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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/immoValerkey on 2023-08-22 16:34:31.
I’m German and I was traveling last weekend through Spain. I stayed at a hostel at a mixed room and some of the roommates where american. At night we were all mingling and talking about each other and one of the american guys, upon hearing I was German, told me “ohh a fellow German!”. At this point I wasn’t actually sure if he was american, so I asked in German if he was german. He mumbled a bit and said “haha sorry I’m German but I actually don’t speak the language, only a few sentences”
But he kept bringing up about how being german shaped his life, how important german culture was, like he apparently celebrates Oktoberfest every year and so.
I asked why did he say he was german if he was actually american, he said that it was because his great grandfather was german and his grandmother was german-irish…okay, whatever that means, I asked him if he knew where his great grandad was from and surprisingly he did, Hamburg! But this was extra hilarious because then it makes no sense for the guy to celebrate Oktoberfest, as that’s a Bavarian thing (ja ja nowadays you can find Oktoberfest in any major german city but its not tradition, only commercial)
I still didn’t say anything and we just kept talking. The guy kept making all these remarks about “German culture” and “German food” like “hot dog with Sauerkraut” (???). Me and my friends were then planning to go look for a place to drink and he asked to come with us “so the germans should stick together”. We had a few beers at a bar and he ONCE AGAIN brought up something about “being german” and saying he was gonna get the german flag tattoed in Germany, by this point I was already a bit tipsy and annoyed and I told him “can you please stop saying that? You’re not german my friend, you’re american of german descent, you don’t even know about german culture or food, or how to speak, you’re really annoying me”
The guy looked pretty angry/annoyed and kind of scoffed and tried to jokingly say “you’re right, I rather be american, at least then I can say I didn’t lose a world war”. At that point me and my friends were rolling our eyes so hard that we just moved to a different place. Later some other guy not related to us told me that the guy was pretty annoyed/sad that I told him he wasn’t german because apparently that was a big part of his identity.
Now IDK was I the asshole for not letting him live in his delusion?