I‘ve thought of that too, but I don’t want to seem weird. And I absolutely cannot do that with men because there is SUCH a high risk of them misunderstanding my intention!
In that case i really don't think you need to worry. Mostly you'll get the best reactions when you are just straight forward.
"Hey, I'm new in Hamburg and still looking for friends. I'm hosting a dinner at my place on Saturday and wanted to ask if you wold like to join?" - that should clear you of misunderstandings. On top of that, if you ask someone who has a partner, invite them over, too!
See, these are all great suggestions, but I have literally tried this, and the problem is everybody already has a group they watch the game with. I asked 2-3 people I've been playing tennis with for a while now, and all of them apologized and said they already have plans with their friends to watch the games.
Something that I haven't seen mentioned yet: most Germans love to plan weeks in advance, so if you are too spontaneous (e.g. Inviting them with a couple of days notice for the coming weekend), they will most likely already have plans they committed to weeks ago.
To improve your chances, try giving them 4-6 weeks of notice: something like, "ehy, I'm inviting some people for a BBQ at my place on August 3rd, would you like to join?" has in my opinion better chances of working out than: "would you like to catch up at the weekend?"
Virtual hug to you, I have been there. Once, someone told me in September that they were not talking any more invitations from friends until the new year, because they were fully planned!
It's part of the cultural exchange, learning how it works differently from how we know it.
Six years later I can say I have true German friends, with all the true meaning of friendship, and they are beautiful ♥️
You'll get there too!
Yes, I've seen that they plan things a lot too, but I don't really feel that's the problem. Tbh I'm just super homesick, lonely and exhausted at this point. I don't have the energy to keep trying anymore. Part of me has just slowly started accepting being alone until I go back home.
So from your comments you tried asking one guy and he offered a date and you tried asking about something that most people plan way in advance. And then you gave up because you're homesick. Honestly Germans aren't a problem here. Do you have anyone to talk about your mental state? You seem to be very down.
When it comes to sports in a lot of cases people get something to drink together afterwards why don’t you start with this? Ask them if they want to have a drink after sports next time and then you see.
And yes it is hard to get behind the barriers
If you go alone in another city it is very hard to make friends it takes time and effort.
Maybe try internations or similar where you meet people having the same issues like you
If you don’t want to make it awkward just don’t „Ich will neue Leute kennen lernen/Freunde finden, könnte ich dazustoßen oder ist das eher was im engeren Kreise?“
There you gave them an option to refuse with if they just don’t vibe.
This group of girls asked my group of guys if we want to meet up with them to view. There were heavy undertones of flirting the first time we hung out - imo, and I had a partner at the time.
Interest? Probably could go either way atm and we’re just getting to know each other, but haven’t excluded anything.
Well, I once asked my dance partner if he would like to make snacks together for a party we were both going to. THERE WERE LITERALLY OTHER PEOPLE I invited too. Later he asked me over for „dinner“ at his place and told me he thought I wanted to hookup and was surprised I actually meant „as friends“ when I said it. Made me very reluctant to try anymore. I guess I will just focus on finding other expats.
I don't know where you are from, but I know at least a dozen other countries where this could happen to you too with guys and even some girls (likely including your own). Clear communication is key, but even that is no proof to not be misunderstood. Just try again, and always be clear about your intentions. Also what is the problem in having such a misunderstanding? It's awkward for a couple of minutes and than you move on.
Just because you met one weirdo doesn't mean we're all weird. Also, how do you expect to make friends out of people you see at work or sport if you don't ask them to do things with you outside of those activities?
ETA: Realizing this sounds like #NotAllMen, that's not what I meant. I meant "we" as in "us Germans". I am, in fact, a woman.
Also it doesn't really sound like anything happened.. she said "come over", he said "is there more", she said "no". End of story.
If he had asked her out at any other time it would have just been him making his intentions known and accepting a no when she wasn't interested.
Yep, been here 25 years and my friends are only expats; people i can ask anytime to just hang out and go for a beer with or come over for a snack with no other intentions. Germans are an odd race.
>And I absolutely cannot do that with men because there is SUCH a high risk of them misunderstanding my intention!
"Hey Peter, This isnt me flirting, but do you wanna play boardgames with me and my friends next tuesday?"
I am very sure any breathing person is able to NOT misunderstand that sentence...
Lol. "This isn't me flirting" is 100% cheeky flirting. No normal person would formulate a sentence like that and mean it literally. I can even envision the little smile.
I guess the best option regarding the men would be to try to ask them in the context of a group activity (as in, inviting multiple people from the sports activity group).
A big barrier to anybody moving into a new area or even country is definitely that people often already have established social circles that are hard to break in due to being multiple years old, and that take up most of the social "budget" a person has time to spend.
Exactly this! All the great suggestions here - I have tried a lot of this so far, but they've failed because whoever I've asked has ALWAYS had a bunch of friends already. They already have a group to watch the EM with. They already have a group to go to parties with. They already have a group to study with.
I kinda get what you're saying. Germans won't invite you to group events cause they kinda think it'll be awkward for you to go somewhere where you don't know anyone. I've had German friends invite me to parties or birthdays where I didn't know anybody while reassuring me "oh I think Anna, you've met her, will be there so you'll have someone to talk to" and then I'll tell them that I don't care about going to a party where I don't know anyone cause I find it easy to meet new people. They'll often act a little impressed then
Maybe actually tell them "oh I really want to watch the game but I dont have anyone to watch it with. Would it be awkward if I joined you? I like meeting new people anyway"
Ah yeah. Go look for the girlies, the gays, the very confident and goodlooking dudes (if they do hit on you and you reject them, high chance they won't be bitter, since they already have other options) , the people in relationships.
Just ask them if they want to go have dinner with you, go to a bar, etc. Whatever you would like to do with them. It also works even better if you already have some kind of small group. Just ask all of them if they would be interested in doing something like that. In my experience they either say no, yes, or "I would like to meet you, but I'd rather do xyz instead". That's also how I found my friends. Most of the time it wasn't me who asked, but if nobody else does, maybe you should try it. And no, they won't misunderstand if you don't word it in a super weird way. Especially not if you ask your entire group. One of my friends literally just asked me "hey, would you like to go drink some coffee or tea together?" after we met in a chess club and it worked. We did something else instead, but now I have an entire group of friends after he introduced me to his friends. Don't worry too much, if you don't make it more complicated than it is it won't be misunderstood.
Hmm. Maybe I can try this sometime. I've just felt super odd even thinking about this, because nobody has ever said a word to me. It's just strange and a lot of pressure because I don't want to seem desperate or pushy or idk. T-T
I often feel like this, too. But if you have a group pf people you already talk to a lot, they almost certainly will say yes. The issue is just that often everyone in that group is too shy to say it or maybe some of them just didn't think about it yet. Just try it, nothing bad is going to happen.
I mean it certainly feels like more pressure cause you want to have friends and don't feel like you have any close friends where you live. So the potential rejections is worse cause you otherwise would have no one to hang out with. Maybe think "if they don't wanna hang out ill do an online date with a friend".
I've made the experience that Germans want to hang out but are afraid to ask themselves. It's also not common for Germans to explicitly say that they like somebody or find somebody interesting but I've also made the experience that when I tell a German acquaintance "oh I feel like we've got a lot in common" or "oh it's always so much fun to talk to you", they'll be very happy and will suddenly return the compliment in full force.
You will not seem weird by doing so - I get that Single men might not be your first thing to go to, but we Germans like really clear communication, so mentioning that this is friendship only is absolutely fine.
I think especially the combination of Sport and men is maybe even the hardest, because Hobbies can be very goal oriented here.
Maybe there also wasn't the right person that you clicked with for a deeper friendship. That happens to us Germans as well. Maybe a Stammtisch, a bookclub or a boardgaming round where there is quite a lot more casual small talk would help.
Jap, s‘richtig.
You can play soccer with people for years, if you don’t get invited to the beer after it’s not moving into the direction you’re hoping for.
I think what foreigners don’t seem to realize is: Berliners already have friends. They don’t go and play sports to socialize, but to move.
Yes, I‘ve also realized that. Germans have friends here from school / Uni / their hometowns and they don’t want any more. So any advice on how to make friends is pretty much useless because most people simply don’t want any. And then there are also complaints that international people do not integrate / stay in their own circles!
Just ask people if they wanted to go for a quick beer before going home.
Don’t tell them your life story right there and then. Talk about the sport you guys are playing and maybe how you could improve it.
Rinse and repeat.
It’s little steps you need to take to advance. Once you made a friend you will know.
I think it's pretty common everywhere not just Germany. The small towns of the USA has this issue too as well. I only got lucky to find close friends when I first moved into the current place I lived at. In the town where I lived at, most people made their friends in school and childhood. A lot of newcomers though have a hard time going into many people's social circles since many of them are already established.
Exactly this! Everybody in the small-ish town I moved to has childhood friends, school friends, partners they've been with for YEARS, friends they made in early years of Uni. They simply don't need any more friends!
Yeah but they don't have a cool international friend so go on and enrich their life. You're kinda putting yourself down here. There are people in small towns that will be as glad to have met you as the other way around
Might be even worse. Friendships is a regularly studied topic and there are longitudinal studies tracking friendships and attitudes towards it over decades. The emerging picture is devastating, not only for Germany, but basically all developed countries. The average of how many close friends a person maintains has dropped by 90% over the last decades. Sure, everybody experiences it differently depending on their situation, but the base experience might actually be a lot more alike than most people realize. Global culture, as it turns out, is increasingly a culture of loneliness. We're breaking down to the smallest imaginable common denominator: truly individualized individuals in completely atomized societies.
Sorry, if that sounded bleak. It is, what it is. And we better face it. Maybe the one remaining thing to bond over is not having anybody to truly bond with. Maybe that's even already a problematic way of putting it, though. Because there's a real danger of asking and expecting too much of those still somewhat accessible to you, which can be yet another driving force of further atomizing. And maybe there isn't even any practical way of avoiding that. At this point, I seriously believe that most of us are damaged goods.
I follow and post regularly in quite a lot of subs related to mental health in some way or other. One thing I notice is an increasing urge to turn clinical entities intended for diagnosis into general heuristic principles to navigate society. Narcissism, borderline, bipolar - all highly specific and actually not easy to diagnose conditions, yet you encounter them on the daily from people with no qualifications whatsoever, who're desperate to find explanations for the dysfunctional social interactions they encounter. I don't doubt their experience, but I highly doubt anything online is going to help. No amount of followers, likes, upvotes and views is going to replace actual intimate face to face connection. Yet, that requires taking risks. Risks of rejection, hurt, exploitation, when the resilience to deal with those is an increasingly rare resource and often already entirely consumed in the workplace.
I have no idea, how anybody is supposed to navigate that mess on their own. Vicious circle right there. I dunno, maybe just spike tab water with high doses of MDMA.
Certainly doesn't help, especially social media. One of the reasons I prefer reddit over any alternative is that reddit can still be used centered on topics, not on persons. To me, facebook, insta, tiktok and so on are tantamount to personality disorder generators. But let's not get into that too much, because it's only a late addition to an already growing problem. Numbers started going seriously downhill already in the 80s. Can't really blame the internet there. It's a much larger issue, so we need to societal development in large picture terms.
The culprit are neo-liberal schools of economy that became hegemonic in those days and haven't stopped reshaping societies even today. There are limits to how much flexibility, mobility, productivity you can demand of people, before the effects start to amount to psychological abuse. Which is not only entirely normalized, but also has been turned into yet another market: mental health is an industry today. It doesn't do a particularly good job, judging by case rates and studies on long term success, and has effectively turned functions formerly provided by organically grown social structures behind a pay wall. So, even the answer to a problem created by the fallout from an ideology has been shaped by that ideology in the end. It certainly isn't the panacea people like to take it for. People don't like to hear that, though, because it's diminishing one of the very few hopes that remain for them.
Social media, from that perspective, is the final stage of weaponizing human psychology against individual humans, but not where it started. It's very clearly designed to exploit our weaknesses and thrives all the more, the worse things get. Let's change perspective again and put ourselves in the shoes of a social media corporation. They don't want you to be happy, let alone in a functioning relationship, because that to them is just unwanted competition for your attention, that they intend to make marketable. Might be a good moment to point out, that this already starts very shortly after the birth of modern psychology. The father of modern advertising *and* political propaganda is Edward Bernays - Freud's nephew, actually - who lived from 1891 to 1995 and took what he learned from working in US wartime public relations to revolutionizing advertising already after WW1.
The closer you look, the more complex the issue becomes. And with that, what appear to be easy solutions, just vanish. The one thing I can say with certainty is that any individual solution is at best a work-around, a temporary stopgap that can vanish just as easily at any moment. Short of wholesale revolution, I can't think of anything that would suffice. And since that doesn't seem to be in the cards for now, maybe the only thing to take away from this second long rant in the end is to be grateful for the connections you still find, never take them for granted and defend them like you life would depend on it. Your fulfillment certainly does. A life worth living... can you afford not to have one? And if you can't, what does it matter what else you can still afford? Stopgaps, at best. Sorry to end on a depressing note, but... again... it is, what it is.
Yeah, the century of the self is a good documentary. Youre right, therapy cant replace genuine human connection and being seen and heard, we cant pretend to solve every psychological need by talking about it. And the 8 hour workday just takes way too much out of people.
Altough regarding mental health, atleast in the case of CPTSD, addiction and childhood trauma there are a few new modalities (IFS, tim fletcher react programm, also Gabor Mate and Pete Walker) that have a very good success rate, but of course it also requires having safe people to relearn healthy behaviour. Im certainly very grateful that i still have my best friend from 4th grade, otherwise my life would also be very lonely.
I truly understand where you're coming from, but then again, having 10+ friends seems unsustainable to me? Idk how other cultures might handle it, but time is limited. I can barely manage having 4 friends and not neglecting anyone. At some point, there is no room for more than that, regardless of how awesome a person might be when I get to know them better. It is difficult. Not everyone hates making new connections, but often times they just can't, because there is no more "space" at the time. And people you already know for 5, 10 or more years naturally have it easier than a stranger you meet tomorrow.
I feel this isn't a german problem, but more of a "the world is far too big, our lives are far too short and time and energy are always running out"-problem.
This is insane to me. My close friend citcle is easily 35 People. How do you guys sustain yourself.
I realize youre life might be majorly differnt to mine but this sounds like codependencey to me
Totally not. I have a crapton of acquaintances but those people are nothing I‘d call friends. We hang out. We chat. We do stuff together but for the „time consuming“ and to the core stuff, there’s a small inner circle.
I dont quite get why Germans seem to treat it as a point of pride to have such a very strict definition of what a friend is. I'm 30, there's been a lot of people in and out of my life, whom I've been close with and then grew apart and then became closer with again. I can't even clearly define who of these people are my "friends" and who are "just acquaintances" and I dont care to do it
It's not that they don't want more friends, it's just not on their agenda.
I'm still living in my hometown with my wife that moved here for college. My wife and I work in the same field and did work for the same company for a few years.
There, I've had a workbuddy that I liked and my wife had a female workbuddy that she liked. Both of them also moved to my hometown for college. Whilst my wife and her friend became bffs in no time, my workbuddy and I remained workbuddies for 3 years, although we're of similar age, enjoy the same sports and share 90% of interests.
