A little over five months ago, I started the following experiment: I invited my best female friends to help me compile a comprehensive and didactic approach to handling complicated relationships.

My invitation went as follows:

Subject: a little group exercise!

Dear friends,

would you like to write something for me …

The trouble with nerds, when they stay in front of you looking into your eyes, not saying anything and not doing anything, with this awkward half-second of silence after a conversation ends, is that you don’t know how to handle them because it could be they are just being …

I am getting seriously annoyed by this question.

Not because it is somewhat intimate and still part of the social handshake, just between “what’s your name?” and “what do you do?”. The latter got me annoyed before but I learned how to cope with it already.

No, the reason …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …