Alix | iHeartBerlin.de

A Dating Fairytale: Hansel & Gretel in Berlin

Sometimes I wonder if our generation is more obsessed with fairy tales than previous ones. Faced with a reality of the gig-economy, serial dating and an all too uncertain future, who can really blame us? And honestly, nothing prepares you for life in Berlin quite like a steady diet of stories about abandonment, witches and cute animals. The revelation that fairy tales are not real (for better or worse) is one of the milder let-downs of adult life. As grown-ups, we just have to conjure up our own magic. The good thing about this is that we can be whoever we want to be. Siding with the witch, especially if she is beautiful and satisfyingly revengeful might be the best choice in the end.

I have met a lot of people in Berlin and despite an excellent memory I surely don’t remember all of them. Few people became part of my personal lore and some just vanished. And there is one that managed to do both: I call him Hansel.

I tried “6 Unique Ways to Meet Quality People” in Berlin

by Alix | Stories

illustrations: Berk Karaoglu

I came across an article offering “Unique Ways to Meet Quality People”. Since dating apps have become a haunt for the visually unfortunate and dull over the last years I was keen to find other options to acquire a “quality” mate. Please humor me when I say that I’m not quite sure how to spot a “quality person” in the wild and the guide offers little advice on that matter. But I wasn’t going to be stopped by such a minor obstacle. I followed the instructions step by step (or as close as personally possible). Here is what happened…

Dating in Berlin: Why You SHOULD Date German Guys

by Alix | Stories

I took me about a year of living in Germany to start feeling the challenges of life among Germans as a foreigner. Berlin had always been a dream for me, long before I even had any interest in partying, alcohol or other substances. I had always heard what everyone in the world seems to be hearing, that it is: a great multicultural place of freedom for artistic minds. So my first months living here were an exciting bliss even if I was working for a (rather particular) German family who lived nowhere near the city center, not in anyway close to Kreuzberg or Neukölln, but in a small village in the woods that was technically still Berlin but felt like a whole other world. This didn’t discourage me though, I took the bus (not even the S-Bahn went as far as where they lived, ah!) every evening after work to go to punk shows in cool squatted houses.

Half a year later when I finally broke free from my nanny job and moved to Friedrichshain I was still very excited and with no more job or endless bus trips to get anywhere, I felt free, alive and learned the real party ways. But then, another six months later, I started noticing all the small things my expat friends always seemed to complain about: passive aggressive Germans in the supermarket line, passive aggressive Germans who press the speed pedal of their car if they spot you jaywalking, passive aggressive Germans doing all these annoying little things all the time.

Dating in Berlin: The Struggles of Being Bisexual

by Alix | Stories

Love, by Gaspard Noe

A recently-published study revealed Millennials as the least-straight generation in the history of LGBTI*+ research. They’re nearly twice as likely to identify as non-straight than other adults. And as more boys, girls and folks that are neither (or both) come out of the closet, one would hope that a certain normality would have settled in around those sexual orientations beyond straight. I know it would make my (dating-)life a lot easier.

I’ve never been shy about my orientation, which is best defined as: if you’re hot and smart and enthusiastic about me putting my hand down your pants, I’m really going to be cool with whatever I find there. But I’ll classify as bisexual for easiness sake most of the time.

It feels like there is a grand old billboard somewhere in Berlin that says “Bisexuality: the sexuality everyone is entitled to have an opinion on!” Which is weird, because last time I checked, the only people that get to have an opinion on my sexuality are people that are afflicted by it. And by “afflicted” I mean “get to have sex with me”.

Dating in Berlin: How to maintain a Winter Lover

by Alix | Stories

photos: Eylül Aslan

I once read somewhere that Berlin has two seasons: Beautiful and shitty. And shitty season just started. Berlin’s inhabitants once again are frozen of heart, in need of just any sort of physical contact in their Altbau with the “authentic”, drafty windows. “Maybe I should get a therapist? Maybe I should finally get a dog?” I hear you contemplate. But I also know that you’re not yet ready for that sort of a commitment.

So, count yourself lucky, the bone broth of relationships is in season again. Just like its fatty, soupy counterpart, it’s a fleeting craze to raise your vitamin D levels (D as in dick, darling) until Spring. Give me your clammy hand — I’ll be your guide to obtaining a seasonally limited hot-beef-injection.

The Men of Berlin: The Foodies

by Alix | People

illustrations: Sophia Halamoda

Show me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are. Basked in a plethora of choice, Berlin inhabitants’ hardest seems to be where to eat. Trying to arrange Sunday brunch with a vegan, a meat lover and a person that claims to be allergic to almost anything between is more normal than everyone involved would like it to be. With a rough estimate of two hundred guides to hyped food spots being published (in Berlin alone) every day the proof must be in the pudding. So if you’re looking for your very own flavor of love, by all means, dig in:

The Breakdown of Breakups

by Alix | Stories

photo: Rowena Waack / CC

I’ve written about the digital debris broken relationships leave behind. In this day and age, it seems that something always lingers, even when you do the leaving. Of course, in most cases, ditching people for good ultimately turns out to be the better choice. A recently published study suggests that only narcissists and/or psychopaths (and Berlin has enough of both) like to stay friends with their former partners. That may or may not be true. In my experience one of the dominant reasons we still pine for people that we got rid of is nostalgia, rather than the fact that your ex was such a good friend or even partner.

Rejecting the idea of “the one” seems like the best place to start. Even if you’ve left everyone you’ve ever been with, you’ll have realized that it doesn’t mean the whole thing will be painless. The aim is of course to get through the suffering.

The Depths of Oral Sex

by Alix | Stories

photos: Eylül Aslan

Oral sex is a sticky topic across all genders. Putting your mouth on/around/into someone else’s genitals is somehow a battleground of opinions.

What I find curious is that’s (almost) a non-issue between homosexual pairings. In the meantime, douchey guys running around proudly proclaiming how they “don’t eat pussy” are combated by another species of men: the guy that loves to munch on fur burgers. And even the latter is usually only mediocre to tolerable at it. (Although I’ve met one or two exceptions in my time. Sadly they’re both dead. To me anyway.)

Dating in Berlin: The Mysteries of Open Relationships

by Alix | Stories

photo: Eylül Aslan

People tend to think that open relationships are easier to have than monogamous ones. Speaking from experience, this is simply not true. If you have trouble with commitment, are lukewarm about your partner or have some other unresolved issue like communicating what you want (or even just knowing what you want), then an open relationship will just make everything worse, for everyone. Sometimes it seems people in Berlin are so unable to nurture even one stable, healthy relationship built on respect, communication, love and support that I really have no patience for the wave of “easy fix” open relationships. It’s an issue friends, even friends of friends, bring up with me. I surround myself with wonderful, intelligent people but when it comes to this, everyone is just a fucking idiot…

Dating in Berlin: The Madonnas and the Whores

by Alix | Stories

photo: Eylül Aslan

Men are simple beings. All of them – even the smart ones. We might be a highly evolved kind of hairless monkey but there is one thing we love: organizing things in categories. Giving us a rough idea how to classify our fellow humans seems to be all the rage. Heterosexual men get special categories they only ever apply to women: The Madonna and the whore.

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