The Dutch seem dour

My family comes from the Netherlands. I can relate to Betty Draper on Mad Men when the guy said she seems profoundly sad and she answers "No, it's just my people are Nordic".

My ex-pat British pals say the women are very mannish and hefty gals.

The Dutch are the tallest people in the world. I am 6'4" and my brother is 6'3" and his wife is 6' (she used to model).

I went to Curaçao, a Dutch Island in the Caribbean.

Lots of Dutch were vacationing there. No laughter or joy at all

I distinctly recall one glorious dick. I hope it was representative of the typical Dutch male. I couldn't care less about laughing.

I lived there for 4 years. Had to learn to speak Dutch.

They're nice enough but yeah, they sometimes seem put-upon.

R6. Well, it is their country. If someone from the Netherlands came to the U.S., then learning English would likely be necessary.

Their height makes them sexy, not particular their looks, which can be very germanic

Amsterdam is one of the world's great cities.

I would play with a cute Dutch guy at the bathhouse. He would come in wearing a suit, but underneath, he wore only a jockstrap.

He could take a fist like a champ

[Quote] Amsterdam is one of the world's great cities

I visited for a week. It’s was three days too long

I'm part Dutch. Maybe that's why I'm never happy.

I'm Dutch on my maternal grandfather's side. I still have family in Holland and in St. Maarten. While the Dutch can be rather morose at times, they fuck like wild animals.

People from Northern Europe are known for being stoic. The Dutch in particular are known for being blunt assholes.

Austrians are dour too. If they were ever happy someone would have to tell their face.

Great sex.

I've always had fantastic sex with Dutch guys. They tend to be tall and hung. I know some find the Dutch inhospitable, but I've always found them to be friendly, sexy and gracious.

You might be the same way if you lived in a small, flat, crowded and expensive country with little nature and lousy food.

Are the Dutch in South Africa, Dutch trash?

They're Boer trash, mostly

Is Boer just a synonym for Dutch or a subset of the Dutch?

Those damn bicycles. Good Lord, nobody warned me before I went to Amsterdam years ago.

I'm not Dutch but someone thought I was Dutch when I was traveling once. I think it's probably because I'm dour and 5 inches above average height.

When traveling I have found the Dutch to be friendly, decent, accommodating, serious, intelligent and often excellent in bed.

Butter face.

You know, every once in a while, I wonder whether my natural temperament would have been better suited if I had been born and raised in another country.

Not that I'm dour, per se, but people used to tell me to "smile" all the time, even though I was having a perfectly pleasant day...until some jackass told me to smile for no damn reason.

[QUOTE]Not that I'm dour, per se, but people used to tell me to "smile" all the time, even though I was having a perfectly pleasant day...until some jackass told me to smile for no damn reason.

Exactly. Can't stand those fake positivity people. Life is grim. We need the pessimists too.

Don't surveys and studies suggest them to be the happiest people in the world?

R27, no, that’s the Danish

The food is nasty. Thank god the Indonesians gave them some decent restaurants.

Terrible senses of humor, lacking in wit or cleverness. They’re generally a vulgar people.

All the ones I've met are—

[quote] serious, intelligent.

I heard that motor cars are banned in Amsterdam and one must leave your tin car ten miles out of the city.

That sounds very intelligent to me.

The Dutch porn I’ve seen were so very unsexy. They were doing properly dirty things, but the vibe was similar to a polite business transaction between acquaintances. I kept expecting them to shake hands throughout.

OP, if you have experience with them, how to they “seem dour”.

Experience with them articulates that you either KNOW them personally to be of a dour nature, or you haven’t any experience with them, yet you perceive whatever you believe of them, to indicate them to perhaps be dour, so they “seem dour”.

Which one is it, OP?

Me thinks you don’t actually know anyone who is Dutch.

Being that I do, I’ll tell you they’re usually very well educated, speak several languages, are intelligent, no nonsense people who are diligent, and also know how to party like animals, have a lot of fun, and yes, are fantastic lovers.

