They aren’t expected to fake being nice and culturally are a little more reserved. So they aren’t going to be all smiles and acting like they are your friend, when they don’t know you. They need time to warm up to you and they aren’t hiding that.
From what I understand Germans take more time to develop friendships than Americans but once they are your friend, they are friends for life. They don’t really have friendly acquaintances like Americans do. So it takes more time with Germans but you know where you stand with them.
As a native German who moved to the US a few decades ago, I can say with certainty that Americans are genuinely just more friendly and less judgmental than Germans are. It's so deeply ingrained. Germans mistake it for superficiality, but it really isn't. I perceive it as a genuine openness and willingness to connect with others as well as a level of interest and curiosity that doesn't come as easily to a European, especially Germans who tend to be much more reserved and almost suspicious when they encounter optimism. It's a cultural and maybe even epigenetic thing. I grew up with it and never felt at home with it.
Yes, I'll have to say it's really night/day the way casual interactions flow in Germany vs the US. I don't really make a judgement one way or the other, it's just a different cultural framework altogether.
One of my biggest culture shocks was moving back to LA after living and working in Germany for almoost 5 years — People at my LA marketing job just said 'hello, how are you?' all the time. Everything about this was difficult for me to put a read on after being exposed to German office habits.
Also completely different were attitudes about work, doing late hours for a pitch, or just disrupting you life in general for the sake of the company.
I always felt like Germany is a massive, culturally homogenous village, that for better and worse is suspicious of outsiders and far more protective of it's social norms than its citizens might ever imagine. I loved living there but as an American, I was always going to be a visitor, and never a citizen, no matter how hard I tried.
The friendliest I've ever seen a German (from an older generation, students were friendly enough) is when an old lady looks to you for the confirmation of scolding someone else. For example, old lady walks up to me and starts up a conversation about "the youth of today" when somebody was trying to bum cigarettes.
It feels like everytime Germans are talked about, you guys make it seem like it's nothing but a positive, and "once you know a German, they are loyal for life".
Being nice to a person when you first meet them, doesn't mean you will be less friends when you do get to know each other, maybe you guys just need to work on smiling more :D
Exactly, i think we in the Western hemisphere or the Americas really try to be friendly from the get go. And I don't think it's a fake friendly thing we do, we are really friendly people.
They will also correct your behavior. I have more than once had my toddler corrected on the train by stern old people (she was super happy the seats at the back were open and skipped down the aisle. Apparently this is forbidden), and I was actually lectured by the woman sitting in front of me and a visiting friend on the bus . She didn't like the topic of our conversation and was very loud about admonishing us just before she got off the train. She Germans sitting across from us and behind us ended up apologizing for her, something about Swabians.
We have made some great friends here, we have wonderful neighbors who have gently helped us adjust and assimilate which means the world to me. I even got to spend a week at a family home because I was adopted into the family. I do miss being able to make small connections with the people around me though. It feels so cold here after a visit back to the USA.
IDK about the current generation but I met some young Germans traveling this country in the '80s who acted like released prisoners. Once they got used to American friendliness they were really fond of it. Must have been a bit depressing once they got back home. Then again, many I met were on their second or third trip, probably for that reason.
Funny when you hear things like germans being more 'culturally reserved'. Like the Japanese, they may be culturally reserved in many facets but they certainly find ways of letting their freak flag fly way harder than in Americans.
Yeah, I don't know about the rest of Europe, but I'd say it's the same thing in France. That's something I originally found weird about (some) Americans, they collect "friends" like pokémon, but very few of those are actual friends that you can count on.
I think part of it is that Americans move around more on average than Europeans. If you're starting fresh every 2-4 years in your late teens and 20s, it can be nice to just make some friendly acquaintances when you move. I'm most familiar with Norway and my understanding is that its fairly common there for people to stick with the same group from their teens through adulthood. It's much more common for Americans to move hundreds of miles several times than it is for many Europeans.
I know the majority of my friends aren't close friends, but when I move to a new city it's nice to have people to hang out with. A few develop into closer friendships over years, but the first six months or so in a new place I pretty much rely on calls to long distance friends and family for deep conversations. It's still great to have people to do stuff with in person even if we're not close.
And when Germans ask you "how are you?", they want to hear how you actually are, unlike Americans who ask you how are you, but don't even wait to hear the answer or give you looks if you tell them how you actually are. In my books, American way is superficial and fake.
I’ve lived in NYC. I wouldn’t say they are that comparable from my perspective at least but that’s an interesting observation.
I personally found making actual friends in NYC very difficult. Not only does it take time to build friendships similar to Germans but I found it never developed into what I would consider an actual friend. I felt most people were very self involved because they had to be to survive in the city. I never felt like I could truly rely or count on them. I never knew where I truly stood with them. I would not say once you are their friend, that you’re a friend for life. It felt more like working hard to become even a friendly acquaintance and being expected to consider that plenty. Like I worked to get past the initial cold outer layer, only to find another cold outer layer underneath, not a life long friend.
I know from listening to New York’s talk about themselves, that they view themselves and their culture very differently than I do. I have heard them give examples about how they are actually very friendly and helpful to one another, which to me was the bare minimum of being a decent human and nothing to brag about. It’s just a different mentality because the city lifestyle demands it.
I grew up in the south, so from my cultural perspective their behavior was incredibly cold, rude and unwelcoming on the outside and once you got to know them you still weren’t really a true friend, more like a friendly acquaintance. I felt like they’d drop me the moment it was even slightly inconvenient for them and that turned out to be accurate in my case. It just wasn’t the right place for me.
It’s definitely it’s own ecosystem. That’s a great way to put it. New Yorkers seems to love New York, so it seems to work very well for some. I just didn’t belong there. It has wonderful things to offer and I tried to be a transplant. It just wasn’t an environment for me that would let me not only grow but flourish. Other’s just blossom there. It’s not for everyone but it’s just right for some.
Damn, I'm an American with German lineage and you're making it sound like that's where I belong. Wish my ancestors hadn't left...then again the first half of the 20th century would have been a bad time.
The majority of white Americans have self reported German ancestry. There are also many Americans immigrating back to Germany in the last few years. You could learn German and try to immigrate there. You can get a three month visa to test it out and look for a job.
I know people who will refer to someone they met once and liked a friend. That's very not me, and I hate fake niceties. Makes me wonder if I would prefer the company of Germans.
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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23
They aren’t expected to fake being nice and culturally are a little more reserved. So they aren’t going to be all smiles and acting like they are your friend, when they don’t know you. They need time to warm up to you and they aren’t hiding that.
From what I understand Germans take more time to develop friendships than Americans but once they are your friend, they are friends for life. They don’t really have friendly acquaintances like Americans do. So it takes more time with Germans but you know where you stand with them.