We Are Very Sad to Tell You

★ The May Issue

LOVE IS PATIENT. LOVE IS KIND. LOVE PACKED ITS BAGS. YOU’RE LEFT BEHIND.

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Recently, things took a bad turn for me. I left Mitte—to meet K., who had broken up with her boyfriend on Friday and bleached her hair the following Saturday. A catch-up was overdue.

Against better judgment, we agreed to grab coffee in Friedrichshain, where all feelings go to die. In the words of Miss Kittin, “Time has already stopped. Destination: Ostbahnhof.”

The S-Bahn that carried me there had left the station. So had my train of thought. Derailed by matters of the heart (both K.’s and my own), I took a misstep. From one second to another, my foot folded like a 50-Euro bill in a Soho House bathroom. Hasty, crisp, vaguely shameful.

Every now and then, God taps you on a shoulder with a gentle reminder: Berlin is not a city that holds your hand. Ouch.

The sudden descent called for medical attention, but the tiny voice in my head whispered: You can’t have broken it in a way that matters. Plus, a catch-up was overdue. So I got up, texted K. (“running late xx”), and hobbled toward the appointed location by the Spree.

Overheard on Torstrasse:

“Yeah, I mean, shit was going down but… at least he could get sympathy head out of this.”

K.’s love story had ended over a phone call. “It’s okay,” she said. “Maybe it just… ran its course.” No drama. Just a (somewhat) mutual close.

A similar thing had happened to B. Citing “communication issues,” she booked a one-way flight and silently left town. M. went through what she called a “mindful separation,” honoring what was, making space for what may come. J.’s latest situationship also took a considerate little break, like a school kid would during summer.

Enter the season of PCB: painfully civil breakups. Low-inflammatory. Often practiced in lowercase.

“Pre-fracture,” as the doctors at ChiruPädicum on Grosse Hamburger Strasse might say. Not visible to the naked eye (nor the X-ray, frankly), but enough to keep you limping.

That’s the new etiquette. No one gets dumped anymore—they simply part ways. De-couple. Unmerge. Off-ramp into autonomy.

Overheard at a speaker hotel of re:publica:

“My husband? He’s very… low-carbon-footprint. The planet barely knows he’s there.”

The next morning, as I was adjusting to my orthopedically challenged state, another breakage entered the group chat: Georgia had caught fire.

Not the country. The bar. You know, the one that replaced Odessa, which replaced King Size, which replaced whatever came before anyone was sober enough to remember. A place half-held together by cigarette ash, hearsay, and the charisma of doorman icon Frank Künster. A site of beautiful decisions made under poor lighting.

“Lovely party people of Berlin,“ the statement read, “we are very sad to tell you we had a big fire in our beloved bar. There’s nobody hurt but sadly some damage. We don’t know why and how the fire started and we’re waiting for further investigation. Love you all from Mitte.”

Just like that, on a random Tuesday. No casualties, thankfully. No blame, neither. No crescendo. Just a few lines confirming that something had quietly stopped being what it was.

Overheard at the afters:

“They came here with ambition and ended up at the afters.”

That’s how things fall apart now—with minimal disruption. Even disasters seem careful not to take up too much space.

Breakage didn’t always look like this. There used to be volume. Grief. A slammed door. A song ruined forever. Something you could build a personality around, maybe. Something you could point to and say: there. That’s when it changed. That’s when it broke.

Now the exit is gracious, and the damage is mostly internal. No one shouts. No one begs. No one throws anything across the room. Instead: a phone call, a nod, a mutual understanding.

Swell. But the swelling’s still there. The ache doesn’t vanish because it’s emotionally insured and well-mannered.

And it’s not that the fire should have been louder—god forbid. It’s that nothing is, somehow? Not anymore.

Berlin forecast: slight limp. Mild heartbreak. Low chance of catharsis by early June.

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★ TBD Excitement

Pride season!!! Also, season finale of the Berlin Philharmonic. Fête de la Musique, maybe? Berlin Biennale, definitely. Plus, Sofia Kourtesis’s release party at Funkhaus.

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★ IRL of the Month

Accidental outdoor office, Alexianer St. Hedwig Hospital

Grosse Hamburger Strasse 5–11, 10115 Berlin

Don’t let the name fool you—yes, it’s a hospital. And yes, the building is a Neo-Gothic beauty in full bureaucratic drag. Time moves slowly here, mostly in the form of paperwork. But just behind it all: a quiet, leafy garden. There’s Wi-Fi. There are benches. There’s a surprising sense of calm. If you’re tired of the usual coworking haunts, try filing your existential dread under “remote work” and take a seat here.

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