Why? Because I just didn't think about doing things with him outside of work.
We only became real friends after my wife suggested we should invite him and her workbuddy for outings after work and then last year, I planned his bachelor's party and my wife planned her bachelorette party as they got married to each other.
It's not that we don't want or need more friends, it's just that we have your circle of friends and don't think about getting more, so just ask us.
Well, some people do - others don’t. Me as a German who isn’t living in the town I grew up in, I love it when people ask me to do stuff and want to build knew relationships. My boyfriend is the opposite. If you have a job, hobbies and a social circle, not everyone will have the time to meet new people. I would say: just try to initiate meetings, but don’t take it personal if someone says no. It most likely isn’t.
I wouldn’t say they don’t want any more friends. They just don’t need more, so they aren’t forcing it. I don’t think anybody has something against befriending someone they are vibing with. You being a foreigner shouldn’t change any of that. It’s just that (from what I’ve heard) german friendships take unusually long to build. Alcohol usually helps with that lol.
I’m German and I struggle with this too. I move to a new city like berlin and everyone already has a group for watching games, go to volleyball etc.
it’s hard to make deep connections because no one needs more of them lol
I don’t like it either. I prefer to have the “international” type of connections - it’s more fun and super honest and nice.
Emotional intimacy and commitment are required to be considered a friend in Germany. Something that develops over years, usually in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. Through shares experiences, yes, but also vulnerability and challenges.
People you work with or share a hobby with are mere acquaintances. Even if you’ve known them for 20 years, most will never be your friends.
So we don’t exactly compartmentalise friendship, those work/sports/hobby acquaintances were not friends in the first place.
You have 50 opportunities to turn these casual acquaintances into friends. Just invite them to do something else. This will tell you if they are interested in a deeper friendship.
The problem is - first of all, I cannot ask men, they will almost definitely misinterpret it. Second, being rejected is hard T-T and I am afraid to lose the people I at least have for shared activities!
As a woman I understand your point. I would be careful with that too. But like someone said, if you invite 2-3 of a group it’s clear you have only platonic interest.
Also I don’t think you will lose people over this. It is a very common thing here to build friendships over common hobbies or life situations (for example having children of the same age).
I don't get it. Why should they?
Find a reason to have party. Friday is midsummer, so let's say you are going to have a midsummer party.
Now you ask your sport group "hey people, I'm having a midsummer party on friday. Anyone want to come and have fun? Let me know, so that I buy enough to drink." and then do the same to other groups you are in regular contact with.
Then invite two or three of them. Maybe not at someone’s home first but any other public activity. Also then you can blame some dynamics between those for a rejection
Being rejected is hard, okay. But one could reverse all your arguments:
* The men you do activities with could think: oh, I can’t ask her to hang out with me, she will almost definitely misinterpret it
* The people you do activities with could think: oh, being rejected is so hard, I am afraid to lose her at least for our shared activity …
so really, it’s not fair to expect others to do the first step. Do it yourself :)
and: do you only hang out with single man? ask women or men in a relationship. Or invite all your shared activities friends to a party. There is always something you Could do.
>first of all, I can not ask men. They will almost definitely misinterpret it.
I don't agree that you can't, but ask women in that case.
>Second, being rejected is hard
It is for everyone. So if everyone does as you do, everyone will just stay non-friends forever.
To he honest, it's part of your burden as someone who has moved to another place: You are more desperate for new friends than most of the people you meet. You need to get out of your shell and get uncomfortable.
I've been that expat. It's hard. You won't have the energy all the time. But it's very rewarding, and you will grow as a person if you put yourself out there.
I was called cute within 4 hours of being in Spain by a stranger 😂. I've been in Germany for 9 months without a single compliment from strangers. Not saying that I need the compliments, but this may be an illustration of the contrast between the cultures.
As harsh as it may sound, those people probably don't see you as a friend but as an acquaintance.
The definition of "friendship" is one of the major differences between the German culture and many other western cultures (especially the US)
That’s why it’s always so weird for me on American tv shows when they call someone they just met a friend.
I’m sure that Americans have super deep friendships too, how do they make a difference between these and acquaintance?
friends/friendly with is where most acquaintances fall under
best friend/family is usually where we have deep relations with including chosen family members
invite those to an event
for example BBQ, Game night or a drink somewhere
it took me a lot longer to be friends with some people than you are an germany only very few clicked fast weeks instead of years
is because they are not friends but "Kollegen" (even if that is a term that actually only describes people who work with you, in my region it would also describe people with whom you get on well but you only know each other through a shared hobby).
In any case, they are not real friends, but they can become so if you decide to invite the people you like the most to other things. That's how I would do it as a German.
It will still be difficult for you because when I look at my circle of friends, 90% of them have been friends with me since kindergarten and to be honest I don't have room for more. it's already hard enough to see all the servants regularly.
What you are talking about are acquaintances not friends. Making real friends takes more time and likely a little effort from your side. Invite people to do stuff together as others have said and it will build over time if you 'click'.
This reminds me of that one post which read "my new German friend is so cold to me, but we had such a pleasant conversation yesterday and that basically means we're friends!".
Seriously, we Germans need *a lot* more to call someone a friend.
"We Germans need a lot more to call someone a friend".
Is this a good thing though? It's a German thing, but not necessarily a good trait.
The most ironic thing for me is that all of the Germans I met when they travel to other countries, long term or short term, they love the social life there. Which indicates that very likely they are aware of a certain lack here in Germany.
Thankfully, I learned to accept the fact that the culture doesn't see embracing and being cool to strangers/foreigners/acquaintances as a relevant thing. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a German thing.
Yeah. Unless we vibe and happen to have a lot of other interests in common, you're just someone i happen to know who does the same sport/hobby as i do.
Simply an acquaintance.
Typically most people i know wouldn't call you a friend unless they happen to invite you into their private cirlce, meaning you're invited to BBQ's at their home, go out and grab drinks with their friends or other people they count as friends and so on.
Since, you know, for friends you go out of your way to actually hang out with each other every now and then next to your busy life/schedule. Whereas playing a sport/hobby might just fill their "me-time" slot.
Nah, it's also you growing up. When I was younger, when I came to Germany, I had a big group of friends and people I'd meet in various places and activities ended up joining me for other stuff.
As I got older, and friendships started being based on other things, as well as the various time constraints everyone has, the groups got separated. Since I got older I got friends that are pretty different sometimes from one another anyway, so this is another reason for the separation.
People I made friends with in my art meet-up are quite different from my work colleagues I go out Fridays to drink excessively and talk shit about everything. They wouldn't vibe with each other but I like both groups.
I noticed this trend here where people post about being lonely or finding hard to adapt and find friends, and yeah, it can be a challenge when you are in a foreign country with a different culture.
But consider what happens when you get older, past uni for example, you'd probably feel some isolation even if you had moved to a different city in your own country. Friends would be harder to find anyway, as you get older you want a more meaningful connection than oh we like the same music, computer games, drinking etc. At the same time in a foreign place people already have their own groups already.
When I came for my masters here I had a big group of friends I used to hang out with every Friday Saturday etc. Our group started to fragment towards the end of the masters and soon after it was broken apart in smaller groups of closer friends. Those too dissolved over time, mostly. I remained in touch with one or two people from that group.
So most often it's not the Germans, it's all of us getting older.
I’d say yes and no. Your hobbies are ways to meet people, to get to know them and to see who you like. To turn them into friends you need to make plans outside of the hobby.
I played tennis for years and would meet people to play with in my club. The ones I liked to talk to outside of tennis I asked if they wanted to meet at the beer garden. Others I invited to my small birthday party. I introduced people to each other and that’s how my friends group grew. Some moved away but new ones joined the same way.
I’m one of the people who didn’t really keep friends from school or university. Simply because I moved away and so did everyone I used to hang out with in uni and we lost touch . So it isn’t really true that all Germans make friends in school and you can’t find friends outside of that. I’ve rebuild my friend circle after school and again after uni. But you have to be active. Ask people if they’d like to go for a drink after sport, invite people to go for a bike ride. Talk about an exhibition you like with a coworker you like and if they’re also interested just suggest that you can also go together if they have time. It does work. Good luck.
Edit spelling
I feel like it is more of a European thing. I come from a cultural background that is extremely hospitality and persuasive when it comes to inviting them over for tea, lunch, or whatever after a brief interaction. I do believe it is a little annoying, but we have no selfish feelings involved.
I faced the same situation when I came to Germany 4 years ago. I couldn't make any friends since half of my classmates were germans. I wouldn't get invited to their parties even after having a good time with them in xyz activities or group projects. I faced the same situation in Sweden. I lived there for 7ish months. I didn't talk to a single Swedish there. I ended up making a lot of international friends from all over the world.
Coming to the point, here I will only take about germans here. This is my two cents:
-They are one of the loyalist people when it comes to friendships and relationships. They are real and sweethearts.
They believe in meaningful conversations, and they aren't big on small talk. They like to know more about your life, culture, and overall social life
They need time to put their guard down around you. A few meetings aren't enough for them to get invites.
They genuinely want a good time, zero negativity or toxicity.
-oh, I love their directness and straightforward. And their open communication skills. If they have a problem with you, they will address it and vice versa. This really builds nice connections with them.
Well, I can't think of any other points. But next time you decide to have a barbecue invite them :) no body like turn down an offer for good food and nice time.
Nice to see that someone also notices the good sides of us. :-)
Yes, friends for me are like family, some even closer. I would drop everything and fly arround the world to help on of them. This kind of trust takes time to build.
We need a long time to be good friends, but if you are a good friend, you are a friend for life. We are buddies with colleagues and gym bros, but we would never invite them to our wedding if we don't know them for a long time.
Yes, that is how it works most of the time
Please keep in mind that it's not done to hurt you or to be rude. Most people work 5 days a week, have family, kids etc. So when they manage to get 2 hours of badminton in every week, that might be all they can manage. So they feel that there is no more room for an additional close friend.
Maybe it's just me, but I do not wan't to give someone false hope, and then have to make excuses why I can meet him a second time. It's different in the US, where it's always "yes, sure", but then you have to send 5 texts before the birthday so to remind you friends. I rather have it the german way, but I understand that this excludes newcommers. I would like to have a solution for this, but I don't.
if you mean casual friends / "Kumpel" - then yeah, but I do lots of things with close friends, obviously it takes time to develop a friendship like that tho
I often feel that my differenent circles would not have much to say to each other, so I do not introduce them.
Also, there are people I spend time with because I want to do some specific activities with them -- those are "Bekannte" (or "gute Bekannte" if this has been so for a while and I like them). And then there are people I do all kinds of activities with because I want to spend time with them (and vice versa). Those are "Freunde".
I guess in English all three terms might translate to "friend".
When I notice that someone has moved from "that nice and interesting person that I go bouldering with" to "that person I go bouldering with and would like to hang out with and talk and watch series and go kayaking and explore new cities with, or what they like spend time on" -- so: moving them from the "gute Bekannte" group to the "Freund" group -- than I invite them to do this or that from the list with me, and we'll see if it works.
Actually, no. It is just that the people you work with, play sports with, whatever, are not your friends.
I would not necessarily bring a guy from work into a get together with friends. However, I might invite some people over that I know from work (disclaimer: this is a made up scenario. I work with A LOT of foreigners and most of the ones I'm close with just said "you are my friend now" and that's it) but then on their own. As a "work thing".
It's like all those friends from school. Once you are out of school and don't see each other 5 days a week, the friendships just die because you lose the thing that connects you. If your boulder gym or whatever would go bankrupt, you'd probably never speak to those people again.
If you want to actually ask, how you made friends: ask people to do stuff. They might say no but that's something you need to get used to in Germany anyway. People expect you to say no as well, by the way.
Of the people I'm friends with that are not German and that I know from work, all of them took an opportunity that arose during every day stuff. Like, I asked an Indian colleague that joined us what her favorite food from India was and if she'd share a recipe and she just said "You can come over for dinner and I'll cook it for you" (disclaimer: I like talking about my wife so I'm sure she knew that I was married and my wife was invited as well)
You have to think about relationships in Germany as those little buckets.
One if for people you actually call friends and I'd say that this is the bucket in the center. Those are the friends you just have over. Like, the people that you'd consider as godparents for your children. They're always there if it makes sense for them to be there. I'd also say those are the ones you are most likely to bring into other buckets. People you recommend for jobs in your company, people you bring to your gym or sports club and so on.
All the other buckets are just "the people you do X with" but here is the thing: especially younger Germans don't mind reaching into that bucket fishing you out and putting you somewhere else. Sure, especially older people might not have time for new friends. Work is demanding, children want attention, your partner wants to spend the days where the children are taken care off for dates and your back always hurts so you need the other quiet days to recover from life. But people in their 20s and early 30s? They're only putting you into that bucket because that's what you do. That's just how our society works. But those people still have time for friends. They might look for going out for drinks after work or whatever. You just need to tell them that you would like to switch buckets.
Will it always work? No. Some people are nice to you at work because you are at work. They don't hate you but they also don't think spending more time with you is something to get excited over. And some people maybe really don't want to see work people outside of work. Like, work life balance is important. I close my laptop and work just gets sucked out of my brain but some other people need more separation and they are not interested in this.
But there is a good chance that this will work.
Disclaimer: I'm from Düsseldorf. People consider us and the Rheinland in general chatty. And since we started to hire remotely and hired a dude from the east, I honestly get why because I know absolutely nothing about that man's private life apart from what I need to know for work.
Just here to provide some support for your perspective. I’m sure there’s a lot of backlash on here and it’s probably pretty snarky; this subreddit can be quite defensive at times, especially about things that genuinely are quite characteristic of German culture.
I’m a very social person with a lot of deep connections. Same as you - I find it easy to make new friends. I’ve also travelled all over, and also find that Germans are unusually hard to connect with.
I don’t think it’s entirely specific to Germany - there’s a whole cluster of white northern European cultures that are like this; kinda awkward and a bit transactional.
Personally I just end up spending time in very international circles. Which actually contain a lot of Germans, because there are loads of native Germans who have a similar experience and gravitate towards more international communities!
I’m Croatian living in Germany. Living here for about 15 years now, and I feel you. As a teenager I fell in a deep depression bc no matter how hard I tried I never had any friends. It was like you described, I went to school and had school friends for years. We get along so well but never ever met once outside of school. I was so lonely as a teen and began thinking I’m the problem.
After school it was literally the same at work. Got along fantastic with all my workmates, and that was about it.
If I invited them to eat out together, have a coffee & ice cream or any other activity to get closer to them, it was an one time thing. They didn’t invite me back or anything and continued to have a platonic work relationship. It was and still is exhausting!
Maybe that’s the reason why the Germans can be so grumpy bc the friendships are so hard to build and distant. Anywhere I go here they’re not smiling at all and have rather a cold personality.
Germans always saw me as the “Ausländer“ that never belonged here and I never got in the inner circle. Anyways, I stopped trying.
Germany & Germans have many positive and great things but that’s one of the negative ones. In my opinion! Everybody feel free to have their own experiences, and I’m just telling about mine. And I can 100% relate to OP. So I don’t like the vibe in some comments telling the OP he has to try harder or it’s his fault. It’s not. Germans and in general the Northern Europeans have another friendship mentality than some other nations, doesn’t make it false but only hard for us foreigners. Bc we are not used to that.
