OK, I can hear a lot of my readers think 'ew'. Don't be so silly.

I'm not writing this to make fun of anybody but the concept of webbed toes is definitely something that I've only ever come across in this country, never back home. I should probably write this in German as it's more interesting for a German to read than an English speaker who's most likely familiar with this concept. But no, writing in German is odd. Simply take this as a view from an outsider.

The first time I heard about webbed toes was about five to six years back in Holland where a friend from the UK told me that he couldn't wear sandals as his feet were just too ugly. I was curious to find out what he meant. He told me that he had feet that looked like something amphibian rather than human. Now I was really curious.

When I found out what he meant I made him show me his feet, only to find something that looked almost exactly like my feet. Big disappointment. What his so-called 'webbing' came down to was that the separation between the second and third toe (the ones next to the big one) was not quite as deep as the one for the big toe. But other than that the length of the smaller toes is perfectly normal. To me that's not webbing.

Next question that came to my mind was did I have ugly feet and didn't know about it? LOL. Actually, I don't think so. I like my feet.

OK, with that sorted out, let's get to what bothers me - a little.

Now that I knew what my disfigured friend meant I started noticing the odd comment about this condition on British TV shows. (Yeah, I probably watch strange shows.) I don't really think that the British population per se has more webbed toes than the German one. So it seems that this phenomenon seems to be a lot more present in the English psyche than in the German one (or is this becoming more unpopular there too)? On British TV as soon as somebody mentions this condition you can hear somebody go 'ew' as if webbed toes are something really disgusting. Come on, what is so horrible about a little bit of extra skin between toes? I can think of much worse things (use your own imagination please).

Apart from the fact that I don't like this reaction as I think it makes some people feel really uncomfortable, especially those who don't have good self esteem or people who suffer from a wrong body image (oh, I'm oh so PC), I'm starting to think that the British are quite squeamish when it comes to most things body related. Well, to be perfectly honest I had that suspicion from a very early time, when I was about 15 and my British exchange partner tended to lock herself in our bathroom for things that German girls most likely would do together - like styling your hair (just so you don't get wrong ideas). In terms of squeamishness I'm sure I could find a lot more examples, especially after going through ante-natal classes in this country, but I think I'll just leave it at this.

(And then the Brits have the audacity to think that Germans have an anal fixation. Pah!)

Bad thing is that living in the UK and hearing about stuff like that, affects me too and all these little insecurities about how I should behave creep into my mind. I'm watching myself very closely about whatever I'm saying when it comes to body related topics as I don't want to stick out as the a) unkempt, b) insensitive, and c) so very German German. Hard work as it goes quite a lot against my personality. I'm German after all.