It’s a universal fact that making friends with Germans is really hard and it’s also not a secret that Germany is often rated as one of the hardest countries to make friends in as an expat. It is a conversation I’ve had a million times with fellow expat friends from many countries in the 11 years I’ve lived here.
**UPDATE: Post was written prior to re-patriating back to the US December 2023. Today, July 2025, I am re-reading this post, wondering why I never shared it because I still feel the exact same way I felt when writing it and it’s exactly all the reasons which led to my final decision that it was time to return home.**)
While life in Germany is in general viewed as pretty damn good, making friends with Germans and keeping those friends as long term friendships is really hard which makes it really difficult to integrate well. Many articles I’ve read about expats making friends in German-speaking countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland all make the same statements that German-speaking countries are generally unfriendly. So, I know, it’s not just me.
For expats living in a foreign country, there are certain qualifications which make or break one’s experience living there and making a home there. For example, how homey a place can feel, how easy it is to make friends with locals, how friendly locals are in their behaviors as well as language barriers in terms of how easy or difficult the language is. According to Atlas and Boots, these qualifications help to rate countries where expats find it easiest to settle in. Germany is unsurprisingly at the bottom of the list.
So, I am sharing today MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of making friends with Germans. Now, I acknowledge that NOT ALL GERMANS are like what I am about to share, and that I am overly categorizing Germans as “ALL”. You may not like what I have to say, but there are future expats out there who should have a heads up about what they’re going to be getting into, from a first hand account. So, I ask you to BE NICE if you do not agree with something I have written.
THERE IS NO ROOM FOR BULLIES!
As someone from an Anglo-Saxon country, which are often considered some of the nicest people and the easiest to make friends with, I’ve never had a problem making friends and forming long term, deep and meaningful friendships with the people I met. Perhaps this is because Anglo-Saxon countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia are a melting pot of emigrants who have all settled next to each other. I may not exactly be the super outgoing social butterfly and can make friends on a whim, but I do think of myself as a very easy person to be friends with. I feel that I am a rather outgoing person, talkative, supportive, spontaneous and fun. But after living in Germany for 11 years, I can say, I have put myself out there so many times and tried to make new friendships with Germans, via work, via social activities, via meet ups. At this point, I have more friends in England than I do here in Germany, and all of my friends are other expats.
Yet it still surprises me that as of today, I literally have 2 best German friends, one of which includes my husband.
As much as I love living in Germany, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room when it comes to addressing the German stereotype, that Germans are difficult people to be friends with and so often come across as harsh, cold and unfriendly. It’s one of the hardest things about living in Germany and at this point, I’m starting to question why I even continue to stay living in Germany when I can’t even manage to make any long, lasting, meaningful friendships with a German. But life is good in Germany, and this has been the biggest thorn in my side the entire time when it comes to being torn between two countries.
There’s a comparison that all English speaking expats living in Germany have typically heard at one time or another. It’s called the peach/coconut model that refers to Americans being “soft, fuzzy and sweet on the outside while being hard on the inside” implying that Americans are super easy to become friends with as we’re a very open society, willing to strike up a conversation with anyone, but hard to get into the inner circle of. While on the other hand, Germans are often compared to a coconut, hard on the outside, hairy but soft on the inside, implying that making friends with Germans is really hard to break through that initial layer, but once you’re in, you’re in.
And sadly, after 11 years, I still haven’t managed to crack that coconut shell. Not with any German friends and barely with my German family.
While you could go search for “How to make friends with Germans” or a “Survival Guide to making friends with Germans”, I’m not here to talk about how to make friends with them because clearly, this is not my area of expertise. Instead, I’m here to share from MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE some hard truths to BEING friends with Germans. I expect backlash from this post, as I’m sure everyone will say that I am “generalizing”. Obviously, there are Germans out there who are easy to make friends with, I just haven’t found them.
And to be honest, I’m not even sure if I should say the following as “Germans” or “Bavarians”. I have only lived in Bavaria for the last 11 years, so most of my experience with Germans is limited to the Bavarians, but I have also lived in Baden-Württemburg for a year and done extensive traveling around Germany, therefore, I feel that I have experienced enough of German culture to say “Germans”.
Though, Bavarians are definitely a breed of their own and are a bit more extreme in their behaviors.
Germans keep private and work life separated
This is a hard one for expats. Especially Anglo-Saxons when we make friends anywhere, anytime. For me personally, some of my BEST, LIFE LONG friendships have been made in the workplace. It’s the same story with all of my English-speaking friends.
