They are the dating-chronicles of a hopeless romantic with serious trust issues in the capital of the notoriously unattached. The Tattletale Heart tells stories of desire, infatuation and the ghosts of lovers past. Text: Alix Berber, Illustrations: Eugenia LoliĪlix Berber is iHeartBerlin’s newest dating columnist. I wish the Unicode developers had stuck with the traditional option of featuring a fourth monkey specifically for the German man: the do-no-evil-monkey covering his genitalia. So dear reader, please trust me that if you ever receive an unsolicited dick pic, followed by an emoji of a monkey hiding its face, the sender is almost certainly a German man. They know they’re doing the wrong thing, but German mentality dictates that if they don’t see it, it’s not there. That the see-no-evil monkey is preferred by Germans is something I blame entirely on German men trying to flirt. Of course, courting has always been difficult and a recently released map showing which emoji is used most in which country educates us further on this ancient struggle. It seems the way German men express desire in writing is deeply flawed. The submissions oscillate between gently cringey to projectile vomit-inducing. The Tumblr blog Straight White Boys Texting has a German equivalent called Straight White German Boys Texting. I’m seldom speechless but how does one reply to such a message?Īnd I know I’m not alone. My personal favourite features generous tidbits like: “Heute morgen beim erwachen fand sich ein pulsierendes, ein kräftiges, ein forderndes Glied zwischen meinen Beinen” (“This morning I found a strong pulsating, demanding phallus between my legs”).
If romance is dead, it was a German man that killed it.įrom the offer of money for sex via Tinder to online dating messages consisting of cringe-worthy detailed descriptions of sexual acts, the perpetrators were always the same: German men. It’s putting the Ordnung back into the Geschlechtsverkehr. It’s free, supposedly fun, and fit in to the narrowly timed parameters (8pm-6am) of the German Jugendschutzgesetz. The idea of Netflix and chill has a German version which I call ARD Mediathek & Suffering. You fill out the forms, bring all the paperwork, sit down until your number is up and finally, you get a Bescheinigung, and that’s only if you’re lucky. In my experience, a date with a German man is like going to an Amt: it’s draining and you feel like neither of you really wants to be there. Have you ever tried to talk dirty with a German? It’s the least sexy experience imaginable, and I blame no one that abandons learning German after having suffered through it even once. (I wish I was making this up.) In light of this, I’m wholeheartedly convinced that it was a German man that came up with the word Geschlechtsverkehr – a word that takes the fun out of something that is supposed to be the height of ecstasy but has turned into something altogether more bureaucratic the moment a Thomas, Dieter or Malte gets involved. A friend of mine who has been in a long term relationship with a German man recently told me that if she wanted to have sex with him, she would write him an email informing him of her desire and the two would take it from there. The fantasy of a German dude sweeping one off of one’s feet and carrying one past the Ausländerbehörde into a future of passion and excitement hasn’t ever had much traction. “Why? What have German men ever done to deserve this?” I hear you say, my dear reader. There is only one country whose men (and only men) I try to avoid: Germany. There are only a few European countries I haven’t planted my metaphorical flag (yes, this is a dick joke about my metaphorically huge dick).
Since I started dating I’ve always gone international.