Lamia020281
Educated Fool
You're right! I had never even paid any attention to it, but yes, it's not customary here to make eye contact to people you don't know. Finns usually just sort of pretend the other person isn't even there. We value our "personal space", but I can imagine that people from different cultures may feel quite uncomfortable if they're not used to that kind of treatment.
About the pick-up artistry: I have actually been chatted up in the street in Finland a few times. None of those men spoke Finnish.
They were clearly tourists or had been here for a short time only. All of them were quite good-looking and pleasant, actually, but it totally freaked me out that they approached me in the street, so I didn't even consider getting to know them any further. One of them was a bit more straightforward, he asked right away if I wanted to have sex with him. I didn't, though. 
In Finland, people hardly ever talk to people they don't know. We feel it's liberating, it's difficult to think of some small talk to say, so we can just stand alone and think about our own things. And it's great for shy people like me, so I don't need to gather up the courage to talk to strangers so often, I can just ignore them, which comes naturally to me. But the negative is obviously that it's easier to feel lonely and disconnected from other people.
Not sure about Sweden, but in Finland, people talk to everyone everywhere when they're drunk! I don't drink that much myself, and I hate going to bars, so I have to play by the sober rules.
I guess I feel lucky that I'm living in a culture like this, because I really enjoy the fact that men leave me alone in the street, and I need not talk to strangers, which is really difficult to me. But you're right that it's probably easier to find a partner in a culture where interaction between strangers occurs more. Here, one just has to use different ways to get a partner.