Here are two people who pretty much know what they don’t want. A conversation with Micky Beisenherz about the art of saying no at the right moment
by Stephan Bartels (interview)
Barbara: Mickey, I’ll just say one word: no.
Mickey: Uh … but … why … I haven’t …
Barbara: Oh, that’s not what I mean. I want to talk to you about the word “no”. Rather: about the beautiful and meaningful use of this word.
Mickey: You have come to the right place with me.
Barbara: Why?
Mickey: Because over the years I’ve chiseled out an outline in my life that was shaped by what I didn’t want.
Barbara: A process of elimination?
Mickey: So to speak. I think that rarely in my life have I gone in a direction because I wanted something badly. Most of the time you think: No, I don’t do that shit anymore. But can you do that?
Barbara: What?
Mickey: Say no.
“I just always say yes first”
Barbara: But yes. I was really bad at it once, but I’ve learned quite well now. This process started at 40. However, I still prefer to say yes.
Mickey: In what moments?
Barbara: If someone wants to hire me for an exciting project, for example. But then my manager comes along and says strictly and truthfully that I don’t have time for this. You could say that I have outsourced the no-no on a professional level.
Mickey: And private?
Barbara: More difficult. My mother-in-law always says, if you need help, ask someone who is too busy. He’ll never say no. There’s something to it, I just always say yes first.
Mickey: You were always a good girl too, weren’t you?
Barbara: Total. But you definitely don’t. I imagine you young as a snotty rebel.
Mickey: It was not me. I definitely had anarchy in me, but even as a three-year-old I always explained quite charmingly in plausible lines of argument why I didn’t want something. Conversely, you could also talk to me well, I was persuasive. You only got stuck with me with unfounded bans. Understanding that was relatively skillful of my mother.
Barbara: You have a baby daughter Does that work there too?
Mickey: In parts, you can also talk to her sensibly. She immediately realized that I don’t need a bicycle helmet, for example, because I have the harder head.
Barbara: Oh God. I’m still working on the bicycle helmet situation. This is such infinitely thin ice.
Mickey: I just do it like Ranga Yogeshwar. I put some scientific facts in the room that nobody knows if they are true.
“I like to be told where to go”
Barbara: My son would thunder his skull on the asphalt just to prove to me that his head is harder.
Mickey: One cannot accuse him of being a member of the authorities …
Barbara: No But I do. I really like to be told where to go. But only – and I don’t know if that’s a contradiction – because I know inside that I will make the decisions alone in the end.
Mickey: Well, I can already see the contradiction.
Barbara: For example, I like it when a man makes the big decisions of principle. But I can only follow them because I know deep down that I am totally independent. And that’s why I generally stick to rules. Unless I am not allowed to take my suitcase on the plane as hand luggage. For me that is completely incomprehensible.
Mickey: Of course not. But when I think about it … I think I stick to rules like Uli Hoeneß.
Barbara: What does that mean?
Mickey: Well, I’m flexible there. If it fits, I’ll stick to it. Unless …
Barbara: An example, please.
Mickey: At home I have to make a giant arc because of a stupid one-way street to get to my front door. But you can also just drive wrongly through this one-way street for 30 meters. So what am i doing?
Barbara: Well, the latter of course.
Mickey: Naturally. And then there is always someone who points out this administrative offense to me with many gestures and anger, which does not hinder anyone and certainly not his own progress in traffic. Nothing triggers people like someone else’s breaking the rules.
“Sometimes there is a cross with these rules”
Barbara: Oh yeah! I once ran along behind my car, rowing his arms wildly with a cell phone that was ready to record.
Mickey: Wait a minute: I think you always obey the rules?
Barbara: Well, I have to limit that in traffic. But if I make a quick, illegal turn in the second row, it is only to keep the traffic flowing! What am I supposed to queue up for and make the queue in front of the traffic lights even longer?
Mickey: But sometimes it is also a cross with these regulations.
Barbara: Speaking of the cross: didn’t you even have beef with the Catholic Church the other day?
Mickey: Rather with some followers of the same. I said on social media that I was with my little daughter at my nephew’s communion.
Barbara: And then?
Mickey: She wanted to go forward at the sacrament too. Then she stood there, folded her little hands and looked at the pastor with wide eyes. He just said: “I’m sorry, there is no wafer for you.” I stood behind it, had nothing but the complete lack of understanding for the man of God, had mine given to me and passed it on to my daughter.
Barbara: Mickey!
Mickey: The clergyman reacted roughly in the same way. I then went away shaking my head and retold the whole thing on Facebook afterwards. Then there it was, my quarterly shit storm.
“You always have to have a little bit of must in a stable relationship”
Barbara: Because people felt hurt in their beliefs?
