The Dutch in Love..

I was talking to the stunningly pretty girl who was doing my nails the other day about her experiences dating in Dutchie Land. She was, to be precise in description, a beautiful blond from the far Eastern reaches of Europe, in other words, not a Dutch lass, and I wanted her outside-insider opinion on male-female behavior here, because I hadn't seen anything like it since dancing school when I was 13 and a boy who liked me had two of his friends physically drag me across the dance floor , the little white gloves on my hands doing nothing to warm my hands cold as ice from the absolute terror and abject confusion I felt. This pretty much sums up the level of discomfort even the prettiest lass from a strange land has been known to feel after entering the land of the tree tall men with one centimeter tongues, at least, one might assume so for the incredible effort it takes them to make small talk.

My new friend enlightened me and unwittingly soothed my concerns by describing her own she had when she came here,  she told me "I felt as if I had ceased to exist as a woman, I felt ugly , invisible. I stopped doing my hair , wearing makeup, and I didn't care what I wore or how I dressed, because none of it seemed to matter or make a difference".

Now this girl was, is, stunningly lovely, blond, very skinny, and very petite, in other words, quite apparently not a typical Dutchwoman.
Dutch women have a reputation for being attractive, we have seen so many lovely ones in the fashion industry as young models, but after 30, the typical considered sexy Dutch woman fits a precise model, it's not necessarily bad or good, but it is considered the gold standard to fit in and look the part and get a boyfriend/husband/man to cheat on said husband with (that's a topic for another day, for such a stodgy race they are not, I have learned from married friends, particularly faithful) - :
tall, preferably over 5'7(below see the prime of life version of the genus)

Large, BIG boned, as in, I do NOT want to get into an argument with this woman after a few glasses of pinot noir in a dark alley .Think Wagner and Hitler having a communal conjugal fantasy about their nanny. These ladies are big. I am not petite by American or French standards, and I feel like an an
absolute midget here on nights out, a charming blond American midget. It's a conversation starter at any rate.
And BLOND. Mostly  dyed, over-processed blond. The incidence of tow headed children here is astonishing, I've never seen so many booby trap children in one place . Booby trap children are the kind that are so cute that you think you should have one yourself- then, hello, diapers, sleepless nights- booby trap!:). Adorable little blue eyed, white haired children. They don't exist in the wild naturally after about age 13, thus high rate of consumption of hair bleach, there are seemingly hundreds of varieties of blond hair dye in the pharmacy.
And oddly, only one or two good colorists that I have seen evidence of, even on the richest heads, here in Amsterdam (you know who you are, good one;) ) . A lot of bad bottle blond! The Dutch practicality seems very often to flow over to the beauty parlour, or lack of use thereof..

Not to say that these women are not attractive- not at all! A majority have a sexy quality that is utterly different from the American ,French, Russian or even British varietals, that depend more on standard feminine wiles and artifice to generate the accepted levels of appeal for men in their respective nations . Here the women have the kind of sex appeal I admired often in horsewomen , a sort of devil may care you like me or you don't and I don't give a damn one way or the other about it feeling. Little makeup, hair rarely blown dry (as the rain would do it in in short time at any rate), nails done when they feel like it and not every week at the nail place as we do in the states. As a side note, maybe my reference to horsewomen has something to do with the gold standard in Dutch street fashion, which is to say: tight jeans tucked into knee high flat boots , a little jacket over a button down shirt, and some kind of interesting scarf.

Other attributes of this typical Dutch woman?
They  seem  often to have the same  sun loved skin after the age of 40. Owing to their desperation for warmth  after months in this miserable climate in the winter I believe they spend their entire summer vacations on their backs in the sun, and in the winters cooking in the sun beds at the gym (all gyms have them here ). And they often smoke, and drink . Horrors! it is though really nice  to be in a country that at least in this respect is not politically correct , after years in California, I find it  relaxing to be in a place where you can have a cigarette outside and not be shunned and loudly complained over and badgered  as the pariah you are  as happened to me in New York last year when I had a cigarette, outside, ten tables away from anyone else.. (here they would throw the complainer in the canal) .

And lastly, don't forget the very distinct female Dutch voice, which has a strong masculine quality, owing more to the cigarettes or the language, I have yet to decide, but between one and the other most Dutch women sound like sixty year old Dutch men by the age of 18.  The Dutch language, though having much in common with German and a little in common with English, has a distinct "G" sound that is heard often in Arabic, imagine someone spitting up a fur ball every time they say the letter G (and imagine how often the letter G occurs in most sentences) or the three letters "cht" in any word, and you can  imagine for yourself a language that sounds like something invented by a drunk  German who  had a bad head cold . When I first got here and was bored at night, I would turn on Dutch tv to have a laugh over  the phone sex adds that multiple tv channels had on , and cracked up over and over to the  ladies rasping out all their G's  and trying to sound sexy at the same time while writhing in cheap lingerie. "Bell me, lekker borscht , nul zeven zes etc.."Coughing up furballs was never so sexy...not..

