I like dressing up. That's a luxury problem when you grow up in the catchment area of German carnival strongholds. I stand in front of the mirror for a few hours around five times a year and puzzle over how I could repackage my personality. Last year, I had invitations for a James Bond party, a bad-boy bash and a masquerade ball without a theme, only a disguise was explicitly requested. Besides, it's basically carnival season all the time. However, you have to be very careful if you don't want to make a fool of yourself.

There's a fine line between funny and ridiculous. If you go as a one-eyed hangman with original goat dirt under your fingernails, you might win the prize for the best costume of the evening. But the ladies are guaranteed to give you a wide berth on the dance floor - even those who have adopted their aesthetic standards from „Bauer sucht Frau“.

But the other extreme doesn't work either. Anyone who dresses up for a costumed party like Ryan Gosling's younger brother actually looks like a vain TikTok dancer who still lives with mum at the age of 23. The question of costume is indeed a tricky one, as the psychologist Professor Alfred Gebert from Münster already knew: „Costuming gives us the opportunity to slip into a different role. Through the masquerade, we encounter the world in a different role; it is a controlled escape from reason.“ I'm always up for escapes from reason, and they don't even have to be particularly controlled at carnival. Nevertheless, costumes all too often reveal too much about how self-perception differs from the perception of others. Just imagine the following: You assume that your choice of outfit, hairstyle and statesmanlike appearance will make you come across as glamorous as George Clooney at the Oscars. What a disappointment when an attractive woman tells you in passing her assessment of the situation: „That a man has the courage to appear here as Olli Welke ...“ 

It's less risky to squeeze yourself into a blue Smurf costume or go as Schwarzenegger, who was once a Terminator after all. In these cases, at least no woke hysterics will immediately scream „cultural appropriation“ and point the finger at you. For those who want it all Old School The „Rastafarian“ is no longer particularly well-liked beyond Jamaica either. One of my friends believes in women's magazines. That's why he always goes as a pilot at carnival, because he has read that many ladies secretly dream of having an affair with a bus driver of the skies.

None of that is an option for me. I always look for dignified maturity in a costume, combined with a certain cosmopolitanism, social competence, but also a little humble modesty. I'm probably going as Darth Vader this season. Psychologist Rolf Schmiel has a suspicion as to why the gloomy Yedi knight from „Star Wars“ is so popular with men: „The longing for power certainly plays a role. Besides, Darth Vader works alone, so he would have the opportunity to say something.“ I can hear my wife giggling in the background.