Mickey: No Because there is a basic Teutonic need to adhere to existing rules, no matter what area of life. And that is then paired with a performance concept.
Barbara: As the?
Mickey: Well, there were people behind me who used to lap up these arduous communion classes for a year. And my child gets this host just like that, without anything in return. For them it is as if someone was jostling in line. I have to say: It’s nice that you have your rules, but I’ll give a shit about it when I make a run-up.
Barbara: But what about rules in a relationship?
Mickey: Can you specify your question?
Barbara: There is this new trend that you shouldn’t meet the needs of the other so much, but first your own, then the relationship will work almost by itself.
Mickey: Isn’t that more of a concept that many follow shortly before the breakup? So, before the breakup, which happens because you’ve definitely taken too much care of yourself?
Barbara: I can see: You are maximally unconvinced.
Mickey: Let’s put it this way: I think you always have to have a little bit of must in a stable relationship. Cutting back on one’s own happiness is part of it. However, if the whole partnership is a single compromise, then it gets really stupid. What do you think about that?
Barbara: I am just realizing that in my marriage I have never thought about whether what I am doing is a compromise or just for his sake. And I’m sure that’s a good thing too. Once you start putting every relationship action on the gold scales, things get cerebral. And that has never done any love good.
Mickey: Have you never been afraid to give away too much of yourself?
Barbara: On the contrary. By always focusing on my partners in my relationships, I have gained so much good.
Mickey: For example?
Barbara: A new way of looking at the world, that of others. I got to know aspects of life that I would never have seen without these men.
Mickey: Anyway, there is no pressure of suffering if you can say at any time: All this is pissing me off, I’m leaving.
“Jokes are only made about successful people”
Barbara: Right. That creates long-suffering. Do you feel completely independent?
Mickey: Yes absolutely. Which does not mean that in the event of a lost love the ground cannot be pulled away from under my feet anyway. And professionally as a freelancer you are always dependent on others. I prevent this by being a multi-jobber and doing around a thousand different things. It doesn’t matter if one of them breaks away.
Barbara: A large part of your job consists of peeing on other people’s legs.
Mickey: That’s right.
Barbara: And sometimes you have to apologize for it.
Mickey: Not very often. The last time I did that a year ago for one of my talk guests who was slightly derailed. But I didn’t break a point from the crown with that either.
Barbara: I love to apologize. This feeling of admitting a mistake to yourself and admitting that to the other is very liberating.
Mickey: This is true. But do you know why I rarely feel that I have to apologize at work?
Barbara: N / A?
Mickey: Because when I pee on legs, I basically only do it upwards. I would never piss on someone weaker than me.
Barbara: This is also one of my principles: Jokes are only made about successful people.
Mickey: And yet: We hurt someone’s feeling in the process. We just have to decide: If in doubt, do we not care?
“I’m also a fan of political correctness”
Barbara: Do not you care?
Mickey: Of course not, but there are gradations. If I claim that advertisers are all prostitute friends who are coking, I don’t care more about their indignation than that of bricklayers and plumbers, if I – just one example: would describe them as drunk for professional reasons.
Barbara: I fear the outrage that follows almost everything we say is a phenomenon of our time. Sensitivities increase, political correctness increases. And you have to choose one side, otherwise you will be ground up.
Mickey: I’m also a fan of political correctness. It made society a better one, sharpened our senses for what hurts others. Only: there is an overstimulation that creates a countermovement. And then suddenly Trump and his friends are socially acceptable, and misogynist behavior and everyday racism are subsumed under the freedom of the word.
Barbara: And clichés about women and people from other cultures, which we had long since overcome, are being brought back from the moth box of history. Speaking of clichés: You come from Castrop-Rauxel. Your Ruhrpott origins are also laden with clichés.
Mickey: Oh, I live in Hamburg now, and I just don’t find the Hamburger stubborn, stiff, humorless and lazy, even though I’ve learned to do that. But I have another thesis on that.
Barbara: Which?
Mickey: That this rumor was started by a drunk Rhinelander because the hamburgers surrounding him did not immediately sing De Höhner during the carnival season. But one cliché about us is true.
Barbara: Which?
Mickey: If eight people stand in front of the elevator in silence and one of them starts to chat, then he’ll come out of the pot. The Ruhri just can’t stand silence. You can see from me.
MICKY BEISENHERZ was born in 1977 in Recklinghausen and socialized in Castrop-Rauxel. He studied social sciences and worked in construction for a year, both of which prepared him for a life as a multi-jobber in the media sector. As an author, he writes gags for several TV formats, moderates and successfully produces podcasts. Currently on sale: his book “… and for the apocalypse there is filter coffee” (Rowohlt). Beisenherz has a daughter and lives in Hamburg.