1. surprise, curiousity: “oh, you can speak Dutch? How nice!” Hidden meaning: it's surprising; unusual for foreigners to be interested in our language; but I really can't understand a word of what you're saying.
2. condescension: replying in English. Hidden meaning: ok, you've shown you can make yourself understood, now stop annoying us with your broken grammar and unusual vocabulary, let's switch back to English please!
3. tolerance: “ik vind je franse accent écht mooi!” Hidden meaning: we can communicate well, but remember that you're still a foreigner.

What's next?

Last wednesday evening, during my Dutch class, I nearly got lynched by the 5 girls who compose the rest of my group.

My biggest mistake was to start describing my pet peeve without starting with the obvious. The obvious being:

• yes, there is a terrifyingly large number of women who are routinely and impunely abused, killed, used, exploited or otherwise mishandled by men worldwide;
• yes, many men and society as a whole psychologically pressure women and give them little freedom over their life, and male/female inequalities are far from resolution everywhere;
• yes, it is a fact that worldwide many men abandon the mother of their children, leaving them with a bleak future;

that said, I want to express my targeted disgust against a very specific category of women: the narrow-minded selfish mother-to-be hunting for male money and sperm.

This species came to my attention a few years ago when I witnessed a very sad happening. The story is as follows: an acquaintance of mine, fellow student with handsome features and a clever mind, was planning a bright future involving a period of self-discovery and enjoyment of life and opportunities, possibly followed a few years later by establishing himself at a place of his choosing and the founding of a family. Being young, clever and handsome, he was (expectedly) seeing someone — a girl met earlier than my knowing him. He would spend a weekend with her every now in a while, and his standing on high moral grounds would make him very involved in his relationship. During the end of his studies, as he was planning to move on with his career and possibly travel abroad, “it happened” that his significant other became pregnant. According to them, she one day “accidentally forgot her pill” and decided that now as well as later was a good time to start a family. His moral grounds standing, as well as a significant family pressure, supported a decision to accept this situation and make the best out of it. They were both under 25 of age when this happened. They are now living in a small city, not far from the grandparents' place, and he wouldn't find any work within 2 hours commute per day.

As I see it now, they both are very happy with their situation and are making the best out of it. That is undeniable in good faith.

However, as I see it, the girl used him to achieve her plans and he had little choice into the matter. She was not so successful with her studies, not so ambitious, and the work opportunities around her would not allow her to climb the social scale. On his side, he was planning to exercise his freedom, possibly moving and living abroad. For her, it was a very serious opportunity to try and secure her own future and create a high standing and highly recognized moral legitimacy for her existence as a woman by securing both serious revenue generation abilities (preferably from the IT industry) and a father for her children. Whether it was accidental or adequately prepared, getting pregnant at that time was rationnally an excellent outcome to her life concerns as well as a very good lifetime investment.

Now, I will not outline too precisely my opinion on this specific case in writing, but suffice to say that I was very sad to hear from her that “then was a good time to have children” and from him that “later would have been nicer, but then was ok as well.”

Since that time, I have come to meet other similar couples. A pattern became clear: the female is usually between 18 and 27, feels insecure with regard to her social situation, does not consider a career path, speaks fondly of having children, and engages only in commited relationships with men older than she is, with good revenue generation potential. The guy is usually young as well (albeit older than the female), is planning a career path but is currently considering his options, entertains a high morale valuing respect and commitment, and has a limited social circle to support him. What happens is that the female and the male engage into a relationship; the relationship becomes exclusive; the woman pressures the man to have children and “becomes” pregnant as soon as the man shows signs that he would be responsible and not abandon her immediately; then she tries to make the situation look better and he gradually accepts his new life path (decided by her), although he did not really expect children… that early.

So, I presented my conclusions to my language class. They (all females) charged me with anger and despise. They would accuse me of ignoring all those cases where the opposite situation holds (man using the woman), which are much more common — not even realizing that (some) men abusing (some) women is no rational justification for (some) women to abuse (some) men. They would not acknowledge that the indivudal freedom of the father-to-be as a single and childless man is extremely valuable and deserves as much respect as the urge to pin him down and steal his fatherhood. A serious case of denial at hand — I felt relatively powerless and I eventually dropped the conversation.