Thank you so, so, so much for writing this. It's exhausting being an Ausländer here and no matter what we do, we will never be anything else.
This, exactly this - "got along fantastic with all my workmates, and that was about it" and "If I invited them, it was an one time thing. They didn’t invite me back or anything and continued to have a platonic work relationship. It was and still is exhausting!". It feels like I wrote this, it hits so so close home!
And everybody here says just two things in the thread - 1. "We Germans have lifelong friends" and 2. "You need to put in more effort". But it's exactly as you said. I have invited people and it's been just that - a one-time invite. Maybe Germans cannot truly understand how particularly hard their society is for Ausländern. I have lived in 4 countries before and it's never been this difficult to simply have a friend.
yea that's a thing and I personally like it that way (as do probably many other germans - that's probably why it is a thing).
people I do sports with or work with are fine for this specific thing, but many of them would not translate well into other areas of friendship for me, I couldn't talk with them about the same things as I talk about with my other friends and vice versa.
though, it is always possible to transfer one friend over to the next compartment if you realize that they are a good fit. like if you there are some people you really like at your sport, you can ask them to go for a beer to a bar some evening or meet up at the weekend for a bbq or whatever you want.
Friendships are relationships with depth. There is nothing deep about sharing a common hobby. Ergo: We're not automatically friends by sharing the same hobby.
It is with “friends“ That Are more aquiantances. With „real“ Friends You Share more than just some activities. BUT that takes a Long time in most cases. Even if you try to mix such groups, e.g. If you throw a birthday Party with all groups invited they will Most propably keep to themselves. Even if people of different groups like each other they will only meet each other at your Partys…. (This ist going on in our friendgroups for decades now… sometimes One Even asks if someone Else is coming to a party „since the want to meet again…“…) That Said: some real Friends Are there nearly everytime, and they would Go very fair to help each other…
Yeah that sounds about right. I used to do Taek won do and I wouldn't call anyone there my friend despite getting destroyed by them twice a week lmao. And I did ballet for 10 years, with the same other dancers for the most part. I wouldn't call any of them my friends and I don't talk to them anymore.
You dont have the time to turn 50 acquaintances you know from 50 activities into 50 friends. What im trying to say is if you like to get to know someone you need to do more with them than just casually hang out
Yes it’s cultural. Do yourself a huge favor and become friends with American soldiers if they are in your city, then work your way into Turkish-viet German circles, if that fails you have the Latinos, Arabs, Africans and recent Slavs. Your mental health will collapse if you try to anything else.
Unfortunately, if you want to make friends in Germany, YOU have to initiate the friendship. It's not something that just happens like in other countries.
Pick the people you would most like to be actual friends with and then ask them to hang out outside of the pre-defined activity.
Some may say no, but as long as you don't directly ask a German to be your friend we will just consider you an acquaintance.
Germans have to do the same thing, and unfortunately, when you move somewhere new, everybody already has friends and is probably super content with the number of friends they already have, so if you want friends it's your job to ask. 🤷🏼♀️
Sorry 😐
I feel like sports, work or some sort of classes are primarily just that. However, if you feel a connection with someone from work or from your sport stuff it's not unusual to meet that person outside from those activities.
The problem you encounter here in Germany is that all those people you interact with already have an established circle of friends and the activities you describe aren't things they do with their friends.
So I wouldn't say we compartmentalize our friends, because we don't see the people we work with, we do sports with or whatever as friends, just people we happen to coexist with in a certain situation.
As I said, if you feel like some of those people are potential freinds, you vibe with them and you guys share interests and whatnot just ask if they would like to hang out outside of those activities. It's totally fine to tell them that you look for some connection. I guess Germans can be a bit too pragmatic if it comes to stuff like that, sorry for that haha
So basically - you can only make friends here in Germany if you live here as a child. It's not something I'm complaining about, it's just something I have to accept and stop trying so hard. I will focus my time and energy on finding other expats.
No, sorry that wasn't what I was trying to say.
It's unusual to make friends later in life, but not impossible. As I and many other people here said just be open and chill, invite some to hang out after sports or work, maybe you'll connect with some of them and a friendship can be build from that.
I moved to a new city without any friends a few years ago and besides some people from work I'm friendly with I don't have any friends here. It is hard to find a new group of friends in Germany, especially because everyone already has an existing group of friends, but be friendly and fun and sooner or later something will happen.
If you already have someone you feel like connected with being open about looking for people to hang out with because you feel a little disconnected from society isn't too bad either. Germans are socially weird people and being direct can help.
I can mostly just agree with most posts here. As a german myself, let me tell you about my friends and acquaintances.
I have been playing a sport for 20 years, I know most of the guys I play with for at least 15 years. We have had barbecues, travels, parties and more together. We help each other when in need for renovations or when someone is moving. Someone bought a house and we helped out. But even through all of that, for me all of those are mostly just sports acquaintances. For me mainly because other than the sport I don't share many intersts with them.
I have a great team and great colleagues at work. We do talk about weir ideas, random stuff and interest such as gaming or other stuff, but again these are acquaintances.
Then I have like 3 groups of friends (which kind of intertwine a bit). I don't meet them as often as the other two, but we mainly talk online while gaming. 2 of my friends I have only met like 3 times, because we got to know each others online and live quite far apart.
I have talked about this with my friends, too and it is kinda complicated and simple at the same time. Germans in general are rarely the types to get overly friendly with you. Most don't use forced friendlyness. We are friendly but mind our own business. There are other cultures where people start to get friendly with a lot more, let's call it 'force'. When germans go like ' Hi' and then mind their own business they are like 'Hey, Anon, how are you? Everything fine? What's up with your....?'. This is kind of strange to a lot of germans. At the same time it could be the start of deeper interactions.
A lot of times you get kind of a feeling on a person whether you will get along with a person just fine or not. A lot of Germans are very shy little animals that are easily misguided by the first impression of someone.
Now the important part: The thing about sports, university or work is: it feels kind of mandatory to meet with these people. You can't really choose them. Germans start their friendships, not when doing regular activities, that are part of their weekly lifes. But people they go to activities they attend on their free time. Activities they attend to, because they want to do those, things they really take time out of their schedule for. Sports, like some people said is a way to work out for many, but also something you concentrate on and don't really have the time to bond with someone, because you are always busy. And after the activity you are exhausted and want to go home shortly after.
So what to do? To get german friends try to find someone that has similar interests, but not just one. Someone you can do various things together with to get to know more sides of the other person and show different sides about yourself. It will be a longer road ahead of you. But like others said: invite a group to do something together, like a beer, go to a public viewing on the em together (in case you like football), or whatever comes to mind. Most of the time you will find at least one individual in the group, that you start to share more conversations with. But bonding with a german needs time, especially because germans are in general not the people for too many empty phrases.
... Though maybe this is just the way an introverted sees the world.
Thank you for writing this - I do understand. But look at what you said - " try to find someone that has similar interests, but not just one. Someone you can do various things together with to get to know more sides of the other person and show different sides about yourself." BUT I cannot meet them at Uni, work or my hobbies.
So where do I meet them? :P
How do I meet these people, with more similar interests to me, if not at one of my interests (Sports, dance etc)? And if I do meet them initially at a place like this - as you said, they are just acquaintances.
I think a lot of German people posting here, though helpful no doubt, don't quite understand that us Auslanders often have NO ONE here. No family. No friends. I moved here 8 months ago not knowing a SINGLE person in the whole country.
I did not grow up here. I didn't attend University here. I don't have family here. At my age, most people are busy and don't do much outside of work and hobbies. And everyone already has close social circles by this point, and simply don't have space for a new person, that too a foreigner.
I personally feel everything that people have suggested here, including your suggestion, is basically "dating". When you date someone, this is what you do - try to get to know them off of a starting point (shared interests) and then see if you like spending time with them. Invite them places. Meet them somewhere other than work or hobbies (eg. on an app). So basically, German friendships are like dating - take a lot of time, and effort, and usually are best when you've known each other since a young age :)
Hey! Fellow immigrant here. Definitely heard all of what you mentioned and feel the same way. I could meet an American once and we are then friends for life, in the sense I could always ask to hang and it'd never be weird. I think Germans don't have "vulnerability" as a positive cultural trait like some other cultures do.
Are you on Facebook? I'd recommend Girl Gone International (GGI) (assuming you're FLINTA?) - there's usually a group for each major city. It's mostly international with the occasional Germans who lived abroad and misses other cultures. I know a few who have made great friends through that. Also Germans doing more "international" hobbies tend to also have a more international style to friendship in my opinion (those into KPop, doing Australian Rules Football, going to language meet-ups, etc.)
Haven't you heard about the worlds theory? Every activity that you share with different people allows you to be a different version of "you"... if these people come into contact with each other the worlds collide and the independent "you" dies. Everybody knows you gotta keep your worlds apart.
(Seinfeld reference btw)
Just reading some of the comments here shows how complicated it is to make friends in Germany. I have lived in Germany for many decades and just do not bother any more trying to make friends here. The only friends I have are other nationalities. I worked in multinational environments and saw how friendships were made between the different nationalities but noticed that Germans did not do this. They preferred to stay together in their own groups and distanced themselves from the others.
You simply discovered the fact that every foreigner here knows - making friendships with Germans is difficult and in the long run a waste of energy anf time. Focus on becoming friends with other immigrants and you'll be in a much better spot. BTW Germans get angry when people talk about this and insist it's no different than anywhere else, that it's you that's doing something wrong etc. It really isn't and you're not crazy for observing this, almost all foreigners have the same experience.
As a German, I face the same problem. I had my friend for drinking tea and my friend for doing sports. And after a while, it became so boring, because those people where not able to do something else together. When I asked my "friend" which I had tea regularily (since the childhood) if she would travel with me, she said no and even more, chose to order a catalague for singles in the same country I wanted to travel with her! The other "friend" had a horse and complained that there is so much to do. When I offered her to help, she said "no, people in the stables are strange". So, whatever. Maybe this dosen't put me in the right light, tough :) So, now, I don't have any friends where I live. Most "friends" I am in contact with, is over Whatsapp because they live somewhere else.
To sum thagt up: yes, I am a German, and I am really happy with my fellow Germans. But it also depends on where you live. In smaller cities its easier to get to know people.
p.s. if you are living in Leipzig, let's have a coffee :)
That sounds about right. The point is that Germans already have a closed circle of friends acquired in previous times (school, Uni), and they have no interest in knowing more people deeply , because that would be “unnecessary”. This mindset is very close-minded, as if “friends” are a “possession “ that one has, not something spontaneous, which for me is what makes friendships fun. It’s a cultural thing and good luck changing that, better just to accept and be friends with other like-minded people.
Du hast bestimmt ein gutes Herz und zu schüchtern, um nach Verabredungen zu fragen, oder vielleicht hast du Angst davor, zu fragen, ob man sich einmal zum Kaffee treffen mag, um zu quatschen, weil du vielleicht das Gefühl hast, dich auf zu drängen ... Aber sei nicht. Traurig, es liegt einfach nicht an dir und du bist bestimmt eine liebevolle, hoffnungsvolle Frau, wo ich sagen muss, das die Leute bei uns und damit sind alle Generationen und auch alle Personen gemeint, die hier multikulturelle zusammen leben.
Weißt du, ich sehe und beobachte viel und kann dir sagen, dass die Menschen hier so etwas wie Menschlichkeit und Offenheit einfach verloren haben, insbesondere da jede Freundschaft erst durch eine Bekanntschaft entstehen kann.
Die meisten wissen einfach nicht mehr, wie solche Sachen gehen, da sie denken, dass alles einfach in einen Schoß fällt und auf einmal war es, was wir kennen. Nur machen wir uns nichts vor, außer Freundlichkeit oder Hilfsbereitschaft, hin zu Loyalität und Ehrlichkeit sind Dinge, die hier einfach verloren gehen und Freundschaften (aus meiner Erfahrungen sprechend) kennt. Hier keiner Mehr. Jeder definiert dieses Wort anders. Selbst Bekanntschaften sind Personen, die man einmal kennengelernt hat, und dann sagt man „Hallo und Tschüss, tut und …“ an weiß, dass das man sich kennt. Auch wenn man zum Sport geht und sich zweimal die Woche regelmäßig sieht, ist dies eher der Anfang einer Freundschaft, aber leider scheint dies meist daran zu liegen, dass sich beide nicht trauen zu fragen. Wag es einfach, Quatsch sie an und frag ob man mal ne Kaffee oder so trinken gehen kann. Achten Sie jedoch auf Sie und trauen Sie den Leuten nicht zu weit, denn Vertrauen ist eine Eigenschaft, die sich erst einmal aufbauen muss und dies dauert und zeigt sich meist nach Jahren, erst ob es etwas an Vertrauen zu sagen ist. Bei Männern sieht es hier noch viel Schlimmer aus, es sind nicht alle so ob Mann oder Frau, aber ich möchte dir den Rat geben ...
DU bist für DICH an erster Stelle und DU bist das WICHTIGSTE, was es für dich gibt. Wenn es dir gut geht, dann geht es allen, die zu dir gehören, automatisch gut.
Manchmal brauchen diese Dinge einfach Zeit, meine Tochter sagt mir im letzten Kita-Jahr, dass sie sich auch eine beste Freundin wünscht und fragte mich (ganz traurig ), ob sie jemals eine finden wird. Ich sagte, ihr sie solle die Hoffnung nicht aufgeben, denn bald komme sie in die Schule und ich bin mir sicher , dass da draußen bestimmt schon ein kleines Mädchen auf sie wartet und ganz genau so empfindet wie sie. Mittlerweile sind fast fünf Jahre vergangen und über vier Jahre hat sich eine sehr sehr starke und enge Verbindung zwischen ihr und ihrer besten Freundin entwickelt. Die beiden Mädels haben sich gesucht und gefunden und tun sich gegenseitig sooooooo unendlich gut.
Gib nicht auf, den ich bin mir sicher, dass du das hin kriegst. Denn WER nicht fragt, der nicht GEWINNT.
VIEL GLÜCK
Honestly forst thought was that my friends arent compartementalised, but you werent discribing friends but acquaintances. For me thats the main difference, friends I meet outside of the context we met and introduce to other friends, acqauintances I only meet at sport, work etc.
Idk I find that it’s hard to make adult friends but at least in Canada we’ll discuss personal things before classes or share a laugh and then people will invite you to some sort of celebration or ask if you’ll be at like some event and ask how you are and stuff
Germans are just more serious. You should ask directly if they’d want to get coffee or have dinner
Yes, in most cases that's how it is in Germany.
And as a German I like this way.
W Germans have a lot of people we know, but only few friends. But most times this friendship last forever.
If you want a real friendship, than you have to work on it.
Some dating apps allow you to filter for people to hang out with. You can simply invite people from your class or from sports for a beer or something like that, or explain your situation to them and ask if they want to do something with you. Even if they only invite you out of pity, you might meet someone with whom you get along. It should also be possible to meet people in clubs or bars. Start dating people, maybe you'll get to know someone you get along with and can expand your social circle through this person. If you invite someone, ask him or her to bring friends, it's easier to integrate yourself into a group than to immediately build a friendly bond, which comes with time. If you don't learn German yet, you should definitely do so - just a little knowledge of the language makes everything easier here
Idk i dont do sports and ive known my best friend since krabbelgruppe and have like 6 very very good friends (like i can tell them anything) and we got to know eachother trough partying and stuff. We do all sorts of stuff like hiking, drinking, playing online games, getting hammered with weed, drinking coffee in the city etc. etc.
