UK or Irish with a German boyfriend/DH? Cultural insights needed, please!

[Luftschloss]

I'll be upfront and say this is for a novel, but if anyone had any insights into what it was/is like being a British or Irish woman in a relationship with a German man, I'd be really grateful -- cultural differences, differences in dating etiquette, relationship expectations, anything really?

I've spent time in Germany, but not recently, and have never dated a German. Have combed the internet and got a lot of Youtube videos on dating Germans, but they seem both incredibly stereotyped 'You need to be more forward than usual! They make lists! They don't do small talk! They've very blunt!' and to come at things from a very US perspective, so any further insights would be great.

(In case it matters, this German character is late 20s and a postdoc, an outdoor/climbing type of person, and lives in London when they meet. Tell me what brands of clothing he would be wearing?)

Don't you think by definition this is cultural stereotyping, though?

I mean, it's a country with a population of 80 odd million so I don't think you can possibly say that there are "relationship expectations" that are peculiarly German. What would "British relationship expectations" be if you had to define them??

I do absolutely see what you're trying to get at but I think it would be very very difficult not to fall into the trap of cultural stereotyping and end up writing about clichéd characters called Jurgen who are all good at engineering and very organised.

And sorry, I just realised that my post was of no help at all as I didn't actually come up with any solutions, just picked holes in your original argument. Apologies - that wasn't my intention at all

That's what I'm trying to avoid. His Germanness isn't in fact particularly important I've written him as a specific individual with a very specific set of quirks but it did occur to me that any cross-cultural relationship will have moments where the fact that those involved are from different countries will be flagged up, even if they're brief and unimportant. Even if it's only noticing language usage or a different set of assumptions about something really minor.

X-posted with you, @lurkingfromhome. Not to worry, I was just trying to be clear that I'm not interested in writing Jurgen the Cliché Organised Engineer, more interested in minor things that might be noticed in the early stages of a relationship between two people of different nationalities. I could do it no problem with several other nationalities, but for some reason, this character is definitely German!

As a reverse example, an English colleague complained about dating in a small Irish city in the early 2000s -- she said that the place was so laid back and friendly, and there was the assumption that everyone would see one another again in one of the same set of pubs/clubs very soon, that actually giving someone your phone number felt like a much bigger declaration of intent than it did in her English city.

If the cultural background/speech construction things are bogging you down and his Germanness isn’t essential to the plot, wouldn’t it be better to change his nationality? You wouldn’t want him to come across as inauthentic. For verisimilitude it might be better to pick a nationality whose characteristics are familiar to you.

As I said, I only want one or two minor things to register my character registering his difference to her when they first start going out, because she is the kind of person who would notice. His nationality is far from the most important thing about him, and it will recede out of sight quickly.

Oh, put him in a tracksuit from Lidl and sandals with socks and have done with it.

If your character is into climbing and outdoor stuff, he'd be wearing climbing and outdoor stuff, not fucking Lederhosen or any 'quirky' things you want to write about for confusions with ensuing romantic hilarity or to make him interestingly 'exotic' without (un)intentionally stumbling into Aryan or SS Doctor territory.

It's only really relevant if your couple are doing up a house, but IME of Germans they have unusually strong opinions about bathrooms. To be fair, I don't know all that many German/non-German couples, not enough to be statistically significant, but the bathroom thing definitely crops up more than one would expect it to.

Regardless of what you may hear, German people can be very dry humoured. I've not dated one, but I've spent time in Germany and that was the main thing I noticed, after having been told they are not funny. I see why you are asking, and I'm not sure why you are getting sarky responses. You are looking to avoid farcical stereotypes. It's not the mannerisms per se, more the cultural norms?

Oh, and they don't use tumble dryers. I lived in Berlin for a bit and we had the services of a relocation agent and when I queried him on why none of the flats had a tumble dryer he just shrugged and said that Germans don't use them and I wouldn't get a flat with one.

@Mitzi, have you bothered to read anything I've said? The guy is a zoology postdoc in London, so I fail to see the relevance of sandals with socks or Lederhosen, and it's not a romantic comedy involving any form of cross-cultural romantic hilarity whatsoever. As I think I've made perfectly plain.

And yes, he would definitely be wearing climbing and outdoor stuff, which is why I asked if there are specific brands of said stuff which might be more likely to be worn by a German twentysomething.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar --definitely no doing up a house, but in fact ideas about bathrooms might be relevant for a different reason. Can you say more? And is line-drying a thing, or just airers indoors, if no tumble dryers?

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners -- could you give an example?

Thank you both, incidentally, for not assuming I am writing a romcom involving 'exotic' Werner in Lederhosen.

I think it would be very easy for this thread to slip into stereotyping (and perhaps some xenophobia!) but I think what you're looking for is cultural norms, especially those that are particularly unique to one country and very different/opposing to the other.

Having thought about it, with experience of both cultures, funnily enough I can think of more similarities than differences (for example both my Irish and German grandmothers would try to push a whole supermarket full of food onto me when I visit, then both would be extremely honest about my appearance, after having eaten said food ) This is said with affection, not in a snarky way btw!

