*delete as applicable
I blame my mother for instilling it into me as a child. You go shopping (and I imagine as a child it would have been to Marks and Spencers and then for lunch at Fenwicks), and when you walk into or leave the shop you open the door, walk through it, then (and here’s the tricky part), if someone is behind you, hold the door open for them. Sometimes they’ll even thank you. It doesn’t happen very much in Germany; in fact it’s one of those little things that marks me out as being a foreigner. I’m sure there’s a Second World War film with a title like “Escape From Luft Stalag K” (where the K stands for Klischee), in which an escaping POW holds open the door of a bakery for a little old German lady, who promptly informs the Gestapo about the suspicious behaviour.
So it was that when leaving Crabtree & Evelyn (truly a temple of tweeness – but one can never have too many shortbread scented candles), that I naturally, but naturally, held the door open for the young lady following me. With her short hair, aggressively masculine clothes and sensible shoes I would once have said that she fit the lesbian stereotype – however I’ve long realised that in every film featuring lesbians that I’ve ever seen, they’ve always had lustrous, flowing hair, worn strappy high-heeled shoes and (for the first couple of minutes at least) seductively feminine clothing. And did the young lady thank me? Well, actually she launched into a torrent of verbal abuse, shouting that she was strong enough as a woman to open the door herself, that I would not get her into bed by treating her as an object and lots of other strange things. I tried to explain to her that I would have held the door open for anyone following me, male or female (at this point I was actually worried that I might have done something wrong, and much to my later chagrin didn’t add “and it would have been bloody difficult to tell with you anyway”). Upon hearing that I spoke German with an accent she started to speak scream in profanity-laden English. I am, apparently, “a fucking arrogant American neo-imperialist bastard”. Which was enough to convince me that it was time to let the door close on her and walk away wondering how the hell someone was perceptive enough to deduce that I am indeed an arrogant neo-imperialist bastard, and yet still not be able work out that I’m English, not American?
German Phrase For Today: “Überreagieren” - Just a little bit
Song playing as this was published: Kasabia “Running Battle”
What a small world!!!, My former lab partner has now, evidently, turned up in Germany and is now accosting you. I thought she was Norwegian though. Maybe she moved. My feelings are a bit hurt, I thought I was the only” fucking arrogant American neo-imperialist bastard”. I’m not kidding, she hated everything in my little country that you could think of but yet she stayed here for 2 years. I did once stand in the doorway of Kaufhof am Marienplatz - holding the door open - waiting for the next person to grab it - for several minutes - before finally realizing that everyone assumed I worked there.
820: Actually, that’s the second time a woman here has had a go at me for holding a door open for her, as if I was somehow belittling the entire womens’ rights movement or something similar. It was just very, very peculiar….
I take it that she’s added you to her Christmas card list, right?
David: It was bizarre. I didn’t say anything to her, I wasn’t wearing a t-shirt that said “Do the ironing, bitch!” I literally just held the door open for her and she started shouting at me. I can only presume the shop had discontinued her favourite line of bath salts or something to have upset her so…
Well, if it makes you feel any better, a number of times I’ve been assumed to be English by Germans hearing my accent for the first time. (On second thought, that probably doesn’t make you feel any better at all.)
Shortbread scented candles? From Crabtree and Evelyn?? Are you a man?!? Or a mollusc?
I don’t know what porn films you’re watching, all the women in the French TV porn on M6 on Sunday nights keep their heels on during the sex. I guess it’s required, because they all seem to NEED to scratch their lover’s bottom and the backs of his thighs up while their legs are wrapped around him.. I’ve noticed that the French just don’t have sex without it being accompanied with some mild S&M, like animalesque clawing or biting, at the very least a bit of spanking.
Excuse me, I’ve just come over all dizzy and may have to go and take a lie down…
Some people see insults where none are intended. I too hold the door for the person behind me and will continue to do so until the day I die, despite militant feminists.
I’m also a habitual door opener too; a one-time colleague of mine used to refuse to come through it, though we were ‘friends’, “I am capable of opening it myself, thank you.” It just became pathetic really, and a waste of my time listening to this time and time again, so I started letting it swing back for her. She never complained again, though she did come close to being smacked in the face a couple of times. Things like that infuriate me even more in hindsight, because of all the things I could have said!