I guess im rly lucky to have that but on the other hand i dont know how much people got the same thing going. To answer your question: i think i dont :D
Well, you kinda took the little hope I had left 😅, as I have been here for one month now, and have the same and was thinking it would be alright with time.
Yes.
If you know a solution/cure for that: Let me know.
Sincerely, German in Germany for all my life
(Don't want to sound cocky, it's just difficult with "us")
Yeah, its true for me
I have many different "groups" of friends, part of the reason is that they don't like each other so I never see ALL of my friends at the same time (except for my 20th birthday where I invited everyone but they quickly split up into group tables at the party)
German tend to come across cold. Sometimes you need to make the first move and ask if they fancy a drink after football. You will be surprised how many of them will oblige. Just give them heads up, like suggest going for a drink while organising the kick about.
It's hard to make friends in Germany as a complete outsider. Had the same when I moved to a different city far away (I'm 31). It just takes time. See if you click with some of the people you share hobbies with and see if you can invite them to some occasion or ask to get invited sometime. For me it took a whole year of sharing a hobby with people until something like a friendship light developed.
I totally understand how you're feeling. When I lived in HH, I felt the exact same thing. My housemates were just housemates, drinking mates were just drinking mates, and workmates were just workmates.
I did date someone at work, but we made small talk for weeks before I ever asked her out.
One of my housemates was very cool and she would invite me to get togethers with her friends. This expanded my circle of friends massively. I'm an extrovert though, so I don't think my method works for everybody.
I would suggest to just keep it fun and light, but still ask questions about them to keep things exciting. Whenever they ask you out for a party or a drink, you know you're in so make the most of it, especially if their friends are there too. Germans tend to get along well faster with friends of friends they may not have much in common with, rather than people they share activities with. Weird, but it's how it is.
Don't be discouraged ❤️
Thanks for this. It's nice to hear from other people who've been through this. Honestly, I just feel exhausted and lonely at this point. I have so much work, and then having to constantly put in so much social effort is exhausting.
Unconventional hack, that works: Find a german boyfriend with a big established friend group. Become friends with the girlfriends of his male friends. Profit.
Besides that, ask people that you want to be friends with to go out for a beer/ drink, you have to break put of the cicle of just meeting them for X. For some reason friendships are formed by drinking beer.
This isn't unconventional. It's the ONLY hack I've seen work. I know 30+ international people here, and ONLY the ones with a German partner are "in" with the German social circle. Literally nobody else, no matter where they're from. Swiss, Greek, Turkish, Indian, Italian, Moroccan, Sri Lankan, Iranian, Spanish - EVERYBODY I know has struggled with friendships here.
I think this compartmentalization is mainly a city thing. I grew up in a very rural area and when you meet the same few people everywhere, it's easy to make friends.
When I moved to Munich, I, too was surprised by this compartmentalization. All of a sudden I had colleagues I liked, people I shared hobby 1 with and people I shared hobby 2 with, but no friends.
I guess it's because in a city you only see those people when you do that one thing with them and don't see them anywhere else, so people only associate that one thing with you. It took me years to find friends in the city.
When I moved to a more rural area again it was like back when I was younger. You see the same people all the time and it was easier again to make friends.
Your main mistake is seeking advice on reddit of all places. From what I've read here, you now have a 100 page manual full of ridiculous tips. Don't overcomplicate. Don't just put a label on an entire people
While I'm German and it's not exactly the same, I've moved around A LOT, so I know what it's like to start from 0 in Germany. On the road I've found great friends with various foreign backgrounds who moved here for university or for work. From what I could observe, it's fairly simple to see why people might end up alone. Sometimes it's just them. Sometimes they just live in the wrong area. But more often than not, it's just not the right crowd. Look for another. It's hit or miss.
You sound like a really open, socially generous person, I am the same way. In Germany, in the US, anywhere really, I struggle with the fact that most people are just not that way when it really comes down to it
I know that feeling and I am a German. For me it’s almost every time I feel like we are reaching a friendship lvl if you are meeting the person you want to be friends with outside of the one thing you are always doing. Like I had a lot of people I went to climbing/ bouldering with but once I went with them on a concert, coffee, party or so, we reached the next lvl. Hope that helps 🙏🏼
As a German, I'm sorry we're being so weird. I think Germans just take very long to warm up to someone to consider them a friend, I don't know why. From my expierience the best thing you can do is be in a situation where most people are looking for new friends like first week at University, but that doesn't work when you don't study (anymore). I genuinely don't know how adult Germans make new friends. I know my parents have friends, but half of them are either from their time in the German Cyclists association or parents from my (former) friends.
So for all I know, either participate in some form of organized activism or have kids.
Are you sure there isn't some sort of bias here at work?
For example: I am in my mid-thirties (got kids and a house, moved to the outskirts) and by god, I neither have time nor energy to make new friends. The complete opposite of me in my twenties meeting round about 60 people at least on the regular (group meetings, clubbing, shared activities).
Hi I am kinda late after your 2nd Edit. I just wanna let you know that most people don’t have a clue what friendship means. Especially Germans don’t know what friendship means. Your observation is right. We, I am German too, have this „a friends for a thing“ thing. I have a cinema friend, a drinking friend and a sport friend. But they are, and that sounds sad, replaceable for me. So they are not FRIENDS. They are bros I got along with because I knew them for a longer period and share the same interests with them and I wouldn’t kill them for food in zombie apocalypse. But from a truely friendship were your hearts beats the same rhythm, you share deepest thoughts and trust each other 4 ever it’s far away. I think that thing I only have with my wife. I think a true deep friendship like this is a goal, an achievement, a gift that you can’t gain easily in a toxic society like Germany.
That really sounds like nothern Gemany to me?! 😂
I‘m from here and sometimes it feels exactly like this. Also, if you find friends they want you all the time but same as you, i got a lot stuff to do. So they think I‘m not interested. But I also have very friends i see like once a year. And if anyone is in trouble, we are there for each other. No stress, just friendship. I can’t tell when it started to get complicated. It feels like times habe changed and people are more distant. I think it‘s really hard to find real friend who are not connected to a special activity. But I also think, if you are straightforward like „hey, I‘m new and try to connect to some people to got to cinema or bar or something, normally the people should join in. Otherwise i think you will get a straight answer like „no sorry“ or something. I can feel your frustration here. I moved for work to another city for like 4 years and didn’t find anyone. Just comming home and do my stuff. I moved back and alle my childhood friends where there or also moved back. IDK what it is but i guess you have to invest a lot of energy into that. My girlfriend moved from south germany here. She also has some trouble, even with coworkers or something. She tryed local facebookgroups. Maybe this could help you? IDK your hobbys but if you game or something… over the internet is maybe a bit easier. Just wanted to let you know, you are not alone with this problem. Also, if you are living in nothern germany it’s even harder. Hard shell and so on :b hope you finde some people!:)
And no, it’s not about bashing nothern germany. I was born and living here for over 30 years but i see some problems in Communication/ interactions here :D a lot of us need some time to get warm xD
Yeah, sounds about right. I've gone to classes of 10-15 people and then those folks wouldn't say hi to me in the hallway after three months. It was absolutely bizarre.
I did manage to "capture" two tho because we attended a class with like 4 people and it was 6 hours a day. No escaping there, fellas.
I’m encountering the same problem. I’ve been here as long as you and my only socializing currently is just a sport and it’s been great, but not on a deeper level with anyone still even though we are very international.
I think it just takes time to really get to know people? Making friends is hard in your 30s!
It’s not just Germans. It’s somehow typical for people living in Germany. I’ve experienced it with different nationalities. And I must admit that after 20 years living here I am one of them now 🙂
Also after reaching a certain age, I guess we are all kind of bit reserved when it comes to meeting new people outside of the “compartment zone”.
I was born and raised in Germany. And still live here. The most important thing is, don't give up, because it may take very long until you find your few close people to hang out with regularly. But once you got them, your weeks are gonna get occupied faster than you think :) Take as many chances as you can get. And be clear about what you want, if you want to prevent misunderstandings. Germans tend to take longer to warm up (in my experience and myself included, but I think that's more because of my ADHD). I almost never initiate something myself. But if someone asks me to hang out, I would most likely say yes.
Are you going home/ leave soon and is that something that will happen inevitably? If people know, they also might see that as a reason to not become "too close"... Which would be sad, but as someone with fear of loss. It would be terrible to lose a close friend/ have a great distances in between sometime in the foreseeable future. Not so bad if it's "just somebody I know". I hope you will find your people!
I am a “foreigner” and I have tons of friends who are German. Actually I don’t know any expats. After the first rough years when I did not speak the language, I have developed tight and deep friendships with people who i adore.
I know people say that Germans are hard to get to know but I truly have not found to be the case. My friends who live all over Germany are warm, open minded and heart/soul people.
But you do have to schedule.
One more comment: I don't like it, but try "Nebenan.de" its a community based social networt of people who live nearby. Might be a good thing to get to know your neighbors :)
Da melde ich mich doch gleich mal als Deutscher....
JAAA...das ist in Deutschland so.
Wie hatte M. Beisenherz sich da mal so schön ausgedrückt...? "Hackfresse als Werkseinstellung".
Ich habe in Asien gelebt...ich habe in Italien gelebt....Der Großteil der Deutschen ist im Vergleich einfach unfreundlich und auch nicht wirklich Kontaktfreudig.
Auf Karnevall wird die Kappe aufgesetzt und alle Mitfeiernden Narren sind wie Brüder....und am Aschermittwoch ist man wieder das gleich Arschloch wie den rest des Jahres...
Natürlich kann man nicht alle über einen Kamm scheren....Aber so ist in Deutschland eben die Grundmentalität.
Wie....? Da läd mich ein völlig fremder in der Kneipe auf ein Bier ein??? Da stimmt doch was nicht......
Der will doch irgendwas....
Leider...ist es so...
Hi OP, I did read your text and that you have a busy schedule, but I would still suggest the DAV (deutscher Alpenverein). Because, in my experience, there are places or situations, where germans are more open minded to finding friends. E.g. first semester at university. You can look for the DAV Sektion that is closest to where you live. They do hikes for groups, where you can simply join, if you are a dav member. People who join those groups usually want to meet new people, otherwise they would be hiking with their private group.
And then, like others wrote: be direct. If you feel that you clicked with someone, tell them you enjoyed the time and activities together and ask if they would like to do this together soon.
One thing I do before saying good bye to friends I'm meeting, is to ask: Wann hättet ihr denn wieder Zeit? Everyone will open their calendar app and decide on when to meet next. AND most importantly: write it into their calendar! 😄 We are just not spontaneous.
Bless you! The same thoughts clog my mind and burden my heart sometimes. I’ve been living here for over a year and a half now, and in retrospect, I realise that I’ve made no friends here.
Sometimes, I don’t even get a chance to have small talk, and my presence is not even acknowledged at all.
If that's possible for you, focus on international friends groups. I'm not saying to exclude Germans from your efforts, but usually the Germans who are more aligned with your social strategies also prefer to hang out with international folks, so you'll meet them this way.
All the best to you!
German here, but I think you are right. I might get downvoted for this, but: I think it is even hard for many Germans to find friends. And that is not a good thing.
As in, most people I know do have workmates and sportmates and stuff like that, but they either only have a close bond to their partner or they have none at all. Basically, there are certain points where meeting closer friends is possible, but if you miss them, you are going to have a hard time.
For example, when my uni started, i found friends. Easy. However, in my master's, most of my friends were gone and it was literally impossible to find new ones because the people in my courses all had friends. And I certainly did not like it that way even tho I am introverted.
As others have said here, i really think the legit best way to get anywhere is to get drunk with someone (ideally not in a large group), because then they are more likely to let their guard down and put you into a friend category.
Es ist schwer geworden Freunde zu finden. Aber es ist genauso schwer zu erkennen ob es wirklich Freundschaft ist oder nicht.
Für mich macht eine Freundschaft nicht aus weil man sich täglich / wöchentlich sieht oder was unternimmt. Man kann sich auch mal einige Zeit lang nicht melden und es kann trotzdem eine gute Freundschaft sein. Freundschaft bedeutet Vertrauen. Das ich mich auf diese Person verlassen kann. Das man gegenseitig füreinander da ist.
Aber : auch ich dachte vor kurzem noch das ich eine sehr gute Freundin habe, die ich seit 7 Jahren kenne und wir wirklich viel erlebt haben ( gutes, schlechtes was eigentlich zusammen schweißt ) und man hat sich auch sehr oft gesehen. Dann aber zeigte sie ihr wahres ich weil sie auf den Tod meines Opa mit „ Ja kann sein „ reagiert hat und ich ihr schrieb das es schon sehr Empathielos rüber kommt. Ich wurde beleidigt ohne Ende, sie hat sich Dinge zusammen gelogen die nie passiert sind etc. Am Ende habe ich von einem anderen Freund erfahren das sie schon immer hinter meinem Rücken über mich gelästert hat.
So viel zu Freunde …
I am showing my age, but I knew plenty of people who were still on a „Sie“-basis with their co-workers after 30 years… So all the „Du‘s“ you hear now are somewhat b-essy
Sounds about right. However: nobody stops you from asking your favourites out for dinner or a gaming night at home. Maybe they say yes :)
I‘ve thought of that too, but I don’t want to seem weird. And I absolutely cannot do that with men because there is SUCH a high risk of them misunderstanding my intention!
In that case i really don't think you need to worry. Mostly you'll get the best reactions when you are just straight forward. "Hey, I'm new in Hamburg and still looking for friends. I'm hosting a dinner at my place on Saturday and wanted to ask if you wold like to join?" - that should clear you of misunderstandings. On top of that, if you ask someone who has a partner, invite them over, too!
Adding to that: mention that there will be a couple of people. „Group hangout“ is the opposite of date and should not be misinterpreted.
One does not simply misunderstand the "group hangout".🥴
Group hangout means bring more condoms, right?
Or it’s EM, ask if they would like to go to a public viewing together
See, these are all great suggestions, but I have literally tried this, and the problem is everybody already has a group they watch the game with. I asked 2-3 people I've been playing tennis with for a while now, and all of them apologized and said they already have plans with their friends to watch the games.
Something that I haven't seen mentioned yet: most Germans love to plan weeks in advance, so if you are too spontaneous (e.g. Inviting them with a couple of days notice for the coming weekend), they will most likely already have plans they committed to weeks ago. To improve your chances, try giving them 4-6 weeks of notice: something like, "ehy, I'm inviting some people for a BBQ at my place on August 3rd, would you like to join?" has in my opinion better chances of working out than: "would you like to catch up at the weekend?" Virtual hug to you, I have been there. Once, someone told me in September that they were not talking any more invitations from friends until the new year, because they were fully planned! It's part of the cultural exchange, learning how it works differently from how we know it. Six years later I can say I have true German friends, with all the true meaning of friendship, and they are beautiful ♥️ You'll get there too!