What I did not explain to them is that a female friend of mine and I have been talking extensively over the subject. She is now about 30 and she recalls an earlier period of her life when she was ready to do exactly that : find the “right” man and use him to provide her with a social situation — as a mother, accomplished woman through having children. She knows several other females in a similar situation, and she supports the idea that the female body is in its 20s subject to a large quantity of hormones which are subtly telling to the brain that now and not later is the right time to carry offprings. As time passes, the urge recedes and an intuitive respect for the man as an individual — rather than sperm carrier and revenue generator — starts to reappear. Relationships built after this period, as they say, are much more mature, honest and fulfilling — in other words, way more “loving.”

That said, in my opinion, the idea that the responsibility of the woman in the destruction of the originally-planned future of the man is somewhat lowered by the impulse of her hormones only provides a very superficial excuse to her behavior. This sort of woman deserves to be kept cloistered safely from 14 until their age of reason, at least later than 35.

Yesterday evening was a happy evening, because I realized that it has been one year since I arrived in Rotterdam and it feels like it happened last week.

Today the occasion was duly celebrated with pastries and champagne; tonight I added the luxury of spending a few hours at a local beach club, and I even indulged myself in being grateful for my current employer for enabling me to live here.

Tomorrow the new year starts. If I recall correctly, the first year is emotionally the most intense; the second year is where the relationship develops and builds common projects; and the third year is the end of the initial flame, and the end of the relationship if it fails to find a new basis for its existence. Let's see how it goes.

Hopefully I did not expect to have a great time. I didn't.

Usually, receiving friends at home and synchronizing our lives during a midnight conversation is the kind of stuff that makes me shine. I love it.

Especially when it happens earlier than 2am, not after a week full of work, and not after finishing the most frightening and depressing novel I've read for a long time (La ligne noire - Grangé).

Let's say it wasn't the most brightening Friday evening for a little while.

Taking breakfast in bed with friends on a saturday morning always seems to me like a fun way to start the weekend. Actually,it is fun to see how newcomers to my city discover what lies “out there” and need to decide what they want to visit for the day. And it is a pleasure to see that they are able to take care of themselves and actually agree to help me in household duties.

Unfortunately, it becomes somewhat less fun when they start reading erotic magazines and start arguing and bitching about how difficult it is to find a girlfriend, how men should assert their manlihood to attract beautiful women, or how difficult it is to find an interesting country to live in besides the USA.

Then there was the party organized by my company yesterday. The free admission to the Blue man group show in Amsterdam (wonderful light effects, surprising drums), the large room in the Mövenpick Hotel and the after-party were planned to make the day unique in our memories.

I was quite curious about the whole event. The idea of gathering colleagues into a common activity is full of good intention and I appreciate that. Besides, it was the occasion to see people I work with everyday in an uncommon outfit (the dress code was “black tie”) and with a mindset detached from the work environment. That was nice, as well.

And still, I managed to be late and delay the departure to the event. Having left in a hurry, I could not relax during the whole dinner and show, and the stress kept me closed to whatever nice feelings the blue men were trying to shove into their audience. The hotel room was a sterilized palace that kept me thinking about the insane amount of money that was spent, like everything else for this evening, for no purpose other than luxury and social pretense. And the DJ during the after-party was absolutely terrible, preventing me from melting with the music and forgetting about how utterly alone everyone was.

And that is all I remember about this week-end: we just don't connect together.

The unfinishing and unfinished rant of the single heterosexual middle-class males; the morals and priority system of parents; the life projects and value systems of corporate co-workers: I hate them. Having received a good education, I smile and keep up the conversation in a civilized manner; however my forced smile is the upper level of a thick fog of the utter boredom, and I hate them for that feeling too.

And yet, there is hope; for this morning I could feel glowing inside me a burning desire to tear their social exoskeleton apart, blow the dust out of their dormant brains, and shake them until whatever flame of humanity left in their core starts to shine again. And before I opened the curtains and left the grey sky above Amsterdam successfully dim this glow and put me back on the tracks of a featureless normal winter day, I convinced myself that one day, I will try. Somehow.