The predominance of these phone sex ads on late night tv brings me back to my topic ; Dutch dating practice. After investigating and interviewing a number of single and married , expat and native people here, I have learned a few things:
that Dutch women do not like chivalry, and if a man opens a door for them they are likely to look at him as if he has been hit in the head.
And more to the point, and importantly, that Dutch men are terrified of them.(And thus terrified , in due order, of anything that resembles them, including the rest of us hapless visiting felines)

Equally, if they do not like a strange (previously unknown) man who approaches them in a bar, they will not even reply when he speaks to them, but look at him as if he is simultaneously trying to steal their purse and passing gas ,and then angrily turn back to their girlfriends as if to say "How dare this lowly worm there doth dare speak to Ourself " and laugh at him. This has been reported to me by more than a few Dutch guys.

I was told  this behavior originated in the 70s', when the Dutch feminists took that movement to the extreme, and treated all of its tenets as religion, as the Dutch have been wont to do with most social movements that have come through their parts, going back to the religious zealots of the later Middle Ages, whose various movements culminated with Calvinism, whose ideas of being normal and modest to this day control the behavior and thought of much of what constitutes "normalcy" in behavior and ethics in Dutch society.

It's a funny thing, because even the biggest, bossiest, most manlike Dutch woman is usually only working part time if at all, statistically women in the Netherlands work much less than women in other countries, most hold a part time, 2-3 days a week job to "keep busy". Some work to help support the family, but many do not work at all, and yet, there is no place for chivalry in this society, though I have come across a few Dutch men, thank Heaven, who had mothers who taught them to open doors and the rest. But who is teaching the women? Men should also be respected for their contribution, call me old fashioned, but I think we have , in this modern world, lost something when we threw out that baby with the bathwater, I think men should be honored for their work and contribution and for supporting their families..but topic for another day...

Back to love and the Dutch.  What is love to a Dutchman or woman? I have found one charming answer to this query in my examination; it seems that once a pair of Dutchie birds have mated, once they have made it there, there is among the middle class at least, a high tendency towards fidelity, and strong friendship. Though have to say, among the wealthier classes, to be exact at a few parties, I have seen married couples going home with separate partners, and no one seemed to care very much about it.

I also often hear through the tiny grapevine in Amsterdam of men taking their partners to "swingers' clubs" , or even of single men attempting to take their dates there to "try them out"! So beneath the veneer of middle class respectability, or should I say, above the seventh figure in the bank account line and beyond the pale, Dutch birds seems rather conversely and inherently  in-capable of sticking to the one they put a ring on. One of my first friends here was a very wealthy guy who had a wife and children, left her to make more children with another woman, and now still cheats on the new one with other random women around town. Very depressing. !

And Dutch flirting? Ah..here we get back to the heart of the matter...well, remember when you were in kindergarten, and there was a boy you liked/hated? How did he try to get your attention, did he woo you with chocolates and flowers or did he try to hit you over the head with his basketball, ignore you the rest of the time and make fun of you in front of his friends when you first meet?
Well, if you want to understand Dutch men in love, you're going to have to regress a few years.

For the male of the species, and evidently the female, do not flirt and join in the way we in the rest of the west have considered "normal" ever  since Romeo did not throw a shoe at Juliet..cooing and comforting and wooing and wanting words are thrown away in lieu of the following tactics;(and I shall just for the moment speak of the male side, for such only I have experienced)
A. looking , just briefly , very briefly at the target
B. studiously ignoring said target all night thereafter
and then either C. waiting till said target is drunk and self is equally drunk before lunging at her , grabbing onto the closest available body part and holding on for dear life (this has been attempted on author's person and it is not pretty)
or, C. throwing insults at the object of affection and attempting to start an argument .
If object is not Dutch she may be bewildered to learn from friends after evening that the abuser in question was actually a pursuer.

And if you meet a Dutch man you like, don't be afraid to ask him out. If he manages to call you on his own, this is the Dutch man's dating equivalent of climbing Everest, swimming the Channel with one arm tied, fighting a Kimodo Dragon with a kitchen knife. Be nice to the poor darling, if he calls, throw him a bone, ask him out. After some time of off and on of interaction with their race I have discovered that being VERY clear with your intentions is perfectly okay with a Dutch man, in fact they prefer it as they are absolutely no good whatsoever at subtext or subterfuge.

more on the subject to come with further experimentation....:)