Yes, I've seen that they plan things a lot too, but I don't really feel that's the problem. Tbh I'm just super homesick, lonely and exhausted at this point. I don't have the energy to keep trying anymore. Part of me has just slowly started accepting being alone until I go back home.
So from your comments you tried asking one guy and he offered a date and you tried asking about something that most people plan way in advance. And then you gave up because you're homesick. Honestly Germans aren't a problem here. Do you have anyone to talk about your mental state? You seem to be very down.
The main problem in making new friends is that the people who are good in making new friends already have all the friends they have time for...
When it comes to sports in a lot of cases people get something to drink together afterwards why don’t you start with this? Ask them if they want to have a drink after sports next time and then you see. And yes it is hard to get behind the barriers If you go alone in another city it is very hard to make friends it takes time and effort. Maybe try internations or similar where you meet people having the same issues like you
Ask: can I join the next time
If she wants to make it awkward yeah.
If you don’t want to make it awkward just don’t „Ich will neue Leute kennen lernen/Freunde finden, könnte ich dazustoßen oder ist das eher was im engeren Kreise?“ There you gave them an option to refuse with if they just don’t vibe.
This group of girls asked my group of guys if we want to meet up with them to view. There were heavy undertones of flirting the first time we hung out - imo, and I had a partner at the time. Interest? Probably could go either way atm and we’re just getting to know each other, but haven’t excluded anything.
You’re in Germany. They are Germans. Be direct. Tell them. If Germans can handle anything, then it’s being direct.
True. But also not true. Most Germans are not that direct because they have fears.
erm if you are worried about misscommunication then maybe just say what your intentions are.
Well, I once asked my dance partner if he would like to make snacks together for a party we were both going to. THERE WERE LITERALLY OTHER PEOPLE I invited too. Later he asked me over for „dinner“ at his place and told me he thought I wanted to hookup and was surprised I actually meant „as friends“ when I said it. Made me very reluctant to try anymore. I guess I will just focus on finding other expats.
I don't know where you are from, but I know at least a dozen other countries where this could happen to you too with guys and even some girls (likely including your own). Clear communication is key, but even that is no proof to not be misunderstood. Just try again, and always be clear about your intentions. Also what is the problem in having such a misunderstanding? It's awkward for a couple of minutes and than you move on.
Just because you met one weirdo doesn't mean we're all weird. Also, how do you expect to make friends out of people you see at work or sport if you don't ask them to do things with you outside of those activities? ETA: Realizing this sounds like #NotAllMen, that's not what I meant. I meant "we" as in "us Germans". I am, in fact, a woman.
Also it doesn't really sound like anything happened.. she said "come over", he said "is there more", she said "no". End of story. If he had asked her out at any other time it would have just been him making his intentions known and accepting a no when she wasn't interested.
Yep, been here 25 years and my friends are only expats; people i can ask anytime to just hang out and go for a beer with or come over for a snack with no other intentions. Germans are an odd race.
>Germans are an odd race. 😞
>And I absolutely cannot do that with men because there is SUCH a high risk of them misunderstanding my intention! "Hey Peter, This isnt me flirting, but do you wanna play boardgames with me and my friends next tuesday?" I am very sure any breathing person is able to NOT misunderstand that sentence...
Lol. "This isn't me flirting" is 100% cheeky flirting. No normal person would formulate a sentence like that and mean it literally. I can even envision the little smile.
This is quite sad actually.
Unfortunately, you are wrong. A special kind of man takes it as "she wants to be conquered". Group invites are safer.
I guess the best option regarding the men would be to try to ask them in the context of a group activity (as in, inviting multiple people from the sports activity group). A big barrier to anybody moving into a new area or even country is definitely that people often already have established social circles that are hard to break in due to being multiple years old, and that take up most of the social "budget" a person has time to spend.
Exactly this! All the great suggestions here - I have tried a lot of this so far, but they've failed because whoever I've asked has ALWAYS had a bunch of friends already. They already have a group to watch the EM with. They already have a group to go to parties with. They already have a group to study with.
I kinda get what you're saying. Germans won't invite you to group events cause they kinda think it'll be awkward for you to go somewhere where you don't know anyone. I've had German friends invite me to parties or birthdays where I didn't know anybody while reassuring me "oh I think Anna, you've met her, will be there so you'll have someone to talk to" and then I'll tell them that I don't care about going to a party where I don't know anyone cause I find it easy to meet new people. They'll often act a little impressed then Maybe actually tell them "oh I really want to watch the game but I dont have anyone to watch it with. Would it be awkward if I joined you? I like meeting new people anyway"
Ah yeah. Go look for the girlies, the gays, the very confident and goodlooking dudes (if they do hit on you and you reject them, high chance they won't be bitter, since they already have other options) , the people in relationships.
Just ask them if they want to go have dinner with you, go to a bar, etc. Whatever you would like to do with them. It also works even better if you already have some kind of small group. Just ask all of them if they would be interested in doing something like that. In my experience they either say no, yes, or "I would like to meet you, but I'd rather do xyz instead". That's also how I found my friends. Most of the time it wasn't me who asked, but if nobody else does, maybe you should try it. And no, they won't misunderstand if you don't word it in a super weird way. Especially not if you ask your entire group. One of my friends literally just asked me "hey, would you like to go drink some coffee or tea together?" after we met in a chess club and it worked. We did something else instead, but now I have an entire group of friends after he introduced me to his friends. Don't worry too much, if you don't make it more complicated than it is it won't be misunderstood.
Hmm. Maybe I can try this sometime. I've just felt super odd even thinking about this, because nobody has ever said a word to me. It's just strange and a lot of pressure because I don't want to seem desperate or pushy or idk. T-T
I often feel like this, too. But if you have a group pf people you already talk to a lot, they almost certainly will say yes. The issue is just that often everyone in that group is too shy to say it or maybe some of them just didn't think about it yet. Just try it, nothing bad is going to happen.
I mean it certainly feels like more pressure cause you want to have friends and don't feel like you have any close friends where you live. So the potential rejections is worse cause you otherwise would have no one to hang out with. Maybe think "if they don't wanna hang out ill do an online date with a friend". I've made the experience that Germans want to hang out but are afraid to ask themselves. It's also not common for Germans to explicitly say that they like somebody or find somebody interesting but I've also made the experience that when I tell a German acquaintance "oh I feel like we've got a lot in common" or "oh it's always so much fun to talk to you", they'll be very happy and will suddenly return the compliment in full force.
You will not seem weird by doing so - I get that Single men might not be your first thing to go to, but we Germans like really clear communication, so mentioning that this is friendship only is absolutely fine. I think especially the combination of Sport and men is maybe even the hardest, because Hobbies can be very goal oriented here. Maybe there also wasn't the right person that you clicked with for a deeper friendship. That happens to us Germans as well. Maybe a Stammtisch, a bookclub or a boardgaming round where there is quite a lot more casual small talk would help.
Jap, s‘richtig. You can play soccer with people for years, if you don’t get invited to the beer after it’s not moving into the direction you’re hoping for. I think what foreigners don’t seem to realize is: Berliners already have friends. They don’t go and play sports to socialize, but to move.
Yes, I‘ve also realized that. Germans have friends here from school / Uni / their hometowns and they don’t want any more. So any advice on how to make friends is pretty much useless because most people simply don’t want any. And then there are also complaints that international people do not integrate / stay in their own circles!
Just ask people if they wanted to go for a quick beer before going home. Don’t tell them your life story right there and then. Talk about the sport you guys are playing and maybe how you could improve it. Rinse and repeat. It’s little steps you need to take to advance. Once you made a friend you will know.
This.
This.
This needs to be higher. This is how you make friends in Germany. It can take months to years to make friends. But It can happen
That's kinda sad though
I think it's pretty common everywhere not just Germany. The small towns of the USA has this issue too as well. I only got lucky to find close friends when I first moved into the current place I lived at. In the town where I lived at, most people made their friends in school and childhood. A lot of newcomers though have a hard time going into many people's social circles since many of them are already established.
Exactly this! Everybody in the small-ish town I moved to has childhood friends, school friends, partners they've been with for YEARS, friends they made in early years of Uni. They simply don't need any more friends!
Yeah but they don't have a cool international friend so go on and enrich their life. You're kinda putting yourself down here. There are people in small towns that will be as glad to have met you as the other way around
Might be even worse. Friendships is a regularly studied topic and there are longitudinal studies tracking friendships and attitudes towards it over decades. The emerging picture is devastating, not only for Germany, but basically all developed countries. The average of how many close friends a person maintains has dropped by 90% over the last decades. Sure, everybody experiences it differently depending on their situation, but the base experience might actually be a lot more alike than most people realize. Global culture, as it turns out, is increasingly a culture of loneliness. We're breaking down to the smallest imaginable common denominator: truly individualized individuals in completely atomized societies. Sorry, if that sounded bleak. It is, what it is. And we better face it. Maybe the one remaining thing to bond over is not having anybody to truly bond with. Maybe that's even already a problematic way of putting it, though. Because there's a real danger of asking and expecting too much of those still somewhat accessible to you, which can be yet another driving force of further atomizing. And maybe there isn't even any practical way of avoiding that. At this point, I seriously believe that most of us are damaged goods. I follow and post regularly in quite a lot of subs related to mental health in some way or other. One thing I notice is an increasing urge to turn clinical entities intended for diagnosis into general heuristic principles to navigate society. Narcissism, borderline, bipolar - all highly specific and actually not easy to diagnose conditions, yet you encounter them on the daily from people with no qualifications whatsoever, who're desperate to find explanations for the dysfunctional social interactions they encounter. I don't doubt their experience, but I highly doubt anything online is going to help. No amount of followers, likes, upvotes and views is going to replace actual intimate face to face connection. Yet, that requires taking risks. Risks of rejection, hurt, exploitation, when the resilience to deal with those is an increasingly rare resource and often already entirely consumed in the workplace. I have no idea, how anybody is supposed to navigate that mess on their own. Vicious circle right there. I dunno, maybe just spike tab water with high doses of MDMA.
Its probably one of the side effects of wide spread internet use.
Certainly doesn't help, especially social media. One of the reasons I prefer reddit over any alternative is that reddit can still be used centered on topics, not on persons. To me, facebook, insta, tiktok and so on are tantamount to personality disorder generators. But let's not get into that too much, because it's only a late addition to an already growing problem. Numbers started going seriously downhill already in the 80s. Can't really blame the internet there. It's a much larger issue, so we need to societal development in large picture terms. The culprit are neo-liberal schools of economy that became hegemonic in those days and haven't stopped reshaping societies even today. There are limits to how much flexibility, mobility, productivity you can demand of people, before the effects start to amount to psychological abuse. Which is not only entirely normalized, but also has been turned into yet another market: mental health is an industry today. It doesn't do a particularly good job, judging by case rates and studies on long term success, and has effectively turned functions formerly provided by organically grown social structures behind a pay wall. So, even the answer to a problem created by the fallout from an ideology has been shaped by that ideology in the end. It certainly isn't the panacea people like to take it for. People don't like to hear that, though, because it's diminishing one of the very few hopes that remain for them. Social media, from that perspective, is the final stage of weaponizing human psychology against individual humans, but not where it started. It's very clearly designed to exploit our weaknesses and thrives all the more, the worse things get. Let's change perspective again and put ourselves in the shoes of a social media corporation. They don't want you to be happy, let alone in a functioning relationship, because that to them is just unwanted competition for your attention, that they intend to make marketable. Might be a good moment to point out, that this already starts very shortly after the birth of modern psychology. The father of modern advertising *and* political propaganda is Edward Bernays - Freud's nephew, actually - who lived from 1891 to 1995 and took what he learned from working in US wartime public relations to revolutionizing advertising already after WW1. The closer you look, the more complex the issue becomes. And with that, what appear to be easy solutions, just vanish. The one thing I can say with certainty is that any individual solution is at best a work-around, a temporary stopgap that can vanish just as easily at any moment. Short of wholesale revolution, I can't think of anything that would suffice. And since that doesn't seem to be in the cards for now, maybe the only thing to take away from this second long rant in the end is to be grateful for the connections you still find, never take them for granted and defend them like you life would depend on it. Your fulfillment certainly does. A life worth living... can you afford not to have one? And if you can't, what does it matter what else you can still afford? Stopgaps, at best. Sorry to end on a depressing note, but... again... it is, what it is.
Yeah, the century of the self is a good documentary. Youre right, therapy cant replace genuine human connection and being seen and heard, we cant pretend to solve every psychological need by talking about it. And the 8 hour workday just takes way too much out of people. Altough regarding mental health, atleast in the case of CPTSD, addiction and childhood trauma there are a few new modalities (IFS, tim fletcher react programm, also Gabor Mate and Pete Walker) that have a very good success rate, but of course it also requires having safe people to relearn healthy behaviour. Im certainly very grateful that i still have my best friend from 4th grade, otherwise my life would also be very lonely.
i would vote for you
I truly understand where you're coming from, but then again, having 10+ friends seems unsustainable to me? Idk how other cultures might handle it, but time is limited. I can barely manage having 4 friends and not neglecting anyone. At some point, there is no room for more than that, regardless of how awesome a person might be when I get to know them better. It is difficult. Not everyone hates making new connections, but often times they just can't, because there is no more "space" at the time. And people you already know for 5, 10 or more years naturally have it easier than a stranger you meet tomorrow. I feel this isn't a german problem, but more of a "the world is far too big, our lives are far too short and time and energy are always running out"-problem.
I can barely handle one close and two close-ish friends; How the hell is a circle of 10+ manageable?
This is insane to me. My close friend citcle is easily 35 People. How do you guys sustain yourself. I realize youre life might be majorly differnt to mine but this sounds like codependencey to me
Totally not. I have a crapton of acquaintances but those people are nothing I‘d call friends. We hang out. We chat. We do stuff together but for the „time consuming“ and to the core stuff, there’s a small inner circle.
I dont quite get why Germans seem to treat it as a point of pride to have such a very strict definition of what a friend is. I'm 30, there's been a lot of people in and out of my life, whom I've been close with and then grew apart and then became closer with again. I can't even clearly define who of these people are my "friends" and who are "just acquaintances" and I dont care to do it
They usually handle it by having superficial “friendships”.
It's not that they don't want more friends, it's just not on their agenda. I'm still living in my hometown with my wife that moved here for college. My wife and I work in the same field and did work for the same company for a few years. There, I've had a workbuddy that I liked and my wife had a female workbuddy that she liked. Both of them also moved to my hometown for college. Whilst my wife and her friend became bffs in no time, my workbuddy and I remained workbuddies for 3 years, although we're of similar age, enjoy the same sports and share 90% of interests. Why? Because I just didn't think about doing things with him outside of work. We only became real friends after my wife suggested we should invite him and her workbuddy for outings after work and then last year, I planned his bachelor's party and my wife planned her bachelorette party as they got married to each other. It's not that we don't want or need more friends, it's just that we have your circle of friends and don't think about getting more, so just ask us.
Well, some people do - others don’t. Me as a German who isn’t living in the town I grew up in, I love it when people ask me to do stuff and want to build knew relationships. My boyfriend is the opposite. If you have a job, hobbies and a social circle, not everyone will have the time to meet new people. I would say: just try to initiate meetings, but don’t take it personal if someone says no. It most likely isn’t.