Not becoming friends with your German co-workers is probably the most stereotypical thing about Germans. They adhere to a strict unwritten rule that is pretty cemented into German culture, you do not make friends with your coworkers. These are people you work with. And the social distance is determined by profession or work status. You go to work to work. Then you go home and meet your village childhood friends. Many Germans don’t need more than their family and their village friends. I’ve literally had German coworkers tell me they aren’t interested in hanging out because they have enough friends or because they prefer not to hang out with coworkers in general.
There are rare instances where coworkers will agree to occasionally go out for a group meal or have a drink, but long lasting friendships are not likely to bloom here.
I’ve had ONE single working relationship in Germany where I managed to break that invisible barrier and become friends with a coworker, only for later, once work got “stressful”, said friend chose to end our friendship and blame the stress for the reason why she could no longer be my friend OUTSIDE of work, and then proceeded to un-invite me and my husband to her wedding, in the hopes that by no longer being friends outside of work, it would make for a better work environment for her. Needless to say, it did not work that way and it only made work more “stressful”, not to mention, awkward and uncomfortable when we were in the same room.
Germans refuse to give Up the formal ‘Sie’ form
The ‘Sie’ form in the German language is used when addressing people you don’t know, people who are older than you, and coworkers. It’s an ingrained part of the German identity, one that is stubborn and refuses to change with the time. It’s slowly changing with younger generations and they are less likely to use the ‘Sie’ form, opting instead to use the more informal form, ‘du’. However, they still sometimes REALLY refuse to drop the Sie. For English speakers who don’t speak German, ‘Sie’ and ‘du’ is a way to refer to someone as ‘You’.
Often, as you’ve established a relationship with a German, they will tell you how to address them, if they prefer to stay in the ‘Sie’ form, or that once the first meet up has been commenced, they may tell you, you can refer to them in the ‘du’ form.
But sometimes, Germans can be as stubborn as mules and refuse to use the ‘du’ form, even if you’ve told them they may use the informal form, or that they may even address you by your first name. (*I KNOW, SHOCKING!*) As an example, I share with you the story of when we moved into a new apartment. In the beginning we had a hard time with one of our new, elderly neighbors. Eventually, things thawed out and we occasionally talk about things over our terrace wall. I once told her that she was free to address me as ‘Lori’ and not as ‘Frau F…’ (Mrs. F…) and that she could use the informal ‘du’ form with me. She stubbornly refused, and said she will never call me by my first name, despite how much I HATE being addressed in such an official, distanced, boundary keeping way.
I’ve heard of a story from one of my best expat friends that two women who worked in the same office together for 30 years, still refer to each other in the formal ‘Sie’ form and have never taken the time to get to know one another. This, I find terribly tragic.
Both of these examples are difficult for expats to come to terms with, being forced to stay within a zoned area within relationships with Germans, which clearly implies, “I don’t need or want to get to know you more than I have to”.
Germans are terrible at introducing people to each other
I can not tell you the number of times that I have been with a German friend and ran into someone they know and not been introduced. No matter if it’s a friend, coworker or family member, every time, I was never introduced to whoever they were talking to. And I can’t tell you how many times other expat friends have also pointed out the awkwardness of standing there, pretending they don’t exist as their German friend/partner speaks to the person they ran into.
I have very good friends from Australia and the UK, and like Americans, this is always such a culture shock for us. We all find it incredibly rude not to be introduced, as if you cease to exist the moment they run into someone they know. For Anglo-Saxons, it’s just another way to meet new people. You introduce people, tell them who your friend is and before you know it, you either have a new friend or you simply met someone new, exchange pleasantries and wished them a nice day. No harm done.
The same can be said when you are introduced to a group of people. I’ve had so many large group gatherings where I have been introduced and once they start talking to me in German, they realize I am not German but have no interest whatsoever to ask “Where are you from?”, “How long have you been here?”, “What are you doing here?”, “Why are you here?”. This is especially true with older Germans. Younger Germans are definitely more interested, but the older generations want nothing to do with me. After being with my husband now for 10 years, I recently had the pleasure of meeting new family. They asked my name, shook my hand, but in the hours that we spent together, with the rest of the family catching up, not once, did a single new family member ask anything about myself. They had no interest whatsoever. Even after 11 years, some family members still only shake my hand. No interest in having a conversation with me, no interest in asking how we’ve been etc. A hand shake and a hello is all I get. And when I’ve pulled them into a hug and said, “we’re family, you can stop shaking my hand” they were appalled.
Germans don’t make “small talk”
They don’t know how and they don’t understand the point of small talk.