Poor woman, really armer Mensch.In-Act, go on holding the door, though, I hate people who practically slam the door against my dear little nose. Next time you such poor women who start attacking you, just leave: never engage a battle with the insane.
The Germans sense of politeness is formal and not personal. They love their formal Bitte & Danke, but being nice to their fellow human beings - no chance. As for Lesbians - Porno ones rock - real ones are just butch dogs with bad attitude.
AF,
Don’t even think twice about this twit. If I am not too much lost in thought I hold doors open as well. I am doing this since years and nobody has complained so far. It seems you are a magnet for sociopaths these days. Maybe it’s the shortbread-scented candles that attracts them.
Keep up your good manners and help us changing Germany one bit at a time. After you successfully taught polite behaviour, please help spreading the word about the culinary delicacy known as lemon curd. Thanks.
I leave such a sheltered life out here in the country. I’ve held the door open for women and have gotten nothing but nice smiles and Danke-schön’s in return.
It’s too bad you didn’t bring in the police, though. I’m sure you could have had her brought up on charges of insulting you public here in Germany. But a better strategy might have been to ask her what exactly she meant by American: Canadian, Brazilian or Honduran
Scott: Normally I’d act hurt and shocked, but I think it’s a matter of expectation - I live in a suburb with 6,000 US service personel and their dependants. The only other English person I know here is my ex-girlfriend - and she gets written off as being not even a native English speaker anyway due to looking too Indian. That said, althoough I speak grammatically correct German, it’s with an awfully strong English accent to mistake for American.
Easy Jetsetter: Mollusc. Definetly mollusc. Okay, okay I didn’t buy shortbread scented candles (although I’m sure they sell them). It is however a wonderful store to buy presents for female anglophiles. You have to be careful though - lot of the stuff is so over the top that you can only give it as a joke “look how tacky this is” gift.
As for late night tv - you’re right, they do keep their shoes on. I wonder why? Aesthetic value or to inflict mild pain? Hmm. I must ponder that question at some length…. Further research is called for.
Blinger, Stairs, JCS: I absolutely refuse to stop doing it. It’s probably so deeeply engrained that I couldn’t anyway. In fact, my general method of argument revolves around being calm and a bit camped-up and over-polite. If someone is shouting at you and really losing it, nothing riles them up more than to act serenely as if nothing is a big deal (which is, in fact, normally the case). The woman on Saturday started off as a deranged, screaming harpy though - and then got worse…..
haddock: I’m trying desperately hard not to use the sentence “some of my best friends are lesbians”, but, too late now…..
Admittedly, that small subset of my friends do not look like the ladies on late-night tv. That said, when I was in hospital for 10 days at the end of January, they all came to visit me everyday. It was pretty obvious they’d just come to ogle the nurses though…
Karl: It’s only happened twice (or possibly 3 times) in 9 years here and often (especially in the countryside) people are overtly thankful for exactly the same act, hear my English accent when I say “nichts zu danken” and start to talk about how wonderfully polite we all are. Saturday’s experience was weird because she immediately started shouting at me, I didn’t say anything to her, it didn’t build gradually - it was absolutely bizarre. I really thought I must have done something else wrong (killed her first-born, say); she couldn’t possibly have been so upset just because I held a door open for her. After she started swearing in English (okay, let’s be honest, after she accused me of being American), I just walked away, thinking how dull the world would be if it wasn’t for the insane….
Well, frankly, nobody looks like people on TV. It’s not just lesbians.
AF: Definitely a mild pain thing.
Das wird doch nicht diesselbe Dame sein, die mir mal in Leipzig an der Uni begegnet ist? Die Szene: eine schwere Mensatür aus Metall mit einem ziemlich rabiaten Türschliesser. Ich mache auf, gehe durch und halte die Tür für eine Studentin hinter mir offen. Die prompt folgende radikalfemistische Hasstirade, was ich chauvinistischer Macho mir einbilden würde, hat mich dermaßen verblüfft, daß ich die Tür schliesslich einfach losgelassen habe.
