Friends get together, order pizza, talk about sales, men or women, dates, new consoles or games, technologies, startups, makeup, nails, work — oh yeah, Germans also love talking about work — and obviously gossiping about neighbors remains a national sport.
Everything feels very carefree. Relaxed. Life just kind of happens.
Germans rarely talk about their feelings or problems and if they do, it usually only happens inside very close circles. But honestly, Germans are probably more famous for the exact opposite: nobody even knows who anybody votes for on Sunday.
And this somehow stretches across almost every generation. From puberty all the way to retirement homes. It’s just deeply built into the culture.
Now let’s turn a little east and then aggressively 90 degrees south.
No, not Italy.
Some of you may know that I was born and raised in Berlin, Germany, but have now been living in Istanbul for six years. I have Turkish roots, but that was not the reason I came here.
The reason…
Oh god. Let’s do this in another article. I already explained it to three taxi drivers today who still cannot believe I voluntarily left Germany.
Anyway, it happened. And now I’m sitting here shamelessly comparing cultures.
Some people would probably ask, “Who do you think you are doing that?”
But Germans three Aperol Spritz deep would simply say:
“Well… you’re a cheeky little thing, aren’t you?”
They don’t take everything so seriously. Life becomes much easier to survive that way.
Which is funny, because from the outside it actually looks completely different, doesn’t it?
Turks seem so relaxed. So cheerful. Sitting by the Bosporus drinking tea for four hours as if inflation personally decided to skip them this month.
Meanwhile Germans look permanently one delayed Deutsche Bahn train away from psychological collapse.
But once you move beyond the tourist conversations — the “Where are you from?”, the “Do you like Turkey?”, the random marriage proposals from men selling sunglasses — the atmosphere slowly changes.
Because underneath all the warmth and humor, there is a seriousness inside this country that begins incredibly early.
Children grow up with deep emotional respect for Atatürk. Teenagers casually discuss politics with a level of historical awareness that would honestly do parts of the German Bundestag a massive favor.
And at some point you realize:
young people here are not emotionally naive for very long.
I find it incredibly fascinating listening to conversations between young people in bars and cafés, but of course I notice it in my immediate surroundings too. You quickly realize what constantly occupies people’s minds here.
It’s a colorful cocktail.
Politics.
Inflation.
Identity.
Escape plans.
Visa applications.
Hope.
No hope.
Relationships.
Survival.
A lot of young people in Istanbul carry emotional weight that feels unusually adult for their age.
When inflation constantly destroys your future plans, when rent prices become absurd, when education no longer guarantees stability, when people feel politically powerless, conversations slowly stop feeling light. Everything becomes existential very quickly.
And somehow this emotional atmosphere enters everyday life itself.
And maybe that is the real weight young Istanbul carries.
Not simply sadness.
Not simply politics.
But the exhausting feeling that your future constantly needs to be recalculated, defended, negotiated or escaped.
At the same time — and this is what makes Istanbul so emotionally confusing — people here still know how to laugh harder than almost anywhere else.
They still flirt, scream, dance, joke, fall in love and build intense friendships overnight with an emotional energy that honestly feels almost impossible considering the pressure many people live under.
And maybe this is where my German side becomes emotionally overwhelmed.
Because I think people here learn much earlier that life does not pause itself just because things become difficult.
You can have worries and still laugh. You can feel hopeless and still dance. You can complain about politics for three hours straight and still end the night singing by the Bosporus at 2 a.m.
But courage, freedom and enthusiasm unfortunately begin to suffer when uncertainty becomes permanent. And maybe that is the quiet tragedy underneath young Istanbul:
not that people stop dreaming — but that they slowly learn to dream more carefully.
Elanur Dinc is the founder of Istanbul Muse, former agency owner and writer, originally raised in Germany and living in Istanbul for over six years. What started as a temporary move for a project slowly turned into a deep emotional connection with the city. Somewhere between chaos, stray cats and emotional overstimulation, she accidentally became a little bit of an Istanbul muse herself. She came to Istanbul for work — and stayed for the cats. Through personal essays and urban observations, she writes about the beauty, contradictions and emotional intensity of everyday life in Istanbul.