When I was teaching Business English, there is literally a chapter on teaching Germans to make small talk. Germans are very to the point people and don’t like to stand in the elevator and make small talk about the weather or last nights soccer game with a stranger to pass the time. My Business students seriously would ask what’s the point?
I once had a business student who was a pretty high ranking employee for a large company. My task was to teach him Business English, everything from vocabulary, to grammar to casual conversation. He once came to my class and said he wrote a British co-worker an email and she responded simply with “No.” I asked what he wrote. It was something like this: “Dear Mrs. Smith, I need this. I want this. Give me this by this date. Sincerely, Bob Jones’. I looked at him and I said, “No wonder. There was nothing pleasant about your entire email.”
It took me a long time to learn this lesson before I finally gave up. So often, I found myself in line at the grocery store or shopping for clothes, sat in a restaurant and tried to strike up a conversation with the person in front of me or next to me, offering up a simple compliment to break the silence. For example, “Oh my gosh, what a lovely purse!” “Man, it’s hot in this biergarten”. Every time I have EVER addressed a stranger with such a compliment or statement, I’ve been given the death look, a look of utter shock that I would dare to speak to them, not knowing them to which silence was the answer.
Germans don’t understand the point of Americans asking the question “How are you?” as a form of saying “Hello, everything ok?”. Germans DO NOT like being asked this question because it’s far too personal for you to ask this question, even though for Americans, it’s both a form of greeting and a bit of small talk. When someone asks this question, we do not want to know you’re whole life story of how you really are. It’s simply a question, to which the answer is always “I’m great, thanks” or “I’m doing well, thank you and you?” When I first arrived in Germany, I asked this question all the time, both in English and in German, and whenever it was addressed to a German, they ALWAYS turn to look at me in SHOCK, stutter to answer the question as if I have just overstepped a personal boundary, to the point I stopped asking Germans this question.
A form of this also falls into the category of leaving a voice message on telephones. If a German calls you, privately or for business, they never EVER leave a damn voicemail, not even if you don’t recognize the phone number. They will simply hang up without any indication of who is calling or why. And at this point in our technological lives, Germans barely pick up the phone to call anyone. Like everyone else, they prefer to text message more often. But I’m so old fashioned that if I see that someone tried to call me, but I don’t recognize the phone number, I will NOT call you back and say “Uh, ya, someone called me from this number”. Leave a damn message!
Germans can be brutally blunt
While they may not be good at small talk, they can be brutally honest and to the point. Germans don’t have time for beating around the bush. They will talk to you directly and sometimes please and thank yous are missing. They don’t mean to be rude and they certainly don’t realize it, but as foreigners, we always feel a bit beat up after a conversation with a German. I’ve had some pretty shocking things said to me during an interview, during a lady’s examination and from friends or coworkers.
If you ask them their opinion, they will give you the honest truth. Which on one hand is refreshing, but it could come out a little softer. I once was trying to decide which hairstyle would suit me best before I chopped off all my hair. I showed a colleague a photo and she proceeded to tell me that my face is too fat for such a haircut. I was a bit devastated, but after years of living with Germans and getting to know this particular friend more, I know she didn’t mean it in a hurtful way, and after translating the brutal sentence from English to English and interpreting her meaning, I’ve taken it as her meaning “You face doesn’t not fit with such a hairstyle”. It’s probably true, but ouch. Nonetheless, I did not get said hair style.
Unless you know this about Germans, you will likely feel like they’re all a bunch of meanies, but deep down, they’re not. Some are, like the guy who chased us down the street.
Germans are not spontaneous people
I find that even when you do manage to make friendships with Germans, they are incapable of meeting up spontaneously.
Germans plan in advance. They want to reserve dinner tables. They want to know exactly when and where they should meet.
Every time I have ever tried to get a German to spontaneously meet for a coffee, an after work drink with a coworker or spontaneously invite them over for dinner or to join us in whatever we’re doing, I’m 95% always refused. And I’m the kind of person who can both plan far enough in advance for something and also call someone up sporadically and say “Hey, wanna meet up?”, “hey, want to join us?” because I believe in “the more, the merrier”. I hate living by my calendar and always having to schedule weeks in advance to hang out with every single friend.
I understand that Germans like to plan in advance and are also busy people, but I feel like they are really incapable of living for the moment.
