Did You Make an Appointment?

“Did you make an appointment?”

At some point, I realized this might be the most German question I hear regularly.

Not “How are you?”

Not “Where are you from?”

Not even “What do you do?”

But:

“Did you make an appointment?”

Need to see a doctor?

Did you make an appointment?

Need to visit an office?

Did you make an appointment?

Need a haircut?

Did you make an appointment?

Want to discuss something important?

Better make an appointment.

For a long time, I thought this was simply bureaucracy.

Another example of Germany’s famous love affair with calendars, forms, and advance planning.

Then I started noticing something interesting.

The appointment was not only a practical tool.

It was also a social expectation.

In many places, showing up unexpectedly is considered friendly.

Spontaneity can signal closeness.

Flexibility.

Warmth.

Germany often seems to operate according to a different logic.

An appointment is not a barrier.

It is a form of respect.

When you make an appointment, you are acknowledging that another person’s time belongs to them.

You are not assuming availability.

You are requesting it.

That distinction sounds small.

Yet it appears everywhere.

Friends arrange meeting days in advance.

Professionals schedule calls.

Repairs require appointments.

Administrative offices practically run on them.

Even leisure often finds its way onto a calendar.

The first time someone invited me to dinner several weeks in advance, I thought they were joking.

They weren’t.

The dinner happened exactly when promised.

Weeks later.

At the time written in the calendar.

As though the future had already been negotiated.

Over time, I stopped seeing appointments as evidence of German rigidity.

Instead, I began seeing them as a strategy.

A way of organizing uncertainty.

A way of reducing friction.

A way of ensuring that people can rely on one another.

Because appointments do something surprisingly powerful.

They transform intentions into commitments.

…