True life dating stories
While on a business trip in Munich many years ago, the Shallow Man visited the Hofbrauhaus with a German colleague. It was my first time in Munich and I was keen to sample the German sausages I’d read so much about. My colleague ordered for the pair of us, and after twenty minutes his plate of food arrived. He spoke in German with the waitress and then looking deadly serious turned to me and said: “I’m so sorry, the Wurst is yet to come.” Which brings me to the subject of today’s post.
The lovely Ellie Blij, (Blij is Dutch for happy, I’ve seen her photo and she has plenty of reasons to be) interrupted the Shallow Man with a message that nearly caused me to spill my Latte onto my freshly dry cleaned three-piece suit. Her message told the tale of an almost blind date she had with a man from across the Rhine. It doesn’t put her Deutsch date in a particularly good light, however, her story has to be told. If as a result of this, I’m tracked down by a bunch of angry but efficient Germans and am tied precisely to a chair and forced to watch Deutschland Sucht den Superstar, while listening to the Scorpions greatest hits, I’ll shout at my tormentors, “Dieter Bohlen ist ein voll idiot” The things I do for my readers!
When Ellie met Wolfgang
I’m Ellie, a Dutch Antelope, yes I’m tall and blonde and have been known to wear denim, however, I’ve never had wet hair on public transport, I work five a days a week and don’t smoke, nor do I shout in Cafe’s so sorry to disappoint you shallow man.
Deciding to get with the latest hot trend in Lion hunting, I swiped my way through many dubious-looking men and finally settled on and agreed to go on a Tinder date with a German expat from Hamburg. It was my first Tinder date and I was not sure if it was a good thing to do, but well I’m always open to trying new things so I thought why not?
On his photo der Wolfgang looked really cute and like a nice person. He suggested meeting at a well known brown cafe in het Spui in Amsterdam at eight pm. These three facts: brown cafe, Saturday and eight pm, possibly should have given me some kind of warning of what was to transpire. The rain was pouring down when I arrived on my bike (Dutch girl) 10 minutes late at the cafe. A girl should always be fashionably late on a date in my opinion.
My Avatar has gone shopping
When I entered the place I saw him sitting at a table in the corner. He looked suspiciously older than on his pictures, but ok he had a nice smile that was ruined as soon as he spoke. ‘Hi Ellie’, he said with a terrible German accent. I thought to myself, what else could I have expected from a German speaking English? I sat down and without asking what I wanted to drink he ordered me a glass of wine. Lucky for him that I like wine. My friends describe me as an open, sociable and also ‘crazy’ girl. So I was just being myself and made some sarcastic jokes, but he didn’t laugh once.
He told me he worked in Finance, which is fair enough, that’s no problem for me, but then he started a monologue for thirty minutes talking about banks and bitcoins. Have you ever had the out of body experience when the conversation you’re in, or I should say monologue you’re listening to is so boring that you disconnect completely and then are suddenly somewhere else? While he went on about Bitcoins, I was walking through the Bijenkorf, looking at clothes, at shoes at handbags, so I decided to return to my body and try and change the conversation to something that wasn’t going to send me to an early grave.
It was completely pointless. I was like an explorer sent out to a cold and barren wasteland, in search of a sense of humour, I failed and found nothing. I made comments that my friends normally find amusing, some have even been known to laugh, but no reaction from him at all, he just stared at me as if I was some new type of financial instrument to be analysed.
So I work in finance, bitcoins
He then asked me: “What are your interests?” Happy to talk about more exciting stuff I said, being a real traveller, “I love to travel”. Oh, he said, “but everyone loves travelling”. I replied, “there’s travelling and there’s travelling”. “I love to travel the world as a backpacker and meet interesting people every place I go”. His response was “I like weekendjes weg.”
After this, I didn’t allow him to talk anymore and started telling him about cool places I like in Amsterdam and other places in the world. He didn’t know a single one that I named and kept responding “interesting, I shall have to take notes of this,” and literally started writing the places I told him about on his phone.
I smell shoe polish and talcum powder
When he was finished I thought about leaving, but as well as my crazy personality I’m also (too) polite. But then ‘ De klap op de vuurpijl’ came ( a Dutch saying, I don’t know how to say it in English:-)) He continued with the question: “Do you know what my interest is?” Surprised and pleased to hear that he actually had an interest at all I asked him to tell me. “I like Wasteland parties”, he said….. Well, I don’t know if you know what Wasteland parties are about, but these are erotic events where you have to attend dressed up in leather, rubber or plastic.
In his German English, he said: “I think that’s exciting, I also like the swinging thing….would you like to come with me to such an event?” WHAAAAAAAA…”hell no” I replied, “That’s not my thing” He then asked me, “don’t you like to wear lingerie then?” Not knowing why I even bothered answering his question, I replied “Yes but not like that” By now he’d already dug himself a hole, but then decided to throw the body in as well. “I thought you Dutch girls were supposed to be so open with sex and everything”
Romantic second date
That was it, I told him I had another party to go to and let him pay for the one drink he’d ordered for me. Disillusioned, I left the place and called my best friend and told her that I desperately needed a drink. Fifteen minutes later I told her the story, she wasn’t surprised at all and said: “But don’t you know that many Germans have leather fetishes?”
The Shallow Man
Is Blij that the lovely Ellie shared her Tinder dating story. I’d also like to add that the messenger of this tale should not be shot like a wildschwein on a German farm, but thanked for sharing this information with his readers. This and other stories like it appear in The Shallow Man Guide to Dating the Dutch, to be released on February the 14th.
No gimps were hurt during the writing of this article.