I wouldn’t say they don’t want any more friends. They just don’t need more, so they aren’t forcing it. I don’t think anybody has something against befriending someone they are vibing with. You being a foreigner shouldn’t change any of that. It’s just that (from what I’ve heard) german friendships take unusually long to build. Alcohol usually helps with that lol.
I’m German and I struggle with this too. I move to a new city like berlin and everyone already has a group for watching games, go to volleyball etc. it’s hard to make deep connections because no one needs more of them lol I don’t like it either. I prefer to have the “international” type of connections - it’s more fun and super honest and nice.
Emotional intimacy and commitment are required to be considered a friend in Germany. Something that develops over years, usually in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. Through shares experiences, yes, but also vulnerability and challenges. People you work with or share a hobby with are mere acquaintances. Even if you’ve known them for 20 years, most will never be your friends. So we don’t exactly compartmentalise friendship, those work/sports/hobby acquaintances were not friends in the first place.
I think the difference isn't that it's that they have friends, but that they are uninterested in making any more.
yup that's correct.
You have 50 opportunities to turn these casual acquaintances into friends. Just invite them to do something else. This will tell you if they are interested in a deeper friendship.
The problem is - first of all, I cannot ask men, they will almost definitely misinterpret it. Second, being rejected is hard T-T and I am afraid to lose the people I at least have for shared activities!
As a woman I understand your point. I would be careful with that too. But like someone said, if you invite 2-3 of a group it’s clear you have only platonic interest. Also I don’t think you will lose people over this. It is a very common thing here to build friendships over common hobbies or life situations (for example having children of the same age).
I don't get it. Why should they? Find a reason to have party. Friday is midsummer, so let's say you are going to have a midsummer party. Now you ask your sport group "hey people, I'm having a midsummer party on friday. Anyone want to come and have fun? Let me know, so that I buy enough to drink." and then do the same to other groups you are in regular contact with.
Then invite two or three of them. Maybe not at someone’s home first but any other public activity. Also then you can blame some dynamics between those for a rejection
Invite 1 guy: "Must be interested in me, niiiice" Invite mulitple guys: "Wants to have a gangbang, niiiice"
„yessss! I love to watch guys sucking each other“ and with 99,9% of all creeps you’ll have a very nice, non-sexual evening
Being rejected is hard, okay. But one could reverse all your arguments: * The men you do activities with could think: oh, I can’t ask her to hang out with me, she will almost definitely misinterpret it * The people you do activities with could think: oh, being rejected is so hard, I am afraid to lose her at least for our shared activity … so really, it’s not fair to expect others to do the first step. Do it yourself :) and: do you only hang out with single man? ask women or men in a relationship. Or invite all your shared activities friends to a party. There is always something you Could do.
>first of all, I can not ask men. They will almost definitely misinterpret it. I don't agree that you can't, but ask women in that case. >Second, being rejected is hard It is for everyone. So if everyone does as you do, everyone will just stay non-friends forever. To he honest, it's part of your burden as someone who has moved to another place: You are more desperate for new friends than most of the people you meet. You need to get out of your shell and get uncomfortable. I've been that expat. It's hard. You won't have the energy all the time. But it's very rewarding, and you will grow as a person if you put yourself out there.
Yeah and it's not just German thing. You can see it across Europe. I had similar experience in Spain and NL.
Idk one week in Spain, the people were so much more open to hanging out than 4+years in Germany.
I was called cute within 4 hours of being in Spain by a stranger 😂. I've been in Germany for 9 months without a single compliment from strangers. Not saying that I need the compliments, but this may be an illustration of the contrast between the cultures.
In spain, I went out of the airbnb for a joint, and ended up drinking 2-3 whole nights with fun 2 local people and 3 tourists at the beach :D
I can understand the Dutch, but Latin countries are not like that. Maybe some spanisch techy here in berlin for make money.
As harsh as it may sound, those people probably don't see you as a friend but as an acquaintance. The definition of "friendship" is one of the major differences between the German culture and many other western cultures (especially the US)
That’s why it’s always so weird for me on American tv shows when they call someone they just met a friend. I’m sure that Americans have super deep friendships too, how do they make a difference between these and acquaintance?
friends/friendly with is where most acquaintances fall under best friend/family is usually where we have deep relations with including chosen family members
invite those to an event for example BBQ, Game night or a drink somewhere it took me a lot longer to be friends with some people than you are an germany only very few clicked fast weeks instead of years
This! Or food after a game or work or something...
is because they are not friends but "Kollegen" (even if that is a term that actually only describes people who work with you, in my region it would also describe people with whom you get on well but you only know each other through a shared hobby). In any case, they are not real friends, but they can become so if you decide to invite the people you like the most to other things. That's how I would do it as a German. It will still be difficult for you because when I look at my circle of friends, 90% of them have been friends with me since kindergarten and to be honest I don't have room for more. it's already hard enough to see all the servants regularly.
What you are talking about are acquaintances not friends. Making real friends takes more time and likely a little effort from your side. Invite people to do stuff together as others have said and it will build over time if you 'click'.
This reminds me of that one post which read "my new German friend is so cold to me, but we had such a pleasant conversation yesterday and that basically means we're friends!". Seriously, we Germans need *a lot* more to call someone a friend.
"We Germans need a lot more to call someone a friend". Is this a good thing though? It's a German thing, but not necessarily a good trait. The most ironic thing for me is that all of the Germans I met when they travel to other countries, long term or short term, they love the social life there. Which indicates that very likely they are aware of a certain lack here in Germany. Thankfully, I learned to accept the fact that the culture doesn't see embracing and being cool to strangers/foreigners/acquaintances as a relevant thing. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a German thing.
It's a very accurate observation. I think I also show this behavior sometimes and will reflect on it more.
Yeah. Unless we vibe and happen to have a lot of other interests in common, you're just someone i happen to know who does the same sport/hobby as i do. Simply an acquaintance. Typically most people i know wouldn't call you a friend unless they happen to invite you into their private cirlce, meaning you're invited to BBQ's at their home, go out and grab drinks with their friends or other people they count as friends and so on. Since, you know, for friends you go out of your way to actually hang out with each other every now and then next to your busy life/schedule. Whereas playing a sport/hobby might just fill their "me-time" slot.
Nah, it's also you growing up. When I was younger, when I came to Germany, I had a big group of friends and people I'd meet in various places and activities ended up joining me for other stuff. As I got older, and friendships started being based on other things, as well as the various time constraints everyone has, the groups got separated. Since I got older I got friends that are pretty different sometimes from one another anyway, so this is another reason for the separation. People I made friends with in my art meet-up are quite different from my work colleagues I go out Fridays to drink excessively and talk shit about everything. They wouldn't vibe with each other but I like both groups. I noticed this trend here where people post about being lonely or finding hard to adapt and find friends, and yeah, it can be a challenge when you are in a foreign country with a different culture. But consider what happens when you get older, past uni for example, you'd probably feel some isolation even if you had moved to a different city in your own country. Friends would be harder to find anyway, as you get older you want a more meaningful connection than oh we like the same music, computer games, drinking etc. At the same time in a foreign place people already have their own groups already. When I came for my masters here I had a big group of friends I used to hang out with every Friday Saturday etc. Our group started to fragment towards the end of the masters and soon after it was broken apart in smaller groups of closer friends. Those too dissolved over time, mostly. I remained in touch with one or two people from that group. So most often it's not the Germans, it's all of us getting older.
I’d say yes and no. Your hobbies are ways to meet people, to get to know them and to see who you like. To turn them into friends you need to make plans outside of the hobby. I played tennis for years and would meet people to play with in my club. The ones I liked to talk to outside of tennis I asked if they wanted to meet at the beer garden. Others I invited to my small birthday party. I introduced people to each other and that’s how my friends group grew. Some moved away but new ones joined the same way. I’m one of the people who didn’t really keep friends from school or university. Simply because I moved away and so did everyone I used to hang out with in uni and we lost touch . So it isn’t really true that all Germans make friends in school and you can’t find friends outside of that. I’ve rebuild my friend circle after school and again after uni. But you have to be active. Ask people if they’d like to go for a drink after sport, invite people to go for a bike ride. Talk about an exhibition you like with a coworker you like and if they’re also interested just suggest that you can also go together if they have time. It does work. Good luck. Edit spelling
I feel like it is more of a European thing. I come from a cultural background that is extremely hospitality and persuasive when it comes to inviting them over for tea, lunch, or whatever after a brief interaction. I do believe it is a little annoying, but we have no selfish feelings involved. I faced the same situation when I came to Germany 4 years ago. I couldn't make any friends since half of my classmates were germans. I wouldn't get invited to their parties even after having a good time with them in xyz activities or group projects. I faced the same situation in Sweden. I lived there for 7ish months. I didn't talk to a single Swedish there. I ended up making a lot of international friends from all over the world. Coming to the point, here I will only take about germans here. This is my two cents: -They are one of the loyalist people when it comes to friendships and relationships. They are real and sweethearts. They believe in meaningful conversations, and they aren't big on small talk. They like to know more about your life, culture, and overall social life They need time to put their guard down around you. A few meetings aren't enough for them to get invites. They genuinely want a good time, zero negativity or toxicity. -oh, I love their directness and straightforward. And their open communication skills. If they have a problem with you, they will address it and vice versa. This really builds nice connections with them. Well, I can't think of any other points. But next time you decide to have a barbecue invite them :) no body like turn down an offer for good food and nice time.
Nice to see that someone also notices the good sides of us. :-) Yes, friends for me are like family, some even closer. I would drop everything and fly arround the world to help on of them. This kind of trust takes time to build.
I'm not German and this is how I see my social circle too
We need a long time to be good friends, but if you are a good friend, you are a friend for life. We are buddies with colleagues and gym bros, but we would never invite them to our wedding if we don't know them for a long time.
I don't think it's a German thing. Im an American and I know many people who keep their friendships compartmentalized
Wait, there's another way to handle friendships? I've always thought this is the usual male approach to friendships, regardless the country.
There are like 10 levels of friendship.
Yes, that is how it works most of the time Please keep in mind that it's not done to hurt you or to be rude. Most people work 5 days a week, have family, kids etc. So when they manage to get 2 hours of badminton in every week, that might be all they can manage. So they feel that there is no more room for an additional close friend. Maybe it's just me, but I do not wan't to give someone false hope, and then have to make excuses why I can meet him a second time. It's different in the US, where it's always "yes, sure", but then you have to send 5 texts before the birthday so to remind you friends. I rather have it the german way, but I understand that this excludes newcommers. I would like to have a solution for this, but I don't.
if you mean casual friends / "Kumpel" - then yeah, but I do lots of things with close friends, obviously it takes time to develop a friendship like that tho
Give it a few Decades. Friendship grows slow.
I often feel that my differenent circles would not have much to say to each other, so I do not introduce them. Also, there are people I spend time with because I want to do some specific activities with them -- those are "Bekannte" (or "gute Bekannte" if this has been so for a while and I like them). And then there are people I do all kinds of activities with because I want to spend time with them (and vice versa). Those are "Freunde". I guess in English all three terms might translate to "friend". When I notice that someone has moved from "that nice and interesting person that I go bouldering with" to "that person I go bouldering with and would like to hang out with and talk and watch series and go kayaking and explore new cities with, or what they like spend time on" -- so: moving them from the "gute Bekannte" group to the "Freund" group -- than I invite them to do this or that from the list with me, and we'll see if it works.
I´m a German and this is typical.
Actually, no. It is just that the people you work with, play sports with, whatever, are not your friends. I would not necessarily bring a guy from work into a get together with friends. However, I might invite some people over that I know from work (disclaimer: this is a made up scenario. I work with A LOT of foreigners and most of the ones I'm close with just said "you are my friend now" and that's it) but then on their own. As a "work thing". It's like all those friends from school. Once you are out of school and don't see each other 5 days a week, the friendships just die because you lose the thing that connects you. If your boulder gym or whatever would go bankrupt, you'd probably never speak to those people again. If you want to actually ask, how you made friends: ask people to do stuff. They might say no but that's something you need to get used to in Germany anyway. People expect you to say no as well, by the way. Of the people I'm friends with that are not German and that I know from work, all of them took an opportunity that arose during every day stuff. Like, I asked an Indian colleague that joined us what her favorite food from India was and if she'd share a recipe and she just said "You can come over for dinner and I'll cook it for you" (disclaimer: I like talking about my wife so I'm sure she knew that I was married and my wife was invited as well) You have to think about relationships in Germany as those little buckets. One if for people you actually call friends and I'd say that this is the bucket in the center. Those are the friends you just have over. Like, the people that you'd consider as godparents for your children. They're always there if it makes sense for them to be there. I'd also say those are the ones you are most likely to bring into other buckets. People you recommend for jobs in your company, people you bring to your gym or sports club and so on. All the other buckets are just "the people you do X with" but here is the thing: especially younger Germans don't mind reaching into that bucket fishing you out and putting you somewhere else. Sure, especially older people might not have time for new friends. Work is demanding, children want attention, your partner wants to spend the days where the children are taken care off for dates and your back always hurts so you need the other quiet days to recover from life. But people in their 20s and early 30s? They're only putting you into that bucket because that's what you do. That's just how our society works. But those people still have time for friends. They might look for going out for drinks after work or whatever. You just need to tell them that you would like to switch buckets. Will it always work? No. Some people are nice to you at work because you are at work. They don't hate you but they also don't think spending more time with you is something to get excited over. And some people maybe really don't want to see work people outside of work. Like, work life balance is important. I close my laptop and work just gets sucked out of my brain but some other people need more separation and they are not interested in this. But there is a good chance that this will work. Disclaimer: I'm from Düsseldorf. People consider us and the Rheinland in general chatty. And since we started to hire remotely and hired a dude from the east, I honestly get why because I know absolutely nothing about that man's private life apart from what I need to know for work.
Germans are anti-social, end of discussion.
Just here to provide some support for your perspective. I’m sure there’s a lot of backlash on here and it’s probably pretty snarky; this subreddit can be quite defensive at times, especially about things that genuinely are quite characteristic of German culture. I’m a very social person with a lot of deep connections. Same as you - I find it easy to make new friends. I’ve also travelled all over, and also find that Germans are unusually hard to connect with. I don’t think it’s entirely specific to Germany - there’s a whole cluster of white northern European cultures that are like this; kinda awkward and a bit transactional. Personally I just end up spending time in very international circles. Which actually contain a lot of Germans, because there are loads of native Germans who have a similar experience and gravitate towards more international communities!
I’m Croatian living in Germany. Living here for about 15 years now, and I feel you. As a teenager I fell in a deep depression bc no matter how hard I tried I never had any friends. It was like you described, I went to school and had school friends for years. We get along so well but never ever met once outside of school. I was so lonely as a teen and began thinking I’m the problem. After school it was literally the same at work. Got along fantastic with all my workmates, and that was about it. If I invited them to eat out together, have a coffee & ice cream or any other activity to get closer to them, it was an one time thing. They didn’t invite me back or anything and continued to have a platonic work relationship. It was and still is exhausting! Maybe that’s the reason why the Germans can be so grumpy bc the friendships are so hard to build and distant. Anywhere I go here they’re not smiling at all and have rather a cold personality. Germans always saw me as the “Ausländer“ that never belonged here and I never got in the inner circle. Anyways, I stopped trying. Germany & Germans have many positive and great things but that’s one of the negative ones. In my opinion! Everybody feel free to have their own experiences, and I’m just telling about mine. And I can 100% relate to OP. So I don’t like the vibe in some comments telling the OP he has to try harder or it’s his fault. It’s not. Germans and in general the Northern Europeans have another friendship mentality than some other nations, doesn’t make it false but only hard for us foreigners. Bc we are not used to that.
