Stone-Cold German

I am not resenting Germans these days nearly as much as I was in April, I think because my mental health is generally so much better. In fact I’m kind of sad that I have to leave here in just a little over a month. But a tiny little interaction just happened that illustrates the suspicious, stone-faced unfriendliness that was so aptly described on another ex-pat’s blog that I happened across yesterday:

German privacy law forbids the dissemination of photos of people or their property without their consent. It probably also forbids disseminating descriptions of them, too, or mentioning their name out loud or talking about them when they are not there or even to them when they are (not that you would want to, this is all hypothetical) because they might think that you want something from them or that you’re out to get them or something and then that vicious spiral of distrust, fear, loathing and paranoia starts spinning all over and over again and again. And we don’t want that.

I crossed paths just now in the old city with a (quite young) professor in my department and his girlfriend (who is about my age). I’ve never been introduced to her but have seen her often around the department, which is quite small, and recently exchanged a couple words with her about the copy machine. He and I had a little “get to know you” talk when I first got here, have spoken several times in the past couple months about whether or not I was going to take his course; and he’s aware enough of me to have recently reported to my advisor that I didn’t actually take any of his courses this year. So naturally, I said “Hallo” to them as I passed. They both look at me for a second awkwardly as though something slightly untoward has happened and move on without otherwise reacting.

Speaking of this professor, here’s a record (translated into English) of our last conversation, three days ago:

- Professor out of the blue as he passes me in the library: “Frau [Last Name], you should contact John Doe at the University of —–.”

- Me, after thinking a second and looking at him questioningly: “What about?”

- Professor: “He recently published [Title] on [something about grammar].”

- Me, after hemming and hawing a second, with a confused smile: “What are you talking about?” (My German’s not good enough to say things “durch die Blumen” most of the time.)

- Professor: “You emailed me the other day and asked me about ——-.”

- Me: “I haven’t emailed you in a long time.”

- Professor, unmoved and stone-faced: “You emailed me and asked about —— because you recently finished your dissertation.”

- Me: “I haven’t finished my dissertation, and I didn’t email you.”

- Professor, without cracking a smile or otherwise betraying signs of sheepishness, humor or humanity, says: “Then it was another American” and turns around and leaves the room.