My Apology

I owe some friends an apology for a true culture and personality gap. I honestly thought my perspective was more appropriate than someone else's and I was wrong.

Here in Germany, personal privacy is a big deal. The thought of having full-body scanners at the airports is an absolute joke and sending your resume to companies without asking first if the position is still available is seen as revealing your information to more people than necessary. In the States, many people think their airplane is more safe with more scanners and that you should get your resume onto as many desks as possible.

And to top off the typical American view of not needing so much privacy, I am an extremely open person in general. In fact, I've had new people I meet say, "Wow. I've learned more about your life in this first 10 minutes than you'll probably ever know about mine." And many people have asked if I have any secrets...I don't. I'll answer any question you ask and often times I'll share personal information without being drilled for it.

I knew this would be an adjustment for me, because my German friends told me before moving here that I tell way more about myself than anyone in Germany does. I actually have to hold myself back when talking to new friends, because I'm afraid I will push people away if I share too many details too quickly. While some people like my openness, lots of people here think it's really strange!

So here's the story that deserves my apology: While I was visiting Germany at Christmas time last year, I took lots of fun photos and put them on Facebook. Once I arrived here in May, I learned that many people in Germany are not a fan of Facebook because they want to keep their private lives private. While I understand that nothing is 100% secure from hackers, I do have my Facebook settings set to where only my "friends" can see my information and photos. I thought that was private enough that my German friends wouldn't mind being in the photos since it's just for my "friends" in the States to learn about my German adventures. WRONG! My German friends recently found out I had posted pictures of them online and were very upset!

To be honest, my first reaction was that they are too conservative and since my privacy settings are as strict as they can be on Facebook, it shouldn't be a big deal. I thought maybe they didn't understand that it's not on the open Internet, but instead just in a place where my friends can see the photos. I also (selfishly) didn't want to take the photos down because they were great shots of what I'm experiencing here and I didn't have good photos of those locations without the people in them. But the more I thought about their perspective, I realized that I should have respected their wishes and taken the Christmas photos down as soon as they mentioned in May that they didn't want to be on the Internet. That comment, as surprising as it was to me, should have triggered me to go back to the album and delete the photos immediately. But I didn't. And I'm sorry.

So I've learned there are many cultural differences here, some which I agree with wholeheartedly and some which I don't. Understanding these differences, however, does encourage me to do better at respecting others' wishes and perspectives.