Unlike others on this thread, I find them to be very good looking people who unfortunately, peak at attractiveness earlier than most, as they’re very fair and LOVE to vacation in tropical destinations, which is their opportunity to tan like maniacs.

I have zero issues with the Dutch, & prefer them to most Americans, without question.

I have found them aloof and distancing.

They make adequate cleanser.

I prefer a dour man to a gushy man.

R34, they’re realists who don’t spend lots of time fucking around and not getting to the point.

Yes, they’re quite blunt, and I appreciate this when dealing with a partner.

I agree with R15, they're assholes.

I used to go to a lot of international conferences and there were two pretty prominent Dutch researchers we worked frequently with. We were having a roundtable meeting with about 40 people and I honestly can't recall what the hell we were taking about other than it was not controversial and not something anyone else was arguing about. Then suddenly the two Dutch researchers start the most INSANE back and forth argument, not calling one another idiots but saying things like "that idea is simply idiotic!" And the tone was heated and everyone was just looking around until finally someone got us all back on track.

During the break, everyone was grouped up and seemed to be whispering about what had happened. I ended up near the one guy I knew a little better and gently asked "hey, is everything ok? Are you and your colleague (I think they came from the same institution) ok?" And he kinda looked at me puzzled and then said "oh no, everything is fine! That's just how we talk to one another. We're Dutch".

So I leave with this impression that publicly HUMILIATING your friends and co-workers is just the norm in the Netherlands and think "welp, never wanna go THERE!"

R39, they’re quite passionate when debating.

Part of what makes them so awesome in bed.

I don't think we'd make it to bed if someone screamed at me at dinner first.

No Boeren means farmers R21.

One thing I very quickly learned when living in Holland is that the Dutch are horrified by South Africa and they do not speak of it. The Boeren who left Holland to live in South Africa were low class and often the butt of jokes. The whole episode isn't something the Dutch are proud of and they divorce themselves from it and if mentioned, you get some very terse looking faces and quietness. The only other topic that produces those same expressions/reactions are mentions of WWII.

Honestly R8 - what the fuck are you talking about? I loved learning and speaking Dutch. I didn't live in Amsterdam (where you can kind of get away with not learning Dutch) and speaking Dutch allowed me to immerse myself in their culture and be part of things. I lived in Groningen in North Holland.

I never found the Dutch to be dour or unpleasant. Perhaps OP is thinking of what we see as bluntness. Their bluntness was very liberating and I realized how much we fuck around trying to say something that we don't mean in English. I found them to be happy, genuine people who cared about fairness for all, acceptance for all, loved a laugh and loved a beer. Some of them are hilarious. They are the tallest race on the planet so at 5.8" I was continually towered over. Loved the bike riding and the road rules that place cyclists first before cars. Very smart and wealthy country but they don't like to show it off. They are very hardworking and they just get on with stuff. Family is very important to them but something that was very alien to me was moeten. Must. You must do what your parents and family instruct.

Also Dutch men are big men and they have big um... feet and other bits. That was fun!

Something that really blew me away was that 5 year old Dutch children can speak Dutch, German, Italian, French and English to a very decent level. Incredible.

[Quote] and also know how to party like animals

Does that just mean they drink alot?

Some of them do. Some of them don't. Just like everywhere else R43.

The Dutch seem to me to live healthier lives in the face of modern conveniences and I admire them for it.

Compared with Americans, anyway, they are less likely to be ambitious in ways that we expect in the US. They embrace the idea of doing and being good enough, not perfect, not always striving. They don't stress out about school as much as we do, balancing academia with just living, and they reason that not everyone is made to excel at every thing, and after school, everyone finds their niche in society, so why force anyone to fit where they don't need to?

They 'work to live, not live to work.'

And at the same time, while claiming to embrace 'laziness' by US standards, they are so much less lazy. They walk and bike to get around to most places instead of riding on things that move them. They're physically fit because they move to live, so they are thinner naturally and don't need the unhealthy bipolarity of fat American or steroidal crossfit American types.