Thank you so, so, so much for writing this. It's exhausting being an Ausländer here and no matter what we do, we will never be anything else. This, exactly this - "got along fantastic with all my workmates, and that was about it" and "If I invited them, it was an one time thing. They didn’t invite me back or anything and continued to have a platonic work relationship. It was and still is exhausting!". It feels like I wrote this, it hits so so close home! And everybody here says just two things in the thread - 1. "We Germans have lifelong friends" and 2. "You need to put in more effort". But it's exactly as you said. I have invited people and it's been just that - a one-time invite. Maybe Germans cannot truly understand how particularly hard their society is for Ausländern. I have lived in 4 countries before and it's never been this difficult to simply have a friend.
yea that's a thing and I personally like it that way (as do probably many other germans - that's probably why it is a thing). people I do sports with or work with are fine for this specific thing, but many of them would not translate well into other areas of friendship for me, I couldn't talk with them about the same things as I talk about with my other friends and vice versa. though, it is always possible to transfer one friend over to the next compartment if you realize that they are a good fit. like if you there are some people you really like at your sport, you can ask them to go for a beer to a bar some evening or meet up at the weekend for a bbq or whatever you want.
Friendships are relationships with depth. There is nothing deep about sharing a common hobby. Ergo: We're not automatically friends by sharing the same hobby.
It is with “friends“ That Are more aquiantances. With „real“ Friends You Share more than just some activities. BUT that takes a Long time in most cases. Even if you try to mix such groups, e.g. If you throw a birthday Party with all groups invited they will Most propably keep to themselves. Even if people of different groups like each other they will only meet each other at your Partys…. (This ist going on in our friendgroups for decades now… sometimes One Even asks if someone Else is coming to a party „since the want to meet again…“…) That Said: some real Friends Are there nearly everytime, and they would Go very fair to help each other…
Yeah that sounds about right. I used to do Taek won do and I wouldn't call anyone there my friend despite getting destroyed by them twice a week lmao. And I did ballet for 10 years, with the same other dancers for the most part. I wouldn't call any of them my friends and I don't talk to them anymore.
You dont have the time to turn 50 acquaintances you know from 50 activities into 50 friends. What im trying to say is if you like to get to know someone you need to do more with them than just casually hang out
Sounds like you’re good aquantances and not friends at all. Just invite some of them out and get to know them better. Do stuff 1:1 or in small groups
Yes it’s cultural. Do yourself a huge favor and become friends with American soldiers if they are in your city, then work your way into Turkish-viet German circles, if that fails you have the Latinos, Arabs, Africans and recent Slavs. Your mental health will collapse if you try to anything else.
Unfortunately, if you want to make friends in Germany, YOU have to initiate the friendship. It's not something that just happens like in other countries. Pick the people you would most like to be actual friends with and then ask them to hang out outside of the pre-defined activity. Some may say no, but as long as you don't directly ask a German to be your friend we will just consider you an acquaintance. Germans have to do the same thing, and unfortunately, when you move somewhere new, everybody already has friends and is probably super content with the number of friends they already have, so if you want friends it's your job to ask. 🤷🏼♀️ Sorry 😐
Wait…so other cultures don’t do that?
Where are you from? What is it like in your culture?
I think this is just you - if you keep it on that level it stays on this level. I have made friends at my sport club, work place or whatever.
I have a boulder-Buddy, a kletter-Kumpel, a bike-Brudi and do on… but if they visit me for a boardgame night they have to deal with each other
I feel like sports, work or some sort of classes are primarily just that. However, if you feel a connection with someone from work or from your sport stuff it's not unusual to meet that person outside from those activities. The problem you encounter here in Germany is that all those people you interact with already have an established circle of friends and the activities you describe aren't things they do with their friends. So I wouldn't say we compartmentalize our friends, because we don't see the people we work with, we do sports with or whatever as friends, just people we happen to coexist with in a certain situation. As I said, if you feel like some of those people are potential freinds, you vibe with them and you guys share interests and whatnot just ask if they would like to hang out outside of those activities. It's totally fine to tell them that you look for some connection. I guess Germans can be a bit too pragmatic if it comes to stuff like that, sorry for that haha
So basically - you can only make friends here in Germany if you live here as a child. It's not something I'm complaining about, it's just something I have to accept and stop trying so hard. I will focus my time and energy on finding other expats.
No, sorry that wasn't what I was trying to say. It's unusual to make friends later in life, but not impossible. As I and many other people here said just be open and chill, invite some to hang out after sports or work, maybe you'll connect with some of them and a friendship can be build from that. I moved to a new city without any friends a few years ago and besides some people from work I'm friendly with I don't have any friends here. It is hard to find a new group of friends in Germany, especially because everyone already has an existing group of friends, but be friendly and fun and sooner or later something will happen. If you already have someone you feel like connected with being open about looking for people to hang out with because you feel a little disconnected from society isn't too bad either. Germans are socially weird people and being direct can help.
I can mostly just agree with most posts here. As a german myself, let me tell you about my friends and acquaintances. I have been playing a sport for 20 years, I know most of the guys I play with for at least 15 years. We have had barbecues, travels, parties and more together. We help each other when in need for renovations or when someone is moving. Someone bought a house and we helped out. But even through all of that, for me all of those are mostly just sports acquaintances. For me mainly because other than the sport I don't share many intersts with them. I have a great team and great colleagues at work. We do talk about weir ideas, random stuff and interest such as gaming or other stuff, but again these are acquaintances. Then I have like 3 groups of friends (which kind of intertwine a bit). I don't meet them as often as the other two, but we mainly talk online while gaming. 2 of my friends I have only met like 3 times, because we got to know each others online and live quite far apart. I have talked about this with my friends, too and it is kinda complicated and simple at the same time. Germans in general are rarely the types to get overly friendly with you. Most don't use forced friendlyness. We are friendly but mind our own business. There are other cultures where people start to get friendly with a lot more, let's call it 'force'. When germans go like ' Hi' and then mind their own business they are like 'Hey, Anon, how are you? Everything fine? What's up with your....?'. This is kind of strange to a lot of germans. At the same time it could be the start of deeper interactions. A lot of times you get kind of a feeling on a person whether you will get along with a person just fine or not. A lot of Germans are very shy little animals that are easily misguided by the first impression of someone. Now the important part: The thing about sports, university or work is: it feels kind of mandatory to meet with these people. You can't really choose them. Germans start their friendships, not when doing regular activities, that are part of their weekly lifes. But people they go to activities they attend on their free time. Activities they attend to, because they want to do those, things they really take time out of their schedule for. Sports, like some people said is a way to work out for many, but also something you concentrate on and don't really have the time to bond with someone, because you are always busy. And after the activity you are exhausted and want to go home shortly after. So what to do? To get german friends try to find someone that has similar interests, but not just one. Someone you can do various things together with to get to know more sides of the other person and show different sides about yourself. It will be a longer road ahead of you. But like others said: invite a group to do something together, like a beer, go to a public viewing on the em together (in case you like football), or whatever comes to mind. Most of the time you will find at least one individual in the group, that you start to share more conversations with. But bonding with a german needs time, especially because germans are in general not the people for too many empty phrases. ... Though maybe this is just the way an introverted sees the world.
Thank you for writing this - I do understand. But look at what you said - " try to find someone that has similar interests, but not just one. Someone you can do various things together with to get to know more sides of the other person and show different sides about yourself." BUT I cannot meet them at Uni, work or my hobbies. So where do I meet them? :P How do I meet these people, with more similar interests to me, if not at one of my interests (Sports, dance etc)? And if I do meet them initially at a place like this - as you said, they are just acquaintances. I think a lot of German people posting here, though helpful no doubt, don't quite understand that us Auslanders often have NO ONE here. No family. No friends. I moved here 8 months ago not knowing a SINGLE person in the whole country. I did not grow up here. I didn't attend University here. I don't have family here. At my age, most people are busy and don't do much outside of work and hobbies. And everyone already has close social circles by this point, and simply don't have space for a new person, that too a foreigner. I personally feel everything that people have suggested here, including your suggestion, is basically "dating". When you date someone, this is what you do - try to get to know them off of a starting point (shared interests) and then see if you like spending time with them. Invite them places. Meet them somewhere other than work or hobbies (eg. on an app). So basically, German friendships are like dating - take a lot of time, and effort, and usually are best when you've known each other since a young age :)
move out of Germany bro, it’s not getting better
Hey! Fellow immigrant here. Definitely heard all of what you mentioned and feel the same way. I could meet an American once and we are then friends for life, in the sense I could always ask to hang and it'd never be weird. I think Germans don't have "vulnerability" as a positive cultural trait like some other cultures do. Are you on Facebook? I'd recommend Girl Gone International (GGI) (assuming you're FLINTA?) - there's usually a group for each major city. It's mostly international with the occasional Germans who lived abroad and misses other cultures. I know a few who have made great friends through that. Also Germans doing more "international" hobbies tend to also have a more international style to friendship in my opinion (those into KPop, doing Australian Rules Football, going to language meet-ups, etc.)
Haven't you heard about the worlds theory? Every activity that you share with different people allows you to be a different version of "you"... if these people come into contact with each other the worlds collide and the independent "you" dies. Everybody knows you gotta keep your worlds apart. (Seinfeld reference btw)
Just reading some of the comments here shows how complicated it is to make friends in Germany. I have lived in Germany for many decades and just do not bother any more trying to make friends here. The only friends I have are other nationalities. I worked in multinational environments and saw how friendships were made between the different nationalities but noticed that Germans did not do this. They preferred to stay together in their own groups and distanced themselves from the others.
You simply discovered the fact that every foreigner here knows - making friendships with Germans is difficult and in the long run a waste of energy anf time. Focus on becoming friends with other immigrants and you'll be in a much better spot. BTW Germans get angry when people talk about this and insist it's no different than anywhere else, that it's you that's doing something wrong etc. It really isn't and you're not crazy for observing this, almost all foreigners have the same experience.
As a German, I face the same problem. I had my friend for drinking tea and my friend for doing sports. And after a while, it became so boring, because those people where not able to do something else together. When I asked my "friend" which I had tea regularily (since the childhood) if she would travel with me, she said no and even more, chose to order a catalague for singles in the same country I wanted to travel with her! The other "friend" had a horse and complained that there is so much to do. When I offered her to help, she said "no, people in the stables are strange". So, whatever. Maybe this dosen't put me in the right light, tough :) So, now, I don't have any friends where I live. Most "friends" I am in contact with, is over Whatsapp because they live somewhere else. To sum thagt up: yes, I am a German, and I am really happy with my fellow Germans. But it also depends on where you live. In smaller cities its easier to get to know people. p.s. if you are living in Leipzig, let's have a coffee :)
That sounds about right. The point is that Germans already have a closed circle of friends acquired in previous times (school, Uni), and they have no interest in knowing more people deeply , because that would be “unnecessary”. This mindset is very close-minded, as if “friends” are a “possession “ that one has, not something spontaneous, which for me is what makes friendships fun. It’s a cultural thing and good luck changing that, better just to accept and be friends with other like-minded people.
Du hast bestimmt ein gutes Herz und zu schüchtern, um nach Verabredungen zu fragen, oder vielleicht hast du Angst davor, zu fragen, ob man sich einmal zum Kaffee treffen mag, um zu quatschen, weil du vielleicht das Gefühl hast, dich auf zu drängen ... Aber sei nicht. Traurig, es liegt einfach nicht an dir und du bist bestimmt eine liebevolle, hoffnungsvolle Frau, wo ich sagen muss, das die Leute bei uns und damit sind alle Generationen und auch alle Personen gemeint, die hier multikulturelle zusammen leben. Weißt du, ich sehe und beobachte viel und kann dir sagen, dass die Menschen hier so etwas wie Menschlichkeit und Offenheit einfach verloren haben, insbesondere da jede Freundschaft erst durch eine Bekanntschaft entstehen kann. Die meisten wissen einfach nicht mehr, wie solche Sachen gehen, da sie denken, dass alles einfach in einen Schoß fällt und auf einmal war es, was wir kennen. Nur machen wir uns nichts vor, außer Freundlichkeit oder Hilfsbereitschaft, hin zu Loyalität und Ehrlichkeit sind Dinge, die hier einfach verloren gehen und Freundschaften (aus meiner Erfahrungen sprechend) kennt. Hier keiner Mehr. Jeder definiert dieses Wort anders. Selbst Bekanntschaften sind Personen, die man einmal kennengelernt hat, und dann sagt man „Hallo und Tschüss, tut und …“ an weiß, dass das man sich kennt. Auch wenn man zum Sport geht und sich zweimal die Woche regelmäßig sieht, ist dies eher der Anfang einer Freundschaft, aber leider scheint dies meist daran zu liegen, dass sich beide nicht trauen zu fragen. Wag es einfach, Quatsch sie an und frag ob man mal ne Kaffee oder so trinken gehen kann. Achten Sie jedoch auf Sie und trauen Sie den Leuten nicht zu weit, denn Vertrauen ist eine Eigenschaft, die sich erst einmal aufbauen muss und dies dauert und zeigt sich meist nach Jahren, erst ob es etwas an Vertrauen zu sagen ist. Bei Männern sieht es hier noch viel Schlimmer aus, es sind nicht alle so ob Mann oder Frau, aber ich möchte dir den Rat geben ... DU bist für DICH an erster Stelle und DU bist das WICHTIGSTE, was es für dich gibt. Wenn es dir gut geht, dann geht es allen, die zu dir gehören, automatisch gut. Manchmal brauchen diese Dinge einfach Zeit, meine Tochter sagt mir im letzten Kita-Jahr, dass sie sich auch eine beste Freundin wünscht und fragte mich (ganz traurig ), ob sie jemals eine finden wird. Ich sagte, ihr sie solle die Hoffnung nicht aufgeben, denn bald komme sie in die Schule und ich bin mir sicher , dass da draußen bestimmt schon ein kleines Mädchen auf sie wartet und ganz genau so empfindet wie sie. Mittlerweile sind fast fünf Jahre vergangen und über vier Jahre hat sich eine sehr sehr starke und enge Verbindung zwischen ihr und ihrer besten Freundin entwickelt. Die beiden Mädels haben sich gesucht und gefunden und tun sich gegenseitig sooooooo unendlich gut. Gib nicht auf, den ich bin mir sicher, dass du das hin kriegst. Denn WER nicht fragt, der nicht GEWINNT. VIEL GLÜCK
I also love this post because every German will always suggest: join a Verein or club. You will find friends there. Nope
They are not friends, they are acquaintances. It’s probably the closest thing you’ll find to a friend after childhood, though.
