Dating Germans: Exercising Your Sense of Humor

Laughter is known to be one of the best ways of making friends. No good dating is possible without it either. Joking, horsing around, laughing make people more open, break any cultural barriers, and – yes! – help them fall in love.

There are some peculiarities of exercising your sense of humor with a German. Help yourself to some more advice from Lynne:

When it comes to humor, use some common sense. When you first meet most Germans, they might seem rather humorless, but after you get to know them, most of them can relax and enjoy a good belly-laugh as well as any American. And they tend to laugh at pretty much the same things — except, of course, for anything specifically culturally or linguistically based.
Your German date might not understand an English pun any better than you would understand a German pun, and he certainly WON’T know anything about “Leave It to Beaver” or anything about American culture in the ’50s and ’60s, though he MIGHT know more about American politics in the ’50s than YOU know! He might also know Star Trek, the Simpsons, Home Improvement (called “Hoer mal wer da haemmert!” here), and quite a bit about modern Americana.

DON’T make any stupid, tasteless jokes about Nazis or saluting him and saying, “Heil Hitler!”, etc. He’s no more likely to be Nazi or neo-Nazi than your next-door neighbor is, and he’s more likely to be a little on the sensitive side on the issue than your neighbor might be.
You can ASK him anything you want to know about Germany during WWII (though perhaps preferably after you get to know him a little better), but don’t make any jokes at his or any other German’s expense. Most Germans have a bit of a guilt complex on the issue, even the very young ones, partly because so many nations throughout the world continue to seek to punish Germany for what happened 55+ years ago.

And another thing: while dating a foreigner, remember that love is all that matters, and everything else – inevitable reaction of the relatives, foreign language, new food, different climate – are mere trifles and you can overcome them TOGETHER.