Like the French, they are more likely to go to a restaurant for a cup of coffee and sit there for a couple of hours hanging out rather than getting a megaventi big gulp, 48 oz whipped-cream coffee confection and throw the cup and plastic top away eight times a day and then take a drug for acid reflux.

They live in smaller quarters, they consume fewer resources, they 'go Dutch' on dates and don't play dating games with weird rules about performing for someone until you are comfortable months later revealing your true repulsive self, women are expected to work physically and mentally like men are and they don't get our weird invented gender differences, parents expect their kids to play and hurt themselves and get on with life.

Those are all sweeping generalizations but so is the basis of this thread, so there ya go.

I had a Dutch fuck buddy when I was younger. He spoke English perfectly and had only a very slight accent. He sold cars at Carmax. He loved his job. He was about 6'4", had a face that was beautiful to me, his body was as skinny as skinny gets without looking sickly, and the one thing that threw me was that he was so laid back it unnerved me a little bit at the time. I didn't quite know what to make of his laissez-faire energy and I remember wondering if he was stoned all the time or something, but I think he was just an unbothered Dutch person. I always was incredibly self-conscious and he is the only gay guy I ever met through a 'dating site' or chatroom or whatever who I didn't feel sized me up to determine whether I was physically adequate to know or not. He was just, like, a normal person who behaved like someone I was already friends with when we met.

[quote]You might be the same way if you lived in a small, flat, crowded and expensive country with little nature and lousy food.

little nature??

I seriously doubt you've ever been to Holland. It's absolutely gorgeous!

Agree, R47. In Amsterdam, I felt like I was in a city that had submitted itself to the will of nature and learned to live in harmony with the ocean.

And in the countryside, I felt like I was in a Mother Goose story come to life.

Ask me anything you want, dears.

[quote]I couldn't care less about laughing.

YOU WILL RUE THE DAY!

I remember renting out a guest house in Zeeland near Domburg with a couple of friends and buying hashish from a coffee shop and being totally stoned and giddy on the beach there. Good times!

The traitorous Dutch can fuck [italic]all the way off[/italic] as far as I’m concerned.

It’s by far the most bitched about place to live in the FB group ‘Grumpy Expat’; so much so, it’s a running joke. The often brutally direct culture isn’t for everyone.

That kind of brutal directness makes it a lot more challenging to live in denial.

What does Pass the Dutchie mean?

I've heard them described as more German than the German.

Dutch: I don't like it.

American: Well, you know, I think, like, that doesn't really work for me..? (upspeak)

Fuuuuuuck that.

Dutch: This date didn't meet my expectations. Good luck to you!

American: Hehe! I had a wonderful time! Thank you so much! Let's keep in touch! See you soon! *kiss* *blocks phone number and all known social media accounts, posts to Instagram about the LOSER she just wated a night on*

[quote] they 'go Dutch' on dates and don't play dating games with weird rules about performing for someone until you are comfortable months later revealing your true repulsive self, women are expected to work physically and mentally like men are and they don't get our weird invented gender differences

The biggest complaint I've heard from men of all nationalities is how butch the women are. It appeals to a gay guy but straight men prefer femininity in a woman. Shocking, I know.

The Dutch a tall and, often broad and thick. But I don’t find them particularly sexy

The men have huge dicks.

I guess I have a problem with the Dutch directness because besides being American, I'm southern, so we're extremely well versed in being deceitful and indirect and saying exactly the opposite of what we mean but (we're dumb) believe what other southerners say to us. So that bluntness just makes me want to run.

Weird thing: somehow I was raised Southern, but my younger sister was apparently raised Dutch! Maybe she was swapped at the hospital 🤷🏻

The Dutch aren't dour, they're direct.

A prolific people, is what we are. I never see a thread about the Danes or the Belgians here.

I've been to Amsterdam 7-8 times, with two of those times spent throughout the country as well. They have beautiful skin and great teeth but none of it looks surgical or cosmetic. Just well-cared for.

