W If a friend, a good friend, is the best thing there is in the world, then this especially applies to the “Silent Friend”. I recently heard about this charming custom, which comes from the group travel tradition, for the first time, in keeping with the movie of the same name that has just been released, “Silent friend,” whose protagonist is an almost 1,000-year-old ginkgo tree that silently observes various storylines.
The “Silent Friend” game, on the other hand, is played exclusively by people, preferably on vacation. The rules were explained to me in such a way that at the beginning of a holiday together, each traveler is randomly assigned the name of another, whose secret “silent friend” he or she becomes. From now on, the Silent Friend, whose identity is not known to anyone else in the group, has the task of giving his beneficiary small, surprising gifts:
For example, in the evening in the bar you suddenly find a favorite cocktail that you’ve paid for, you find a Mettbrötchen smeared with love and a lot of onions on the breakfast board, or you discover a freshly picked bouquet of edelweiss in your ski socks before having fun on the slopes. If you want, depending on your finances and inclinations, you can also stuff a diamond necklace in there; the exact definition of friendship is up to the silent friend. At the end of the time out together, everyone should have a good time guessing or unmasking who among the fellow travelers acted as a “silent friend”.
Ever since I found out about the game, I’ve been discovering “Silent Friend” references everywhere – and that warms my heart. Who put the little chocolate candy on my pillow in the dingy hotel room? Who made sure that there was exactly one bottle of the good, cheap crémant left on the supermarket shelf? Who persuaded the bus driver to wait until I came sliding through the slush with my tongue hanging out?
The downside, however, is that I have felt a lot of “silent enemies” since then. Who used the last toilet paper and the last tampon? Who hid my expensive right leather glove? Who wanted the Zaragoza Band from the DJ?
Maybe the problem lies in the level anyway: I have always felt treated unfairly on the “Silent Staircase”, and in the “Room of Silence” you are forbidden to chat. In this respect, the nice custom might have to be continued with only minor assimilation: After all, a “loud friend” can also do good, and that doesn’t even have to happen under the seal of secrecy. And when the Loud Friends have a party, there’s guaranteed to be dancing and smooching.