A Peach and Coconut walk into a bar....

In the spirit of this lovely holiday I would like to share with you all some cultural lessons I've learned (the hard way) about daily exchanges with Germans...which happen to also apply very directly (unfortunately) to the dating culture.

There's a stereotype out there that Germans are very direct, very punctual, and very efficient people. This applies to their public transportation system, the way they do business, and they way they interact with each other on a daily basis.

I'm here to say that according to my experiences, this is absolutely the case, and this small (general) truth, has given me a whole lot of trouble. Or, well, at least it did until I learned how to actually speak German.

To show what I mean, I present to you this table of translations.

This table is what I presented to my students in a lesson on 'how to speak American', but really the responses in the column titled what American's mean are ACTUAL german answers to actual questions/experiences I've had. The columns, when correctly titled, are POLITE AMERICAN and VERY POLITE GERMAN.

What is interesting is I put the German answers (aka what Americans mean) on the board for my students to see, just to gage their response. I asked them to rate the answers on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being rude and 10 being very polite.  ALL of these answers scored above a 6, and most of them were considered very polite.

This didn't surprise me at all.

Though these differences in responses seem subtle, they are very surprising when you actually encounter them face to face and can lead to misunderstandings of the most gargantuan portion.. especially when you're speaking American to a German.

For example, as Americans we are trained to read between the lines. When we hear:
"hmm... that seems...interesting"
we know that it means:
"that sound like a load of horse poop, what the hell are you talking about" and react accordingly.

Germans, on the other hand, are taught to read the lines. Which means when I say:
 "hmm... that seems...interesting"
they think I said:
 "wow. That seems interesting."

The perpetual polite American smile I seem to wear doesn't help this situation, and in fact seems to say "Oh DO tell me more!" Which, as you can imagine, is quite...interesting.

As Americans we value relationship building and foster relationship building kind of behavior through our language. For example, the purpose of small talk is to establish as many connections as possible with someone before diving into working with them. After all, it's easier to work with someone when you have something in common with them.

Because we value these relationships--albeit slightly superficial ones--we do things like smile when we talk, and ask about things that we know we all have in common: sports, weather, etc. We avoid topics like politics and religion for the distinct reason that it can only create divides between people... especially after talking about it for longer than 3 minutes and you've exhausted your polite generalities.

For Americans, politeness means not hurting other peoples feelings, which means it's OK to tell a white lie to make sure that nobody gets hurt. In fact, that is usually the justification for using a white lie... a little white lie never hurt anyone, right?

German politeness, on the other hand, is based on respect.

To a german, if you respect someone you give them an honest answer. If you respect someone, you respect their time, and therefore do not engage in non-productive conversation such as small talk. If you respect someone you don't ask them how their day was unless you genuinely want to know the answer. Engaging someone in a political discussion shows genuine interest in their opinions and beliefs and signals a readiness to dig deeper into who this person is...

These differences in language interactions say a lot about the way Americans and Germans form relationships and can, I believe, be summed up in this small analogy.

Americans are like peaches, and Germans are like coconuts. 

Americans, like peaches, are fuzzy and warm and smily on the outside. The surface is very soft and easy to break through. We smile, we engage in small talk, we have a lot in common with a lot of people and have a million friends all around the country.

Past this nice fuzzy exterior, however, is a hard core. It is a pit that takes a lot of strength to break through. Only a few people can do it, which is why Americans have have a million friends, but only have a few true best friends.

Germans are like coconuts. They are hard and rough on the outside, and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to break through that outer shell. BUT once you break through that tough outer shell, there is nothing left to break through. You're in, and you're in for life. Germans are very loyal, and the friends they have are friends for life, because gosh darnit, it took just about that long to break through that outer shell!

SO imagine a peach and a coconut talking to each other at the bar. Coconuts who are used to talking to Coconuts are used to honesty and don't usually make a new best friend by the end of the night. Thats not only normal, that is expected.

Peaches talking to peaches can have a new best friend for the night, but they will probably never talk to that person again. This is totally fine and to be expected. In fact, people who do actually call everyday after meeting randomly at a bar (though it DOES sound romantic) are usually deemed  "creepers".

So when a coconut talks to a peach, it is easy for the peach to feel bruised and beaten, and feel like the night was a whole loss...it was like pulling teeth and probably not an experience ever worth repeating.

On the other hand, the coconut (used to talking to other coconuts) is so impressed that he cut through the outer shell, that he thinks he has found a new best friend for life.  Ugh.

As you can imagine, this has made for some very tricky situations in the 'dating scene'...

So in sum: german efficiency and directness applies to more than their transportation system, American's appreciation of 'networking' is more culturally relevant than you would think, and I will just say:

 For all you single ladies out there on Valentine's Day,... if you lonely and looking for a serious relationship, there is a WHOLE COUNTRY of coconuts waiting for you. All you have to do is smile...