there is something to be said about the poor weather and the low quality of goods and services, it really comes down to the society. And although it may be flawed in many ways, three stand out the most.

First is the general lack of reciprocity. On many occasions, I baked for people, helped them with their work, took them out to eat, etc. In the US, this was one way I tried to make friends. But in Estonia, the most common result of doing these things was that people took them for granted and began to expect or even demand them. It was uncommon that people even said "thank you". I don't think they were unhappy with my work. People were quick to eat up whatever I baked. One girl expressed surprise at how well I was able to clean up a few of her translations into English. But her response was to send me a bunch more and then, an hour later, tell me to hurry up. "Come on, I want to get paid for these", she said. Apparently I had been doing her job for her.

Second is that people are unreliable. One thing I found funny and absurd when I came to Estonia was their obsession with contracts. It seems like any service lasting more than an hour requires you to sign a contract. I couldn't help but think "I trust them. Why can't they trust me??" I soon found what may be the reason for their contract obsession. If you don't have a signed contract, apparently many Estonians will renege on their agreements if it suits them. This happened to me at least 50 times, on matters both big and small. For instance, the majority of times when I agreed to meet with someone (e.g. for lunch or a movie), they didn't show up, and only a minority of people gave me advance notice that they wouldn't be coming. I spent so many hours waiting for people who never showed up. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the majority of times. It had to be at least 60%.

I can recall several instances when a manager at my company agreed that if I did something, then he'd do something. Before I left, my new manager made three or four of these agreements. Despite him repeatedly saying he would "definitely" uphold his end, I never saw any indication that he made even the slightest effort to. They were small things, but it's the principle. How can I trust future agreements? In another instance, with another manager, we had an agreement that if I did some unpleasant work, from which the company would benefit substantially, they would reimburse me for my expenses and give me a bonus to my salary. Although I did the work, they didn't pay me a single cent of that bonus. "We changed our mind", he said, but only about paying me — they were happy to continue receiving the extra income. It took about six months just to get them to reimburse me for my expenses. In other respects, the job and company were fine. I just couldn't trust any agreements, even written ones, unless they were in binding legal contracts.

I suppose this also fits into the above two complaints: so many people tried to exploit me. Usually it regarded helping them with some English-language work. Somebody would ask me to write something for them or edit their work. It took about 90 minutes. At first, I gladly did so for free, to be friendly. But after I finished the work, those people, who acted so nice when they wanted something, would suddenly have nothing to do with me... until the next time they wanted me to help them with their work, when they were all smiles again. After about five times, I stopped doing it for free and started asking for some small remuneration, usually that they buy me lunch. They were all too happy to agree, but four out of five times they "forgot" (repeatedly) or were "too busy". One girl managed to trick me into doing her work four times; I felt like such a fool falling for her false promises.

The third complaint is that the society is too restrictive. The sets of acceptable expressions, acceptable fashions, etc. is rather limited. This seems to be the case even among subsets of society that pride themselves on being different, like punks; sure, they're different from normal, but they're all different in the same way. This isn't just my opinion. Two Estonians that I knew went to stay abroad for some time. Upon returning, they independently remarked to me on being surprised at how conservative Estonia actually is. Three foreigners who visited Estonia made similar comments. When I asked the few friends I had why Estonians didn't talk to me, I got the most vain answers: they don't like my clothes, they don't like my beard, they don't like my hair, I'm too quiet, I'm different from them. So what? Must I really dress like an Estonian and do my hair like an Estonian and shave my face like an Estonian? Is that really more important than being nice or being kind or caring about people?

I remember one case when, after I baked a bunch of cookies for one of the other teams at my company, I was met with ridicule, because 'baking is for women'. Apparently I wasn't following the approved male role.

I might have thought my inability to make friends in Estonia was all my own problem, except for two things. First, although these kinds of problems also happened in the US, they happened more times in one year in Estonia than in 20 years back home. And second, whenever I found myself among foreigners, it seemed so easy to make friends with them. I talk to them, they talk to me, I ask them to go somewhere, they accept, they actually show up, we have fun. It didn't seem to matter where they were from: whether Australia, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Holland, Russia, Turkey, or Ukraine, I found them friendly. Now I realize that these are exceptional people — most people never go live abroad — and they're probably not representative of the average residents of those countries. Nonetheless, I was able to make friends easily with them, so I'm not just completely repulsive. :-) The problem was that they didn't stick around. Most left Estonia quickly.

But among Estonians, I made only three or four friends in three and a half years. And it was still true that in the majority of cases, they didn't show up when we agreed to meet, and only half of them had the courtesy to call me. After a while, I gave up entirely. Why go through the effort to make a plan, set aside time, and get your hopes up when you know that there's a two out of three chance that you'll be disappointed?

I leave out discussing other social problems like rampant alcoholism and low personal safety. (I was physically attacked twice on the street by drunk people and my coworkers were not surprised. They had their own stories of being chased and attacked. In 20 years in the US, that had never happened.) While no doubt bad for society, these problems didn't contribute much to my overall unhappiness.

I stop short of saying all this is bad in an objective sense, although I don't see how it could be good. I suppose if you're an Estonian born in Estonia then you know how to fit within the society, how to protect yourself from being exploited, etc., without even being conscious of it. I'm sure Estonia fits Estonians, but it doesn't fit me. (And I did know a few foreigners who seemed to fit in well, although most had the same complaints I do.) If people were just more honest and kept their word, I would have been much happier, I think. The worst thing about it is how it has changed my own behavior. Being nice or generous was more often penalized than rewarded, so I stopped. I became cynical. But I don't want to have to think about whether somebody is exploiting me, and I don't want to be cynical. I just want to be nice and trust people, and I want to live in a society where that's rewarded.

</rant>

Update: An Estonian guy who read this commented to me that he had some of the same experiences when he was younger, but he had learned to overcome them by "projecting more value" and showing that he wasn't willing to be pushed around. My believes my quiet demeanor invites abuse from people, and if I don't do much to penalize that behavior, then people may try to take advantage of me repeatedly. He makes a good point. One of the lessons I've been slowly learning these past years is that as much as I wish modern, civilized humans would transcend some of their more distasteful animal instincts and behaviors, refusing to participate in aspects of human nature that I don't like (such as the dominance hierarchy and competition for status) doesn't do anything but disadvantage me. As much as I hate the game, I can't escape it, because everyone else is still playing. So maybe I should begrudgingly start playing too.

Update: A couple other Estonians have come to me and said that they feel the same way and that these reasons are a large part of why they're planning to leave the country. So I guess not everyone born here gets used to it.

I'm glad to hear you're getting away from that situation. Where are you moving to?

Because of all the tricky legal issues, I really don't know. I wish I did. But if things go my way, then perhaps Vancouver, BC. I'm kind of excited, actually. I'm probably imagining it to be better than it really is, but I look forward to being able to eat any kind of food, take almost any kind of class, and do other things that the greater variety in a bigger city affords. I'll also be glad to have access to all the sunshine, warmth, mountains, and ocean around there.

Some of the classes I want to take are available here, but the language barrier makes them inaccessible. (Knowing enough language to do day-to-day activities isn't enough.) There's a nice summer here, but it's short (and rainy). And being in a small city is kind of charming, but it's harder to find friends if you don't fit in.

I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you should move to Tallinn instead?

Thanks for the suggestion. But to be honest I don't think Tallinn would be much better than Tartu, overall. Certainly there are some good things about it: more people, more opportunities, etc. But the demographics are less favorable, people seem less relaxed there, and the air and water aren't as clean.

More sure, I think, to move away from cold northern countries entirely. :-)