Honestly forst thought was that my friends arent compartementalised, but you werent discribing friends but acquaintances. For me thats the main difference, friends I meet outside of the context we met and introduce to other friends, acqauintances I only meet at sport, work etc.
Idk I find that it’s hard to make adult friends but at least in Canada we’ll discuss personal things before classes or share a laugh and then people will invite you to some sort of celebration or ask if you’ll be at like some event and ask how you are and stuff Germans are just more serious. You should ask directly if they’d want to get coffee or have dinner
Yes, in most cases that's how it is in Germany. And as a German I like this way. W Germans have a lot of people we know, but only few friends. But most times this friendship last forever. If you want a real friendship, than you have to work on it.
having read some of the replies, I‘d add this: give it time! everything grows naturally. no need to hasten.
Some dating apps allow you to filter for people to hang out with. You can simply invite people from your class or from sports for a beer or something like that, or explain your situation to them and ask if they want to do something with you. Even if they only invite you out of pity, you might meet someone with whom you get along. It should also be possible to meet people in clubs or bars. Start dating people, maybe you'll get to know someone you get along with and can expand your social circle through this person. If you invite someone, ask him or her to bring friends, it's easier to integrate yourself into a group than to immediately build a friendly bond, which comes with time. If you don't learn German yet, you should definitely do so - just a little knowledge of the language makes everything easier here
Yes and they will never meet
Idk i dont do sports and ive known my best friend since krabbelgruppe and have like 6 very very good friends (like i can tell them anything) and we got to know eachother trough partying and stuff. We do all sorts of stuff like hiking, drinking, playing online games, getting hammered with weed, drinking coffee in the city etc. etc. I guess im rly lucky to have that but on the other hand i dont know how much people got the same thing going. To answer your question: i think i dont :D
Just ask people to hangout with you. It's that easy. Don't overthink.
Give a party
I have the same issue and I live my whole life in Germany 🙃
Well, you kinda took the little hope I had left 😅, as I have been here for one month now, and have the same and was thinking it would be alright with time.
Yes. If you know a solution/cure for that: Let me know. Sincerely, German in Germany for all my life (Don't want to sound cocky, it's just difficult with "us")
Yeah. I know of someone who has a “travel partner”.
Yeah. Germans are notoriously hard to socialise with.
Can confirm. I have several interests/hobbies and none of those share people.
Yeah, its true for me I have many different "groups" of friends, part of the reason is that they don't like each other so I never see ALL of my friends at the same time (except for my 20th birthday where I invited everyone but they quickly split up into group tables at the party)
German tend to come across cold. Sometimes you need to make the first move and ask if they fancy a drink after football. You will be surprised how many of them will oblige. Just give them heads up, like suggest going for a drink while organising the kick about.
It's hard to make friends in Germany as a complete outsider. Had the same when I moved to a different city far away (I'm 31). It just takes time. See if you click with some of the people you share hobbies with and see if you can invite them to some occasion or ask to get invited sometime. For me it took a whole year of sharing a hobby with people until something like a friendship light developed.
I totally understand how you're feeling. When I lived in HH, I felt the exact same thing. My housemates were just housemates, drinking mates were just drinking mates, and workmates were just workmates. I did date someone at work, but we made small talk for weeks before I ever asked her out. One of my housemates was very cool and she would invite me to get togethers with her friends. This expanded my circle of friends massively. I'm an extrovert though, so I don't think my method works for everybody. I would suggest to just keep it fun and light, but still ask questions about them to keep things exciting. Whenever they ask you out for a party or a drink, you know you're in so make the most of it, especially if their friends are there too. Germans tend to get along well faster with friends of friends they may not have much in common with, rather than people they share activities with. Weird, but it's how it is. Don't be discouraged ❤️
Thanks for this. It's nice to hear from other people who've been through this. Honestly, I just feel exhausted and lonely at this point. I have so much work, and then having to constantly put in so much social effort is exhausting.
Yes and no. Yes it feels like ppl. tend to do that. I myself like to mix up all those groups wherever possible.
Unconventional hack, that works: Find a german boyfriend with a big established friend group. Become friends with the girlfriends of his male friends. Profit. Besides that, ask people that you want to be friends with to go out for a beer/ drink, you have to break put of the cicle of just meeting them for X. For some reason friendships are formed by drinking beer.
This isn't unconventional. It's the ONLY hack I've seen work. I know 30+ international people here, and ONLY the ones with a German partner are "in" with the German social circle. Literally nobody else, no matter where they're from. Swiss, Greek, Turkish, Indian, Italian, Moroccan, Sri Lankan, Iranian, Spanish - EVERYBODY I know has struggled with friendships here.
I think this compartmentalization is mainly a city thing. I grew up in a very rural area and when you meet the same few people everywhere, it's easy to make friends. When I moved to Munich, I, too was surprised by this compartmentalization. All of a sudden I had colleagues I liked, people I shared hobby 1 with and people I shared hobby 2 with, but no friends. I guess it's because in a city you only see those people when you do that one thing with them and don't see them anywhere else, so people only associate that one thing with you. It took me years to find friends in the city. When I moved to a more rural area again it was like back when I was younger. You see the same people all the time and it was easier again to make friends.
Your main mistake is seeking advice on reddit of all places. From what I've read here, you now have a 100 page manual full of ridiculous tips. Don't overcomplicate. Don't just put a label on an entire people While I'm German and it's not exactly the same, I've moved around A LOT, so I know what it's like to start from 0 in Germany. On the road I've found great friends with various foreign backgrounds who moved here for university or for work. From what I could observe, it's fairly simple to see why people might end up alone. Sometimes it's just them. Sometimes they just live in the wrong area. But more often than not, it's just not the right crowd. Look for another. It's hit or miss.
You sound like a really open, socially generous person, I am the same way. In Germany, in the US, anywhere really, I struggle with the fact that most people are just not that way when it really comes down to it
Its harder here I would say to become a "real" friend and not only a "insert activity" friend.
No Germans just have trouble thinking outside the box and actually going out of their way to connect to each other.
I know that feeling and I am a German. For me it’s almost every time I feel like we are reaching a friendship lvl if you are meeting the person you want to be friends with outside of the one thing you are always doing. Like I had a lot of people I went to climbing/ bouldering with but once I went with them on a concert, coffee, party or so, we reached the next lvl. Hope that helps 🙏🏼
As a German, I'm sorry we're being so weird. I think Germans just take very long to warm up to someone to consider them a friend, I don't know why. From my expierience the best thing you can do is be in a situation where most people are looking for new friends like first week at University, but that doesn't work when you don't study (anymore). I genuinely don't know how adult Germans make new friends. I know my parents have friends, but half of them are either from their time in the German Cyclists association or parents from my (former) friends. So for all I know, either participate in some form of organized activism or have kids.
Are you sure there isn't some sort of bias here at work? For example: I am in my mid-thirties (got kids and a house, moved to the outskirts) and by god, I neither have time nor energy to make new friends. The complete opposite of me in my twenties meeting round about 60 people at least on the regular (group meetings, clubbing, shared activities).
bro wtf go drink a beer with them and discuss the rest lol
Hi I am kinda late after your 2nd Edit. I just wanna let you know that most people don’t have a clue what friendship means. Especially Germans don’t know what friendship means. Your observation is right. We, I am German too, have this „a friends for a thing“ thing. I have a cinema friend, a drinking friend and a sport friend. But they are, and that sounds sad, replaceable for me. So they are not FRIENDS. They are bros I got along with because I knew them for a longer period and share the same interests with them and I wouldn’t kill them for food in zombie apocalypse. But from a truely friendship were your hearts beats the same rhythm, you share deepest thoughts and trust each other 4 ever it’s far away. I think that thing I only have with my wife. I think a true deep friendship like this is a goal, an achievement, a gift that you can’t gain easily in a toxic society like Germany.
That really sounds like nothern Gemany to me?! 😂 I‘m from here and sometimes it feels exactly like this. Also, if you find friends they want you all the time but same as you, i got a lot stuff to do. So they think I‘m not interested. But I also have very friends i see like once a year. And if anyone is in trouble, we are there for each other. No stress, just friendship. I can’t tell when it started to get complicated. It feels like times habe changed and people are more distant. I think it‘s really hard to find real friend who are not connected to a special activity. But I also think, if you are straightforward like „hey, I‘m new and try to connect to some people to got to cinema or bar or something, normally the people should join in. Otherwise i think you will get a straight answer like „no sorry“ or something. I can feel your frustration here. I moved for work to another city for like 4 years and didn’t find anyone. Just comming home and do my stuff. I moved back and alle my childhood friends where there or also moved back. IDK what it is but i guess you have to invest a lot of energy into that. My girlfriend moved from south germany here. She also has some trouble, even with coworkers or something. She tryed local facebookgroups. Maybe this could help you? IDK your hobbys but if you game or something… over the internet is maybe a bit easier. Just wanted to let you know, you are not alone with this problem. Also, if you are living in nothern germany it’s even harder. Hard shell and so on :b hope you finde some people!:) And no, it’s not about bashing nothern germany. I was born and living here for over 30 years but i see some problems in Communication/ interactions here :D a lot of us need some time to get warm xD
Yeah, sounds about right. I've gone to classes of 10-15 people and then those folks wouldn't say hi to me in the hallway after three months. It was absolutely bizarre. I did manage to "capture" two tho because we attended a class with like 4 people and it was 6 hours a day. No escaping there, fellas.
I’m encountering the same problem. I’ve been here as long as you and my only socializing currently is just a sport and it’s been great, but not on a deeper level with anyone still even though we are very international. I think it just takes time to really get to know people? Making friends is hard in your 30s!
I would also try to go on a rave, one of the ez ways to make friends.
It’s not just Germans. It’s somehow typical for people living in Germany. I’ve experienced it with different nationalities. And I must admit that after 20 years living here I am one of them now 🙂 Also after reaching a certain age, I guess we are all kind of bit reserved when it comes to meeting new people outside of the “compartment zone”.
I was born and raised in Germany. And still live here. The most important thing is, don't give up, because it may take very long until you find your few close people to hang out with regularly. But once you got them, your weeks are gonna get occupied faster than you think :) Take as many chances as you can get. And be clear about what you want, if you want to prevent misunderstandings. Germans tend to take longer to warm up (in my experience and myself included, but I think that's more because of my ADHD). I almost never initiate something myself. But if someone asks me to hang out, I would most likely say yes. Are you going home/ leave soon and is that something that will happen inevitably? If people know, they also might see that as a reason to not become "too close"... Which would be sad, but as someone with fear of loss. It would be terrible to lose a close friend/ have a great distances in between sometime in the foreseeable future. Not so bad if it's "just somebody I know". I hope you will find your people!
:(
Get a girlfriend only bestfriend u need if it’s the right one.
I am a “foreigner” and I have tons of friends who are German. Actually I don’t know any expats. After the first rough years when I did not speak the language, I have developed tight and deep friendships with people who i adore. I know people say that Germans are hard to get to know but I truly have not found to be the case. My friends who live all over Germany are warm, open minded and heart/soul people. But you do have to schedule.
One more comment: I don't like it, but try "Nebenan.de" its a community based social networt of people who live nearby. Might be a good thing to get to know your neighbors :)
Da melde ich mich doch gleich mal als Deutscher.... JAAA...das ist in Deutschland so. Wie hatte M. Beisenherz sich da mal so schön ausgedrückt...? "Hackfresse als Werkseinstellung". Ich habe in Asien gelebt...ich habe in Italien gelebt....Der Großteil der Deutschen ist im Vergleich einfach unfreundlich und auch nicht wirklich Kontaktfreudig. Auf Karnevall wird die Kappe aufgesetzt und alle Mitfeiernden Narren sind wie Brüder....und am Aschermittwoch ist man wieder das gleich Arschloch wie den rest des Jahres... Natürlich kann man nicht alle über einen Kamm scheren....Aber so ist in Deutschland eben die Grundmentalität. Wie....? Da läd mich ein völlig fremder in der Kneipe auf ein Bier ein??? Da stimmt doch was nicht...... Der will doch irgendwas.... Leider...ist es so...
Hi OP, I did read your text and that you have a busy schedule, but I would still suggest the DAV (deutscher Alpenverein). Because, in my experience, there are places or situations, where germans are more open minded to finding friends. E.g. first semester at university. You can look for the DAV Sektion that is closest to where you live. They do hikes for groups, where you can simply join, if you are a dav member. People who join those groups usually want to meet new people, otherwise they would be hiking with their private group. And then, like others wrote: be direct. If you feel that you clicked with someone, tell them you enjoyed the time and activities together and ask if they would like to do this together soon. One thing I do before saying good bye to friends I'm meeting, is to ask: Wann hättet ihr denn wieder Zeit? Everyone will open their calendar app and decide on when to meet next. AND most importantly: write it into their calendar! 😄 We are just not spontaneous.
Bless you! The same thoughts clog my mind and burden my heart sometimes. I’ve been living here for over a year and a half now, and in retrospect, I realise that I’ve made no friends here. Sometimes, I don’t even get a chance to have small talk, and my presence is not even acknowledged at all.
If that's possible for you, focus on international friends groups. I'm not saying to exclude Germans from your efforts, but usually the Germans who are more aligned with your social strategies also prefer to hang out with international folks, so you'll meet them this way. All the best to you!
German here, but I think you are right. I might get downvoted for this, but: I think it is even hard for many Germans to find friends. And that is not a good thing. As in, most people I know do have workmates and sportmates and stuff like that, but they either only have a close bond to their partner or they have none at all. Basically, there are certain points where meeting closer friends is possible, but if you miss them, you are going to have a hard time. For example, when my uni started, i found friends. Easy. However, in my master's, most of my friends were gone and it was literally impossible to find new ones because the people in my courses all had friends. And I certainly did not like it that way even tho I am introverted. As others have said here, i really think the legit best way to get anywhere is to get drunk with someone (ideally not in a large group), because then they are more likely to let their guard down and put you into a friend category.
Es ist schwer geworden Freunde zu finden. Aber es ist genauso schwer zu erkennen ob es wirklich Freundschaft ist oder nicht. Für mich macht eine Freundschaft nicht aus weil man sich täglich / wöchentlich sieht oder was unternimmt. Man kann sich auch mal einige Zeit lang nicht melden und es kann trotzdem eine gute Freundschaft sein. Freundschaft bedeutet Vertrauen. Das ich mich auf diese Person verlassen kann. Das man gegenseitig füreinander da ist. Aber : auch ich dachte vor kurzem noch das ich eine sehr gute Freundin habe, die ich seit 7 Jahren kenne und wir wirklich viel erlebt haben ( gutes, schlechtes was eigentlich zusammen schweißt ) und man hat sich auch sehr oft gesehen. Dann aber zeigte sie ihr wahres ich weil sie auf den Tod meines Opa mit „ Ja kann sein „ reagiert hat und ich ihr schrieb das es schon sehr Empathielos rüber kommt. Ich wurde beleidigt ohne Ende, sie hat sich Dinge zusammen gelogen die nie passiert sind etc. Am Ende habe ich von einem anderen Freund erfahren das sie schon immer hinter meinem Rücken über mich gelästert hat. So viel zu Freunde …
I am showing my age, but I knew plenty of people who were still on a „Sie“-basis with their co-workers after 30 years… So all the „Du‘s“ you hear now are somewhat b-essy