How do you experience typical German body language- eye contact, distance, touching, etc?

One of the many stereotypes of German people is that they tend to be really “cold” and reserved, that they do not like to be in contact with another person on a physical level, unless they had known them for a long time. However, this is not entirely true, nor wrong.

For what I have noticed they tend to keep their distance, from other people like in buses for instance, or during a walk in the street, they also tend to not make eye contact with the people around them, and for sure they do not touch under any circumstance another person. However, I don’t believe that is a wrong way to act in their behavior, for me it actually makes sense. For instance, not everyone likes to be too close to people that they don’t even know, I know I don’t, so in my experience it is actually great that they keep their distance while it is possible. The eye contact can be too much for someone, if out of nowhere someone keeps staring at you, it is highly creepy, so it’s actually good that German people in general keep eye contact at minimum. Also the touching part, while in some cultures it is really common to kiss someone on the cheeks as a way of greeting or grabbing someone’s arm as a way of greetings as well, can result in being really uncomfortable for people who are not used to it.

Although I come from a culture in which greeting and being more physically closer to another person is seems normal, once I moved to the US, I learn that they are not used to physical proximity as much, and now I have adapted that general social norm, which has helped to to be more use to the German way to handle things in a social setting. For the moment I am enjoying not having to make small talk to random people in the bus, since I barely understand the language. Overall, from my experience I can say it’s quite nice.