I once had a German friend, and the friendship was really good. There was a short stint where we were always hanging out. Then we fell into a period of silence before one day, she suddenly reappeared and sent me a message saying that she’d like to hang out, so I wrote back immediately and said, “Hey, that would be great. I’m free this weekend.” To which she responded that she was too busy with school right now, and meant that she wanted to hang out with me in the summer. It was currently April….. Sorry, but I’m not a seasonal friendship that you can use to fill up your social calendar. We’re either friends, or not.
Sometimes, it can be so formal, even with family, that perhaps we have a week’s notice of a family gathering, always on a Sunday for coffee and cake between 2-5. Literally. No variation, no outing. Always at someone’s home. Always for coffee and cake. Perhaps a lunch here or there. Stay longer than 5pm? Want to spontaneously stay for dinner? Never offered.
Germans are not very neighborly
We lived in the same apartment building for 7 years before we moved. In that time frame, we never got to know any of our neighbors, except surprisingly, another fellow American. The rest, we always said hello to, some were our age, some older. But no one ever took the time to actually get to know their neighbors. Every day, we saw an elderly woman coming and going, we often said hello. Perhaps a few words. But never more than that.
Then we moved out into the suburbs, and I hoped this would change compared to being in the city. Nope. Now, I’m the stranger who moved to a village where everyone knows everyone and I’m the outsider.
We introduced ourselves to all our neighbors when we moved in. I was super neighborly and even offered, that should anyone ever need an egg or sugar, please don’t hesitate to ask. One elderly neighbor scoffed at my absurd offer and in return snapped that she could “manage just fine on her own”…..ok. Welcome to the neighborhood, I guess…
Now we also have a dog, and usually having a dog means you typically met other people with dogs and make neighborly dog friends. Nope. Not in our neighborhood. Everyone crosses the street. They might acknowledge us and say hello, but they clearly don’t want to get to know anyone. Once I even offered to a neighbor across the street with a Beagle that we should meet up so the doggies could meet. They were our age. It’s been three years and not a word since.
In Germany, there’s really no such thing as a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” committee.
No neighbors take it upon themselves to ever introduce themselves to us and whenever we walked by, we were just starred at, which was not very welcoming and therefore, we never introduced ourselves to them. Now, a simple wave as a hello is it or a nod of the head.
We’ve now lived in our new home for 3 years and still we don’t know any of our neighbors. In fact, one even chased us out of his driveway and down the street, and verbally abusing us as we were clearly training our dog, waiting for another dog to pass. We weren’t disturbing anyone and I had to yell back at him that there’s no need to be so unfriendly.
The German’s sense of humor is rather dry
I like to think of myself as a funny girl. I’m always cracking jokes and people always laugh. I’ve got a snarky, witty comment for everything. And the Germans hate it.
There’s really a 50/50 chance that if I tell a joke and there are Germans present, most won’t laugh or even acknowledge the joke. There’s always a chance that my joke, while funny in English, doesn’t translate very well into German, thus my jokes fall on flat ears, though I’m pretty sure, they always understand exactly what I meant. Most won’t even ask you to explain the meaning behind the joke. Or, as I’ve had multiple times, I had to explain a HILARIOUS joke only for a German to look me full in the face and say, “That’s not funny”. #Buzzkill.
I once had a German friend who must have got fed up with the amount of jokes or comments I made that she literally told me to STOP. I think from that moment on, our friendship was put on the back burner, because if I can’t be myself around a friend, why are we even friends?
It’s hard to stay friends with people who just don’t get your sense of humor and when jokes or comments go unanswered and you can hear the couple three tables down, it is a hard culture clash to come to terms with.
Germans are not the best gift givers
In 11 years of living here, I’ve had some pretty terrible gifts given to me by Germans, some leaving me scratching my head and saying “WTF”. It makes me question the worth of my friendship or relationship with them and whether or not it means anything to them. I would not say I am a hard person to shop for. Pink, Rose gold, flowery, lace, travel-related, dog-related, wine-related, books, movies, a weekend in Rome, I typically love everything.
As a wedding gift, a coworker gifted me and my new husband a box with pencils, notepads, white out and post its.
One friend flipped out on me when I asked for a night in the future she and her boyfriend were free because I had a Christmas gift for them. She threw a fit, told me to return my gift or give it to someone else because she didn’t want to buy me/us a gift and for the last 10 years, she has only a handful of people she’s ever had to buy a gift for. I literally could not do that with her gift because I had it especially made, and personalized for them. Then she proceeded to say, “Oh, I have a gift you will like I have in my cellar. I bought it as wedding decoration but didn’t like it, so I’ll give it to you.” On the day that we met, she literally gave me said gift. I was so hurt that my friendship meant nothing to her that she would just gift me/us something she DIDN’T LIKE.