Dicks? Either way too big or on the smaller side. I prefer the latter, actually. The big ones are fine for quick hand jobs in the loo, but 5" or so on a tall guy is my ideal situation.

Sorry, ^^, should've addressed the topic. I wouldn't say dour, but thoughtful and well-considered in their speech. Not at all effusive.

Great skin was not my observation. Lots of splotchy redness and broken capallaries.

Badass cops.

[quote]They 'work to live, not live to work.'

This is SO true R45. Work and work ethic are incredibly important to the Dutch, but they work to live - not live to work. They work hard but life outside work is more important. When they leave work for the day - that's the end of it. It's very difficult to explain.

The majorly different approach and attitude to work took a while to get used to. Requests for time off were always approved, job support was incredible and the attitude permeated everything. It was a really eye-opening experience and so different than what has been normalized for us in other western countries. We are conditioned to live to work and be available and be thinking about work when we are not at work. A lot of Dutch people work full-time 4 days a week and this has been common for decades. Full-time (voltijd) work hours are 36 hours a week and you are paid a living wage - no matter the job you're doing and massive flexibility and understanding - almost "gratitude" or "respect" from employers. I'm not sure how to explain it. Nobody takes advantage of any of it - workers or employers (I'm sure there are some stories of people who do but overwhelmingly, they do not).

Comparatively - we are the ultimate losers between the two different approaches to working. Also - the extra month of pay you get in the summer time was super cool! That was supposed to be some extra cash for your summer holidays (in June you get 2 months of salary) and everyone also got at least 4 weeks fully paid vacation leave. Much smarter. Happy productive workers who work harder and are more engaged and loyal. Everyone (including business lobby groups) were very reasonable about the entire employment industry and workers rights.

And then there are American employers... :(

There’s the highland Dutch, and the lowland Dutch. The god-damn Dutch, and the Irish…

I’ve met Dutch teenagers who speak better English than most Americans. And they know their way around a French fry.

R51 - what's the correct spelling/words for "Nay Ik heb geen zinnen" - the geen zinnen part. I can't remember and I've googled and can't find it.

Anyway, it means "No I'm not interested" as in;

Invitation: "Would you like to come to dinner tonight?" > Answer: "No I'm not interested". End of discussion! No waffling and bullshit. It's not rude or offensive. Just efficient and honest.

The first time someone said it to me I felt like I had been slapped and over the years I grew to understand, be grateful for it - even love it. Now I really miss it.

[quote]what's the correct spelling/words for "Nay Ik heb geen zinnen"

Nee, ik heb geen zin - No, I don't feel like it

Thanks R73. Bloody liberating phrase! We I moved back home after Holland I lost patience with the bullshit way we speak (lie and make excuses) in English.

Ik heb geen zin. Love it!

Dutch women are the tallest women in the world. The men are tall too but it's striking how tall the women are.

The Dutch are dour but at least they're not weirdos like the Belgians are.

I took a long train trip I think theyre the loudest and noisiest europeans. Like shut the fuck up. And take a bath. (Spanish are noisy too, but dutch noise was more annoying).

Dutch noise is more annoying because the Dutch language is unpleasant. I do admire their commitment to health, though.

Sinds een dag of twee vlinders in m'n hoofd

Sinds een dag of twee aangenaam verdoofd

It's the "g" and rolled "r" that makes it sound harsh R77.

The nice thing about the Dutch is 99% of them speak fluent English.

Very Calvinist people, even the Catholics.

The paintings of Gerrit van Honthorst suggest otherwise, OP!

They killed all the Catholics in the 16th century R81 and became Calvinists. It was a very good move.

Still plenty of Catholics in the Netherlands.

The men are perfectly intact.

R84 No, they didn’t. Catholics had to worship in private only—but they were alive and tolerated.

18.3% of the Dutch identify as Catholics as of 2021 R85. Far too many. They need to clear house again.

The Dutch aren't particularly religious anyway.

The French seem fascinating.

The English seem enigmatic.

The Spanish seem spicy.

