German men 101

As someone who’s perfectly happy with her German man, you can imagine my surprise when I came across this event on Facebook:

German Men 101

German men are unique species. Usually, men are not easy to handle, but German men beat them all. It requires deep understanding of their nature, and the cultural differences, in order to survive a long-term relationship. 

We all experience the same: drinking habits, jealousy, your friends (particularly straight male friends), his friends and family, privacy issues, keeping his football trophy from 4th grade, and many more weird habits that you do not know how to digest…

Don’t worry! We are here to advise and support!! After years of dating German men (including getting married to some of them), we offer our knowledge and experience to help others. You are not alone!! 

We will have an overview and explanations for the most common and weird habits we observed through the years, ask questions, get answers and share war stories. Come to reveal the mystery!

I had several thoughts after reading this:

1. It can’t be real.
2. It sounds like a bunch of mad Eastern European women mistaking mad Eastern European men for lovely German men.
3. I have to go.

It seems I was not alone on my first thought. The day before the event, the organiser posted:

People asked us if the event is real. So, yes, it is  We are looking forward to see you tomorrow!

Final thought – please God, let there be wine…

Men were not allowed “due to the sensitive topics” so I left Manfredas (chuckling gleefully at the things I do for this blog) and stepped out into the night. Around 20 minutes later, I arrived at the venue looking like a drowned rat and dripping onto the registration table. I paid my fiver (yeah, I know…), got a stamp to indicate my betrayal of the German men I love and hit the bar. I said a mental “thank you” to the Big Guy and got a glass of wine, scouting the room for the seat closest to the snack table.

I may have seen it all now.

Comfortably seated, I leaned over and spoke to the rather beautiful girl beside me.

Me: So, have you had terrible experiences with German men? 

Maria: Oh God, yes! So many! 

Me: Really? Like what? 

Maria: Oh, this one time, I was on a date in a restaurant and the guy told me that I was being too loud and everyone in the restaurant was looking at us and it was very embarrassing for him.

Me: Bah haha! I guess that was your first and last date! 

The room had filled up a bit and now there were around 20 women – and one guy. The Israeli woman hosting the event said that she had “allowed him” to be there as he was a journalist. Needless to say, he looked more and more depressed as the evening wore on.

Poor dude.

Suddenly, the screen was filled with my new (Brazilian, as it turned out) friend, who had made a video bemoaning German men’s inability to flirt. This was met with groans of approval, nodding heads and rolling eyes. German men cannot approach women or flirt, it seems.

The host, Tal, explained that this is because German men are both “afraid and respectful”. And, as only 17% of German men use dating apps, “you have to hunt them outside – you have to be creepy”.

I began to feel very, very sorry for German men.

If, however, you do manage to ensnare a German man (insert evil cackle here), moving in together will present a whole new set of issues. A German man’s idea of moving in together is that you move in with him and he clears you a shelf. The more serious it gets, the more space you receive. This, however, is not as easy as it sounds since German men hoard everything they’ve ever owned since they were babies.

Me: Hey Manfredas, do you have any trophies from the fourth grade? 

Manfredas: Erm, no. I do have a hockey trophy from 2007, though. 

Me: Hmm. 

True story.

If joint shelves are an issue, you can imagine how German men feel about joint bank accounts. NEIN!

Friends are another thorny subject. Your German man will have one to three people in his life that he considers friends. For example:

Jane: Hey honey, are you inviting any friends from work to the wedding? 

Jannes: I do not have “friends from work”. They are COLLEAGUES! COLLEAGUES ARE COLLEAGUES, FRIENDS ARE FRIENDS!! 

Jane: (sniffle)

According to the (possibly quite mad) women at this event, German men will also have major problems with your straight male friends. However, contrary to popular belief, this is not because they are jealous; it’s because they have low self-esteem and are afraid that someone will steal you away from them…

Some other choice words used to describe German men during the evening were: negative, pessimistic, passive, logical, private, over-insured… they also like a drink or seven but that’s not so different from Irish men (or women) so I’m alright with that.

Apart from the last point, it was like listening to someone describing people from another planet. If men really are from Mars, then most of these women were from TrES-2b (yep, it’s a real thing – Google it).

I’ve been chatted up by an Irish guy with the line, “your eyes are the same colour as my tractor”; I dated (for a short time) an English man who thought that we could visit each other using “the bridge between England and Ireland”; I had a Polish man hit on me in my kitchen while his wife was in the other room… So yeah, I think I’ll stick with the Germans, weirdness and all.

 

 

The mother of all visits

The day after Cecil flew out (hopefully fully clothed), Mammy O’Grady landed at Tegel Airport for her first visit to Berlin. Now, I’m sure most people’s mothers can visit and have a perfectly normal, totally drama-free trip, but well, this is me, so let’s begin, shall we?