After having our dog for two years, someone gave us a book relating to “How to Train your dog”…..as if during the last two years we hadn’t already been training our dog. It felt like a slap in the face that said “I can’t handle your dog anymore”, knowing the difficulties we’ve had because he’s a Covid dog, meaning when we got him, EVERYTHING in Germany was closed, including dog training schools. So he didn’t get the training and social interaction he would have, so it’s taken us a lot longer to train our dog.
There are so many other bad gifts I’ve received but won’t go into detail here. Now I know not everyone can figure out a good gift for everyone, and many people struggle. So I acknowledge this. I am thankful nonetheless for the gifts that people otherwise took the time to give us. And on the other hand, some of the best gifts Germans ever gave us was for our wedding, unique scenes made from money relating to our hobbies. I was blown away and touched at such meaningful gifts.
I also acknowledge that when I give a gift, I most likely put a lot more thought process into finding a gift for someone, otherwise I’m just wasting money. And I recognize that not everyone has the time or money for such attention to detail.
But the least you can do is show the other person how much your friendship/relationship means to you, family or friends. Nothing makes me feel like I wasn’t worth their time when I’m given a gift like socks.
Germans Lack Social Empathy Skills
I recently spent some time living away from my husband and the only home I’ve known in Germany to do an internship at a winery. There I lived directly at the castle winery in a WG. Much to my disappointment, the other tenants were Polish and spoke no German and no English or were middle aged Germans between 40-50 years old. I had been told it would be easy to get around without a car, but this was not true. I felt trapped on a hill, in a castle in a small village. I could find no local hang outs, no wine clubs, no meet up groups. Everything was at least an hour away, in Frankfurt.
All my other coworkers were also between 40-60 years old, so there was a huge difference in age. Finally, when some of the younger coworkers started to appear as the season got going, and I met some of them, I tried to suggest a hang out but to no avail. I grew increasingly lonely and really suffered from a lack of social interaction, being away from my husband, dog and friends, and having no family around. It was the loneliest in the world I’ve ever been. Yet, no one would commit to hanging out. No one thought, “Hrmm, she might be lonely. She’s new here, has no friends or family here, perhaps I’ll show her around or ask her out for a coffee.” If I had been in their shoes, I would have offered to be that person to make them feel more welcome. After months of utter loneliness, I moved back home and quit the program, among other reasons.
My point is, so often, Germans don’t realize that as a foreigner, living in a new country, struggling with the language, it can be hard to make new friends. I can’t tell you how many times Germans have been utter JERKS when I spoke German with them. It’s hard to put yourself out there and ask a stranger to hang out. It’s lonely living alone in a foreign country.
Germans really need to work on their social empathy skills and let down their barriers.
If someone is speaking your terribly difficult language, have patience with them, be nice to them as they try. If you see that a new, foreign co-worker is lonely or having a hard time adjusting, reach out and ask them out for a coffee. Give them a chance! Be the person to help them feel welcome!
In Conclusion
Like me, you’re probably wondering WHY THE F AM I STILL IN GERMANY? Sometimes, I really don’t know and sometimes the answer is too long, I’d need to write a book for you to understand. (**UPDATE: In case you didn’t see it at the beginning, I wrote this proior to moving back to the US. Today, it’s July 2025 and I still feel the same)
Perhaps I sound a bit bitter in this post. And maybe there’s a part of me that is. It’s hard to constantly not feel welcome, wanted, liked, or lately, a burden to a friend. That’s a hard pill to swallow. And I was inspired to write this post because I have just lost another friendship with a German, and it was a hard one to come to terms with. Especially how it ended.
It’s hard to live somewhere for 11 years and pretty much have ZERO friends. I go through high and low peaks having friends with a lot of Germans or other internationals. Sadly, all the internationals always return home at some point, and I am the constant that remains. So I keep trying to make friends with Germans, because I’m here, enjoying their culture, married to one and call their home, my home. I should be friends with Germans and I try so damn hard. But at what point, is enough, ENOUGH?
If I don’t fit into their culture after 11 years of being “Germanized”, what am I still doing here?
Despite HOW hard it is to make friends with Germans, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I just suck at it. And while as a people, they can be viewed as harsh and cold, and don’t get me started on when they talk loudly in German how mean it sounds, but once you are friends with a German, as they say, they’re soft and fuzzy on the inside. Or….at least that’s what they say! But that doesn’t mean you won’t have better luck than me. In fact, I’m sure everyone will have better luck than me!
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