in

Love without a door - Column by Mira Kolenc

Mira Kolenc

Daniela Katzenberger, known and popular for speaking out on what others consider to be "too much information", recently told the public that their flat was noiseless for space reasons. What irritated her fiancé and child-father at first. But the couple overcame the shyness and is now happy that there is nothing left to be ashamed of. As the famous sentence from Ingeborg Bachmann's acceptance speech in receiving the radio play Prize of the war blind 1959 - "The truth is reasonable for the people" - gets another very different dimension. I already hear Rainer Langhans applaud in the background!

Whereby, the Süddeutsche Zeitung said this in a recent interview to his 75. Birthday, that everything was not so great. What seemed so relaxed, was in the end but very cramped and today all live again in their own apartments with hinged doors. Anyway, I think you can go that far and declare the project "Away with the Klotüre" a failure.

"We know that the partner regularly cuts the toenails, but it makes a difference whether we watch it."

Many just like to confuse familiarity with trust. No, that's not the same. With all the little secrets that everyone has and that are gradually revealed in a relationship, the mystery does not have to give way. Say: We know that the partner regularly cuts the toenails, only it makes a difference, if we also watch.

What Langhans dismisses as petty-bourgeois, namely, that everyone has their own privacy, which he also wants to preserve, is not an expression of mistrust. Who wants to communicate that he has no secrets from the other, should not choose the way to the toilet. We know that the other person is a human and are well informed about the whole process, especially since we know them from ourselves. No, a relationship does not need this form of boundlessness to be considered perfect.

That reminds me: one of the biggest differences between Germany and Austria is in truth the bathroom toilet question. Forget the language, the mentality and the coffee. No, at the bathroom toilet question, the ghosts are different. In Germany, both rooms are united, mostly separated in the faecal humor facing Austria. I also do not know how it came in Germany to this idea of ​​the merger, but someone would have once put a stop there. Insanely impractical, user-unfriendly and just because there are tiles in both rooms, that does not mean they belong together.

So we think the bathroom is the most intimate room in an apartment. And the bedroom? Alas, the bedroom sounds especially intimate for outside ears. To sleep in the same bed requires trust, after all, as a sleeper one is in a certain way defenseless, but this form of intimacy is one that one likes to share. At least, most of the time.

But what happens in the bathroom, should also stay in the bathroom. After all, one was at the beginning so also anxious to let the other still the illusion that one is a person who, contrary to all laws of nature never have to cut the toenails. Why can the truth, which is not a mystery anyway, not remain until the end of days something that everyone makes up with himself in Privée (it is not in vain this name)?

Because it is infinitely more comfortable. This is just like the clothing, which has become more and more practical and comfortable over the centuries. And the interaction with each other became more unbiased. Who is going home today for dinner? Cumbersome? Definitely! But the formlessness also has its price. Formless relationships will eventually taste so stale.

"So, once in a while, take off your baggy trousers or leave the curlers in the bathroom and give yourself the illusion that the other person may be one of the few people for whom the laws of nature do not apply."

Remember Charles Aznavour's song "You let yourself go!" So, once in a while, take off your baggy trousers or leave the curlers in the bathroom and give in to the illusion that the other person may be one of the few people for whom the laws of nature do not apply. Or just a little bit.

Ah, and so you do not have to worry about Ms. Katzenberger in the meantime: in the meantime, she has moved into a house with her fiancé and the baby who has room for doors. For all rooms. I said yes, the noiseless era is over.

Photo / Video: Oskar Schmidt.

Written by Mira Kolenc

1 comment

Leave a message
  1. Dear Ms. Kolenc,
    I always enjoy reading your column. The difference between Germany and Austria sums it up, * deliciously * (or in this case not exactly delicious) ????

Leave a Comment