Drama, Baby

Johanna is nineteen, studies communication design in Hamburg, and has a type. The problem with her type is that it’s reliably catastrophic. Already in a relationship? Doesn’t matter. Leaving the country in two months? Still doesn’t matter. Prior rape convictions? She admits, with considerable candor, that this also somehow didn’t matter—the disappointments that followed were, in her words, inevitable, though knowing that didn’t stop her from destroying a succession of perfectly good bedding sets with the crying that came after.

Her stated requirements are modest. A loving relationship with genuine fun, romantic moments, and good sex. Three things. She’ll make you eggs and bacon at four in the morning. She won’t embarrass you in front of your friends or family. Her breasts are small, and she notes, without apparent irony, that this is currently on trend.

In exchange you cannot be a washout. You need to know good music and to have read actual books. And—she is emphatic about this—you must be able to spell. A spelling error triggers something in her: she goes quiet and closed off, like a turtle retreating into its shell, because spelling errors make her think of intelligence-free people crawling out from the underbrush. She has thought about this in some detail. The metaphor is fully developed.

Gender is not the question. Boys, girls—she doesn’t discriminate. What matters is that you face life head-on, that you want something real with her, and that you’re prepared to make a city unsafe together: on the street, in the club, in bed. Johanna has a plan. She just needs someone who can spell their part of it.