06. Notes on Love
it's really different, trust me.
Hi, hello, what’s up?
How have you been? Me – I have been BUSY in all caps. How do you write after writing for work all week? Don’t you just want to get a healthy distance between your laptop screen, the constant tap-tap-tap of your keyboard and your very precious mind? Getting to this point and writing this newsletter has been an exercise in self-motivation. I want nothing better right now than to lie in bed, sip on some decaf Coke Zero and read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. But I must live up to all my big talk and put my work out there and whatnot.
This Friday, I went to an event organized by an international professional women’s community in Hamburg. It was an evening of listening to speakers talk about the fuck ups they had made in their lives and how they overcame those to be successful in their careers.
The only takeaway I had from this event was that 3 out of the 4 speakers moved to Germany to be with their German partners. Now, when you are attending an event to be inspired by exemplary women and their struggles, this shouldn’t be your final takeaway.
But if it is, you wonder why are these women moving to Germany to be with these German dudes (yes, they were all cis men). What is it about them?
Oh well.
As my resident German monopolizes our living room to watch wrestling, let me tell you what’s up with these dudes. Well, at least the one in my house.
Before you say, “Oh so Sanj, you did actually move to Germany for a dude,” nope, I didn’t. I was moving to Germany and then the German happened.
So, what’s the appeal (or not)?
My German comes with a variety of features that are quite useful for my day-to-day. These can’t be generalized. But I would love to assume that maybe the Germans these women have in their homes also had similar qualities.
They are tall, mostly. It’s especially useful in old apartments like mine which are not built to scale for a small Indian girlie like me and so he can put & fetch things from high storage places.
They are very direct. Yes, and that can be very rude sometimes. But most of the time, especially when you are struggling to be honest with yourself, their honesty can save a life.
Like this one time, we left an incense burning in my Paris apartment and on realising what I had done, I panicked halfway to the metro station. I asked him, do you think the room will catch fire? He said, maybe, but it will be a little fire. It was so honest, that I cackled in the middle of the road and before I knew it, the panic had dissipated.
They are (mostly) exceptionally self-sufficient. They can manage a whole house on their own so you can totally chill on the weekend, go out for brunch with the girls, spend a whole afternoon at the bookstore and come home to a sparkling clean house and a hot, hot meal. OOOF! 🥵
They don’t wait six years of a very serious relationship to tell their family about you. You will be lucky if it takes them six weeks to text Mama about you. It will more likely be six days.
You will not need to be his mommy. And his mommy will never try to be you. My South Asian babes know what’s up.
On the contrary, in fact. Their family will most likely adopt you. You will never be alone on a holiday. You will always have several Christmas gifts with your name on them under the tree. You will have an endless supply of Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee & cake, yum yum) and you will be loved like you are a part of the clan even when you meet them the first time around.
You have a tandem partner at home. Brush that Deutsch up on the reg, girlies. I talk a lot of nonsense Deutsch through the day and he patiently corrects all the mistakes I make. So, yes it’s a win-win.
They won’t have visa troubles so you can jointly put all your focus on yours. And if it all goes south, just marry them. (Someone recently told me this really, actually doesn’t help, but Denial is my hometown and I love living there.)
And if a worthy German has not yet shown up on your dating apps/workplace/social circle/friend’s apartment, worry not!
When you find someone who absolutely adores you, just use the above as a checklist to see if they are worthy of you – no matter the passport they hold (if it’s EU, it will be strategically advantageous), the language they speak or the gender they identify with.
Until then,