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What's with the self-entitlement in public/shared spaces??
First post here for me. Been lurking on this sub for a while, but now I gotta get this off my chest:
I think I've started developing some antisocial feelings while walking the streets… Hey everyone,
First post here for me. Been lurking on this sub for a while, but now I gotta get this off my chest:
I think I've started developing some antisocial feelings while walking the streets of Berlin, mainly due to the countless micro-aggressions or just the general lack of consideration I feel Berliners have for one another in public spaces.
Few examples:
-Every day, I encounter people blocking doorways without a care in the world. I often have to tell them to move out of the way. In supermarkets, abandoned shopping carts in the middle of aisles, people striking up conversations where you need to pass, it's driving me crazy. On the same vibe, people deciding to stop on top of elevators, or right after entering trams/trains as if it was 100% sure that nobody was behind them trying to board the same wagon.
-People bumping into you on the streets or dodging at the last second. It's a daily occurrence here, whereas it never happened to me in the five countries I lived in before.
-3 to 5 Young folks walking side by side on sidewalks, oblivious to others and blocking the whole fucking path, it's frustrating. There's a significant lack of consideration for making each other's lives easier in public spaces. How many times boarding the S-Bahn, I've had to shout "SORRY" while struggling with a heavy suitcase because people won't budge, and they seem annoyed to make space for a stranger.
I've lived on multiple continents, in both affluent and industrial cities, but since moving to Germany, it's the first time I've encountered such extreme individualism and lack of spatial awareness in public areas. However, I've noticed these behaviors are less prevalent in NRW. Am I hallucinating, or have others experienced similar issues?
nah you're not hallucinating, this is a real thing here. the berlin sidewalk shuffle is basically a contact sport at this point. i think part of it is the city just being overcrowded and people zoning out with headphones in, but there's also this unspoken "i got here first" attitude that feels stronger than in other german cities.
one thing that helped me was just accepting that the s-bahn boarding chaos won't change. if you're at alexanderplatz or friedrichstraße during rush hour, people will treat doors like they're the last lifeboat. i started waiting for the initial crush to clear before even attempting to get on with luggage, saves the shouting match.
if you want less of this, try the quieter kiez areas like wedding or neukölln around maybachufer - still busy but people actually look where they're going. the u-bahn is usually calmer than the ringbahn too, less tourist drama.
honestly you're not wrong. the worst one for me is people stopping right at the top or bottom of escalators, like they've never seen an escalator before. i swear its a berlin specialty.
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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