Es kam zu einer kurzen Konfliktsituation zwischen Tür (wollte sich schliessen) und Damenkopf (wollte passieren). Die Tür hat sich energisch und effektiv durchgesetzt und damit auch die Tirade abrupt beendet.
Manchmal, aber leider nur manchmal tut Dummheit tatsächlich weh. Klarer Fall von selbst dran schuld.
Stephan: Erschreckend wie es klingt, aber ich glaube, es war nicht unbedingt dieselbe Frau. Sprich - es gibt nicht nur eine!
Ich finde es immer sehr merkwürdig - fast jeder habe die Litaneien über weibliche Benachteiligung gehört, aber wenn es etwa um die kürzere Lebenserwartung für Männer geht, ihr Einsatz bei gefährlicheren, härteren und schmutzigeren Jobs, ihr größeres Risiko, das Opfer von Gewalttaten oder von Arbeitsunfällen zu werden, ihre Verwendung als Verfügungsmasse im Krieg, ihre Benachteiligung in der Justizsystem usw. hört man nicht so viel.
Das alles macht mir in diesem Fall gar nichts aus - ich halte einfach Türe offen, und zwar für Männer und Frauen.
Please. people! Where do you live? Where do you go? I am german, lived in Germany for most of my life and yes, we are considered to be impolite and rude, although I strongly object to this kind of prejudice. I hold open the door for people following me, noone has ever screamed at me for this, and other people hold open doors for me to. Except for the occasional idiot who has no manners, but those are definitely found not only in Germany. Manners, good manners are not an exclusive trademark of the English or American per se.
I can’t say much about the English though, I have never lived there. But I’ve lived in America for a couple of years, and just because a fellow college-mate wrote Nazi-bitch on my door I am not ranting on about how rude Americans are, or how stupid, because they mistake Austria for Australia or ask me if we have already have televison and/or refrigerators in Germany. (I must say the latter really made me crack up).
I also have experienced very well educated Americans with a vast knowledge and very nice Americans. Stupidity and the lack of manners is to be found everywhere … unfortunately. It would be so much easier if it was confined to one spot on the map and you could just go and erase that spot … and who would be better suited for that task than a German, being Nazis and such, right?
OK, I am joking, and I realize its’s not really funny if you follow the thought completely. So don’t. Take it as irony or sarcasm on the fact that prejudices stick longer in peoples heads than “in actual fact”. 
Now, I think you have encountered a very unhappy and angry person that day, and it’s worth a blog entry, and triggers memories of people having had a similar experience, but it’s definitely not a statement to judge upon an entire country, or is it?
And now I have to go beat up that jerk who stopped the elevator for me to get in. Didn’t he know I can easily run up 5 floors? How could he imply I am not fit enough to do this! (joking .. I would never walk up 5 floors to the office, what am I “Iron-Man”?)
Keep up the good blog, it’s fun reading, I am just a wee bit sensitive on the prejudice thing, although I am sure I do have my own. I guess I don’t any person who’s completely free of that nasty thing. Guess we all need to work on that (especially the prejudices we have that we don’t even realize we have). Farethewell
I don’t know about y’all, but I definitely look like someone on TV, even if it is just the evil baby from that show “The Family Guy”. Well, I sound like him at any rate.
Kick the bitch to the kerb and just keep on moving…
damned if you do, damned if you don’t. that is, if one is as unlucky as you, in this case. some would complain if you do not wait for them whereas others take it as an insult if you do act like a gentleman.
We don’t get this sort of late-night TV here in the UK. I was hoping it would be one of the by-products of European integration, but apparently that only applies to weights and measures.
I’ve read that women in the UK are acquiring ‘Baby on Board’ badges to wear when on public transport to help men who are unsure whether they should give up their seat (because the woman is pregnant) or not (because she is just fat). I haven’t seen any, yet. When my partner was pregnant she drove everywhere until she couldn’t reach the steering wheel, at which point she just stopped going out.
Ignorance is everywhere. I tried to hold a door for an elderly woman (obviously struggling with the door and her canes) in Toronto, Canada. She promptly attacked me, trying to whack me with a cane, while screaming at me - I do not know what she was saying, I just moved out of range (and let the door hit her).
germany is cool
Anonymous, well it is today, even in direct sunlight