Survival of the fittest in Danish supermarkets Waiting patiently for the shoppers ahead of me to disperse at the dairy section in the supermarket yesterday, I felt a nudge. This was followed by a more forceful budge to my left side. I looked around. It wasn't my spouse. It wasn't a friend. It was a man I'd never met before who appeared to body slamming me to get to the yogurts. He then reached an arm across my face, so close that his sleeve grazed my cheek. Undskyld? I muttered, willing him to say "excuse me." But instead, he froze, stared straight through me, then strode off - as though he had some place better to be and really ought to be getting there around about now. I persevered with my list, ticking off Lurpak, bacon, rugbrød or rye bread (who knew integration could be so delicious?) before queueing to pay. A woman stood behind me, so close that I could feel the mounds of her breasts pressing against my back through her down-filled winter coat. I edged forward. She did the same. As I loaded my bags from the conveyor belt, she was already unfurling her own cloth tote, pushing my groceries to one side in a rush to get started. Tins rolled and crashed into soft fruit; packets became dented, but still the conveyor belt kept going. I tried to pack faster, but Mrs Puffa just sped up as well. After four bruised bananas and an unfortunate incident with an egg, I had to remind myself that it didn't matter if my fellow shopper had to wait 30 seconds. "She's a woman in a duvet coat buying sundries at three o'clock in the afternoon," I told myself, "not the leader of the free world with a jam-packed schedule..." She couldn't have been that busy, so why the rush? "No one likes grocery shopping," a Danish friend explained to me later on. We just want to get it over with and get out of there. This way of looking at supermarket queueing etiquette made more sense. Why spend hours perusing horse-meat ready meals when you could be at home with your family or eating Danish pastries somewhere? Admittedly, a few excuse- mes might have been nice, but the Danes think everyone has the right to go about their business without being bothered - and this includes eye-contact and verbal interactions. They don't expect to be harangued by short blondes in the dairy aisle or held up by them at the cashiers. "Just channel the Tube," my husband says to me that evening. The tube? You know, the big noisy thing you sat on for hours a day for 12 years before we moved to Denmark. "Oh," I say, "that." You don't talk to anyone, you don't make eye contact, and if anyone gets up in your grill, you just stare straight ahead. Go into London Underground mode and Danish supermarkets are a breeze. I've a horrible feeling he might be right and resolve to try it. London and rural Jutland might not be quite so different after all. Helen Russell is a British journalist and the former editor of MarieClaire.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @MsHelenRussell Read the rest of our expat columns here