For a little over a month now, I’ve been enjoying a weekly phone call each Sunday morning from my friend Gisela. Gisela lives in
Our conversations run the gamut, and during today’s chat, Gisela made the observation that she thought Germans while formal in many aspects of their lives were more genuinely intimate in their friendships than Americans. She sees that Americans are friendly and imply intimacy with almost everyone we meet, yet we don’t carry much depth to our outward expressions of caring. While I acknowledge that we may call many people “friends” that are simply colleagues or friendly acquaintances, I truly believe that no matter who you are or where you are from, we share everything with our true friends.
But it did get me to thinking. Question is, how and when do we identify our true friends?
How might our experience compare to the German practice?
When I first began my struggle with the German language, I learned that there are two forms of “you”. “Sie” (pronounced “Zee”) is the formal “you”. You use “Sie” for most encounters with the world. Even with colleagues and service providers you have known or done business with for years, you might continue to use the “Sie” throughout your lifetime.
“Du” (pronounced “doo”), on the other hand, is the familiar or the friendly form of “you”. This is used among family and friends and implies trust and intimacy.
“Kann ich Ihnen duzen (“dootzen”)?”, asks – using the objective form of the formal you (Ihnen) – “Can I use the familiar or friendly form of you with you?” The Germans actually have a verb: “dutzen” that means “use the friendly form of you”. I understand that even today, when a relationship moves from “Sie” to “Du”, there is a formal celebration of the transition.
In my youth, I thought of the differentiation between “Sie” and “Du” as some kind of archaic boundary that really had no place in a modern world. It was also just another way (along with German word order) to trip up the English-speaker and added more work and study to learn different forms of the verbs that go with “Sie” and “Du”.
Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, I see it in a different light. When we formally acknowledge a transition of a friendly relationship to friendship status, we are making a commitment and showing trust. Presumably we have spent a lot of time with the person and hopefully have come to know and trust him or her as a true friend so the trust and commitment on both sides has been tested and earned and it will endure.
I believe that to recognize and commemorate “duzen” as the Germans do is truly special.