But also perhaps this is an older generation thing and younger people may not be as similar. To me, it would be very interesting to hear peoples' experiences to see if they chime with my own, but I do fear you might get some not so nice stereotyping/snarky replies.

Do you know both Irish/German people that you would ask to read your drafts and make any comments? Might be better perhaps.

He'd be wearing the same brands as anybody who does that kind of thing - there is no secret German uniform for mountaineering or any other activity.

If I go by my German colleagues, they wear North Face jackets on a daily basis. Like French, Polish, British and pretty anybody else who is into outdoor stuff. One's rather fond of his Liverpool Home strip, though.

You're complaining I have suggested you're looking for differences to signpost that your character is German when you aren't, but then you're going on to repeat exactly that.

Look at outdoors suppliers. Go onto Amazon.de. It's the same stuff.

Airers indoors Luftschloss, I was living in central Berlin in a flat so no outside space for drying. I expect they hang clothes out where they have gardens.

I would ask my German grandmother or my daughter's German partner - but one would say 'don't be so bloody daft. Have you got mental problems?' and the other would go 'What?' And back away from the Mad MIL pretty sharpish.

Are you writing about my husband? Description sounds familiar!

Way down the line I absolutely will, @NormsNotStereotypes, but this is the very early stages. Literally all I am scouting about for at this point is an idea of a couple of tiny things you might become aware of as minor cultural differences in the early stages of dating -- to the point where you think 'Is this this man's way, or is it a German thing?'

(I'm hampered by the fact that virtually all the Germans I know have lived in Ireland for years and have semi-naturalised. )

Washing machines, IME are usually in bathrooms in German households (much more sensible!) and bathroom carpet would be thought of as horrific (also sensible and I don't think you see this as much anyway). Also separate hot and cold taps instead of mixers would be thought of as bizarre/stupid (again, this is sensible )

These are the differences I can think of re bathrooms but again, this could be different to someone else's experiences of both countries, my relatives live in older houses in rural areas.

The humour thing - satire and piss taking is very big in German comedy. Germans laugh at themselves and their history a lot, so the humour can be unexpected to anyone outside Germany (eg when I was staying with a family in the 90s, the dad made a lot of jokes about the war, communism, etc that sounded quite shocking at first but I was told that it's part of "owning" mistakes their country made in the past).

I second the idea of asking a German person to read your draft. Many things that were culturally huge in Germany may not have been elsewhere - I hadn't heard of the Kelly Family or read The Shellseekers before going to Germany, where both were huge.

Good luck!

He'd be wearing the same brands as anybody who does that kind of thing - there is no secret German uniform for mountaineering or any other activity.

Again, you're reading something I haven't said, just as you seem determined to view my novel as 'othering' Germans, when I've been very clear.

Thank you for the information that a German who has bought his outdoor pursuits clothes in Germany is as likely to wear North Face as anything else.

I lived, worked and studied in Germany for 6 years. I have many German friends and casually dated a few but nothing very serious.

Generalising, they can be quite direct and blunt, which can be mistaken as rude. I think it's more just how it all translates into English more than anything. We tend to speak around problems more. I speak fluent German, but I'm not a native speaker.

I also recall sitting on the sofa with a guy watching a show called TV Total, host Stefan Raab. I thought it was pretty funny. There was also another late night comedy show we used to watch, which he found hilarious but even after he explained the jokes to me, still wasn't funny....

I always thought the roll down shutters on windows particularly German. They are very into shutting them firmly each night. I was just happy with curtains and found the shutters too dark.

Just some musings on my experience while there...

Both my Irish/German relatives would walk into different bathrooms with the "wrong" taps and say "your taps are weird, why on earth do you have them like that?" but that might just be my relatives Both sides seem to value honesty and I know lots of English people who would take it as rudeness Personally I think this frankness can be a good quality but I can see how me saying this could veer towards stereotyping and people may take offence.

Again, I seem to be coming up with similarities rather than differences, which may be just the type of people they are, completely unrelated to their background, so they appeal to each other for the qualities they have in common.

I'll stick to bathrooms I had to google verisimilitude

I hadn't heard of the Kelly Family or read The Shellseekers before going to Germany, where both were huge.

Alas, I am all too familiar with both, though I cannot feel my character is likely to be overly concerned with them!

I'm not sure that I can really elaborate on the bathroom thing, just that it was a thing of discussion between couples. I think that Germans just put more design thought into bathrooms than British/Irish do. For instance, our flat in Berlin was nice but bland but the bathroom was fancy, eg instead of a normal bath panel or tiles the open edge of the bath was finished with glass bricks with lighting behind them. And the bathrooms were very large compared to UK flats of around the same size, for instance we also had a flat in London and the kitchens in the German and UK flats were the same size but in Berlin the bathroom was the same size as the kitchen whereas in the London flat the ensuite was about a fifth the size of the kitchen and the family bathroom was less than half the size of the kitchen. And in Berlin the washing machine was in the bathroom, not the kitchen, which seemed to be the case everywhere unless the apartment/house was big enough to have a laundry room.