She thinks she probably saw the gigantic TV Tower but can’t be sure…

Mammy O’Grady’s flight was due to land just after my evening lesson ended which gave me enough time to make my way across the city to meet her at her hotel. My sister had stayed at the same place a few weeks earlier so I knew exactly where I was going. In fact, I was a bit early so I circled the block looking for likely places to eat. MO’G likes her food…

I walked into the hotel lobby just as some guests were leaving in a taxi. I was a bit surprised at the way the receptionist looked at me; OK, so I’d worked a 12-hour day, but I didn’t think I looked like a complete hobo. I turned away from him and started discreetly scrabbling in my bag for a hair brush, just in case.

Receptionist: Can I help you? 

Me: Um, no thanks. I’m just waiting for my mother. She’s staying here.

Receptionist: This is not possible. 

Me: (Harumph – you can call me a hobo but not Mammy O’Grady…) No, she is. She’s just not here yet. She’s at the airport. 

Receptionist: NEIN. The hotel is closed. 

At this point, I took a look around. The reception was much darker than I remembered – and empty. The roaring fire was no longer roaring and the lifts had been cordoned off. Hmm, maybe there was something to this hotel closure he spoke of…

Me: But, but, it can’t be closed. Mammy O’Grady is staying here. 

Receptionist: (taking pity on the confused hobo in front of him) What’s your mother’s name?

I gave it, he tapped at his computer for a few seconds and informed me that MO’G had been rebooked into another – even better – hotel just around the corner.

I managed to get MO’G on the phone, tell her the odd news and redirect the taxi to the new hotel. Thankfully, she was travelling with a friend or I think this would have sent her straight back to the airport.

Receptionist: I’m really sorry about all of this. I wish I could offer you a drink but the bar is closed too. 

Me: (Dammit) What happened here anyway? 

Receptionist: (with a (probably imagined) haunted look in his eye) There was an accident… The hotel has been closed while an investigation is being carried out.

Curiouser and curiouser. Anyway, I didn’t have time to ponder just then, so I marched around the corner and got to the door of the other hotel just as a confused MO’G and friend were pulling up in their taxi.

Taxi

Greetings, hugs and vague explanations and theories out of the way, we  made our way to reception. The super-cute receptionist flirted with my mother outrageously while checking them in, keeping up a machine gun-like flow of verbal patter like a German Don Juan on speed.

So this was what 4+ star service was like…

We walked away from reception, with MO’G glowing from her first exchange with a handsome, young German gentleman.

MO’G: If I were ten years younger…

LO’G: TEN?? Jesus. You’d still be old enough to be his mother. 

We stepped into the lift and in a scene vaguely reminiscent of Zoolander, MO’G hit 4. Then her friend hit 4. Then MO’G hit 4. Nothing happened.

(Image taken from asianefficiency.com)

Me: (with only moderate, daughterly eye-rolling) You need to use your card.

Much giggling later, we arrived at room 4034. MO’G swiped the card. Nothing happened. Her friend swiped the card. Nothing happened. MO’G swiped the card. Nothing happened. Her friend swiped the card. Nothing happened.

Me: Oh, for God’s sake. Let me try it. 

Nothing happened.

Me: Are you sure that’s a 4? Maybe it’s a 9?

So we traipsed to room 4039 and carried out the same procedure. Nothing happened. Back to room 4034 for several more attempts and a lot of handle rattling. Suddenly, the door opened, not because the card had worked, but because a ridiculously attractive older man had opened it, from the inside. I wondered how long he’d been watching the three mad women through his peephole before deciding we were probably harmless.

MO’G: (getting the hang of German directness in record time) You… you’re in our room.

Sexy stranger: (with a smile on his lips) No, this is my room.

It was true; he did look rather comfortable in his hotel slippers. After a rather confusing, amusing conversation (and an invitation to join him), I called reception from the phone in the hall. It seemed the receptionist had been so busy flirting, he’d written down 4034 instead of 4043. Mystery solved.

When I got home later that night, I Googled the first hotel and “Unfall”. It turned out that a 37-year-old Finnish man had died of smoke inhalation in the sauna there, following a fire. It also emerged that the fire alarm system hadn’t been operational for weeks in the run-up to the fatal accident. No wonder there was an investigation underway. While the irony of a Finn dying in a sauna was probably lost on the Finn, it wasn’t wasted on me. To the best of my knowledge, the hotel is still closed.

Anyway, not one to let a hotel closure, a fire, a dead Finn and an attempted break-in stop her, Mammy O’Grady ended up having a ball. She loved Berlin and has decided she will come back for another visit in the spring.

I guess I should start preparing myself now.