My hot German flatmate has a thing for British men. Or at least she did until I ruined all British men for her – forever. This was, of course, unintentional. All I did was mention my new favourite topic – the Sitzpinkel.

For those of you not in the know, the “Sitzpinkel” literally translates as “sitpee”, or to pee sitting down, another great German compound noun.
So, what’s so special about that? Women have always sat down to pee – unless they’re Latvian. Ah, but we’re not talking about women; we’re talking about men. Yes, it’s true – proud, strong German men sit down to pee. And, for some reason, I find this massively entertaining.
Coming from a country where the men stand, pee, splash and drip with reckless abandon, I can, of course, see the advantage of the Sitzpinkel. (And Irish men don’t even have the horrors of Germanpooshelfsplashback to contend with.)
As I’m probably one of the most inappropriate people you’ll ever meet, I’ve been doing a little survey of my male friends and acquaintances. Here are the results:
Sit Pee-ers:
Ze Germans
Possibly the Swedes
Stand Pee-ers:
The Irish
The Brits
The Americans
The Australians
The Latvians
The Lithuanians
The Belarussians
The Russians…
Then I ran out of friends.
I know of one British guy who married a Swede. They had a son and eventually got divorced. So now, when Sven spends time with mummy, he pees like a good Swedish boy; when he spends time with daddy, he pees like a proud Brit. Must be confusing.
My flatmates, Hildeberta and Hildegard, were absolutely horrified to learn that the two English friends I’d had in the flat had probably peed standing up. I think that I’m now banned from having non-German men over.

As they do the bulk of the cleaning anyway, I guess I can live with that. German women expect, nay, demand, that their men Sitzpinkel, while to me, all of this tucking in business is just a little… unmanly? In fact, when I think of the Sitzpinkel, this is the image that usually springs to mind:

And I do not want to think of German men in this way.
But I guess the Sitzpinkel is something I can’t change – German men tuck and I have to accept that. However, for all of you standpee-ers out there, if you ever want to be in with a chance with a German woman, you’d better be prepared to get tucked.