Interestingly, the Catholic Church is the largest of any denomination in the Netherlands. Much larger than Protestantism. That’s because families of Catholic faith have kept up their association with the church, but most Protestant families are now atheists, agnostics, etc.

R25, they had a reason, Sour Puss.

Does Amsterdam still have gay men's bathhouses? I went to Thermos years ago and liked it very much, but I heard it may have closed.

Sorry but your anonymous line is too long and boring R91. Keep it short, snappy and funny or don't use it.

Miss 93 has certainly stated your boundaries, R91

I may not be Dutch, but I sure enjoy a timely Dutch oven!

OP, they are

I know an incredibly sexy Dutch guy—tall, handsome, fit— but he’s just so stoic and quiet that he’s a bore to be around.

So many guys list after him when they first meet him. Once they see how his personality is, the fascination ends.

[quote] I took a long train trip I think theyre the loudest and noisiest europeans. Like shut the fuck up. And take a bath. (Spanish are noisy too, but dutch noise was more annoying).

What is your nationality?

I've only been to the Netherlands—Amsterdam with a touristy day trip to Volendam—once, for 10 days.

Dutch people seemed calm, more pleasant on average than Americans where I am from (DC), but also kept a comfortable distance. They weren't chatty.

I encountered loud people a few times:

1. While we were at an outdoor café, some teen girls made a big ruckus and attracted a lot of attention because they screamed at the proprietor that smoking marijuana is legal in Amsterdam. Notably, the teen girls were American and the proprietors were Dutch. The café owners remained calm but insisted the girls simply put out their joints or leave. The girls went into an absolute 'Karen'-type tirade and left after disturbing the peace for 15-20 minutes, no doubt feeling they were right.

2. We were having drinks at a little bar that bridged a canal. It was sprinkling outside. It was lovely. And then we heard a commotion and could see that a boat was coming down the canal and a bunch of young men were alternately singing and chanting obnoxiously. I told my sister they were probably British because they sounded like the drunk British college kids who filled the streets every night at Cambridge when I studied there. Sure enough, they were drunk Brits. They even had Union Jack flags. Why they brought UK flags to Amsterdam, I have no idea. We assumed Amsterdam is the UK's answer to Cancun, where US college students go to be the worst versions of themselves.

3. In the airport on the way back, a group of young people being SO, SO loud. Incredibly loud and obnoxious. They were British.

Everywhere else I went, everyone was calm and quiet. It really made an impression on me. No yelling homeless people like we have in DC, not a lot of sirens or very loud crowds at bars. I absolutely loved it and found the calm environment and all the water and flowers to be relaxing, and came away annoyed with loud, drunk British people and have thought too much about that ever since. How did the Irish end up stuck with the 'rowdy drunks' stereotypes when their island neighbors are Game of Thrones come to life every night when the sun goes down?

I moved there for work, learned the language, married a Dutch man, and now have filed for citizenship. Nothing dour about them. Ik ben trots om Nederlander te worden 🇳🇱

They seem to be on their own frequency and not bothered with it all, no? These are not a tormented people.

I’m pretty sure that basically we’re all the same

They supposedly have the happiest kids in the world.

Doesn’t sound like many posters on this thread have actually had sex with the Dutch.

Now I don’t feel so bad.

R102 idk the one Dutch Gen Z girl I did know from about ten years back ended up suicidal and crazy so she had to be sectioned when she turned 17, poor kid.

It's funny, because when I was tutoring her in English a few years prior, she really did seem like the most happy and well adjusted girl I'd ever met. Perhaps she had a traumatic experience at school or home after I left, or got into drugs or a social media cult or something. While she wasn't sexually active or sure of herself as young as she was then, I remember thinking while spending time with her that she might turn out to be gay, and that she'd be more than ok if so because her family and community seemed really gay-friendly (oddly though extremely racist at the same time).

Her mother is one of those sage-waving Woo-woo alternative medicine types who sells sugar pills for cancer on the Internet, so perhaps it was guilt by association that drove her to madness. I lost touch and she quit social media, so I will never know.

For a Briton, the Netherlands is a wonderful place to live. The cities are beautiful, the beaches glorious, the public services excellent and the beer tasty. There’s just one problem, though: people are unbelievably rude.

Suggest a half-baked idea in a business meeting and you’ll be brutally shut down. Ask a friend if they think you’ve lost weight, and you won’t like the answer. Review a team project at work, and you’ll feel as if you’re joining a bar-room brawl.

I remember once excitedly telling a Dutch friend about a new book I was working on, carefully setting him up to chime in with encouragement and moral support. “It sounds very boring,” he said, before walking away. “I don’t think anyone will read it.”`

American politeness strikes most Dutch people as absurdly insincere, while the British tendency to hedge, prevaricate and bluster is borderline offensive. To Dutch eyes, being blunt is not a sign of weakness but a badge of honour.

The habit of directness is rooted in Dutch history and geography. “Holland doesn’t have mountains,” the novelist Cees Nooteboom once wrote. “Everything’s out in the open. No mountains, no caves. Nothing to hide. No dark places in the soul.” The country was founded on Calvinist values of honesty and transparency, and thrived during the Golden Age partly by serving as a refuge for rebels and innovators who were unwelcome elsewhere.

The constant need to defend against flooding also had a profound impact: with one person’s land at risk if another failed to maintain their dikes, it was essential that decisions be made collectively.

In the Dutch ‘polder model’, governments are always coalitions and major policy changes often introduced only after months of negotiation between different parties, unions and business leaders. The whole system depends on everyone feeling free to speak their mind. And when you’re always busy building dikes, it helps to call a spade a spade.

Taking my first trip to Amsterdam in a few months. Looking forward to it.

[quote] American politeness strikes most Dutch people as absurdly insincere, while the British tendency to hedge, prevaricate and bluster is borderline offensive. To Dutch eyes, being blunt is not a sign of weakness but a badge of honour.

R105 that is so true! My Dutch host family at one point got so fucked off with me beating around the bush, umming and ahhing and constantly disclaiming "well, I don't mind, really" out of polite habit that they practically staged an intervention. They could not understand why I couldn't just naturally say things upfront, blurt my innermost criticisms, tell other people where to go if I didn't like something, or slap everything I felt and wanted and had an issue with down on the table in discussion.

To get them to understand, I had to explain that behaving the Dutch way in Britain would get you assiduously avoided and branded a pariah, as someone bolshy and rude and selfish and inconsiderate. You simply can't swing your weight around half so much on the small island. Nonetheless, I assured them that I wasn't taking their behaviour as rudeness, apologised to them for annoying them (and they found that annoying, too), and said I'd try my hardest to do as the Romans do while I was with them. And I did, though it was difficult and I didn't make much progress.

It was an eye-opening experience to live among them and see how deep each of our socialisations run.

Let me add for R98's benefit that of course drunken Brits are awful and a law unto themselves, and that all our manners and caution and Give Way tendencies go out the fucking window on the drink, sadly. It's embarrassing to be us, sometimes.

Maybe it's a matter of "coconut" vs. "peach" culture. Dutch people are probably "coconuts," hard to know, but over time, you can have deep relationships. (Peach culture is outwardly friendly, but hard to really know.)

I would definitely be interested in the work/life balance there. Plus, I could appreciate people just being more straightforward in day-to-day interactions.

I hate the Dutch. A stuck up and humorless people.

[quote] I visited for a week. It’s was three days too long

Maybe I'm a rube, but I felt that way about Rome. A good friend of mine said he was going to honeymoon for ten days in Rome. I said that's too long, but they stuck to that plan. Came back and said ten days was too long.

I think you could probably spend a full week in Rome, esp. if you're jetlagged, but ten days just sounded too long.

Who do you like, R110?

R112 Taiwanese, Indonesians, Italians, Colombians, Ghanaians, Scotts, and Thai people.

Scots, dear. Get it right. They're touchy.