goteresa said:
This is my first post, so bare with me! This will be long as the situation is a bit complicated, but I've seen some great posts here and could really use some advice.

I'm a female American, he's a native Dutchie. We met traveling 7 months ago in South America. We traveled together for 7 weeks; you can call it at the time a travel romance. We didn't know what to consider it; were intimate, but did have feelings. We went our separate ways, which was really hard, considering the feelings.

For 4 months, we spoke online a lot, kept in touch. Both of us didn't really see nor find interest in anyone. In August, I went to visit him in The Netherlands to see him and visit other Dutch friends. We spent a month together and we picked up where we left off; it was great! I started to really fall for him. I got one of my Dutch girlfriends to talk to him and he told her if I lived there I'd be his girlfriend wayyy long time ago. While I was there, I went on a sailing trip with his brothers, met his parents (They had already known of me traveling with him before.) I stayed in his place the entire month. Our goodbyes were harder than the first. It was emotional but he said things like "We'll see each other again."

Sounds good right? I am back home now as is he. I am currently learning the language.. I want nothing more than to be with him. I'm a travel writer who'd love to be an expat in Europe, regardless of the relationship. It's a deep plunge to take but I know I care about him a lot in 7 months of whatever you'd call this.

As for him, besides what I know from my friend and how he acts- which is great. We constantly talk, there is obvious sexual banter/chemistry, he says he has no interest in other people nor the incline to. But, it seems like I don't know where things are going.

Maybe I'm an insecure woman when I say that I see things are going well as is and I'm scared to start "asking questions" that men always hate. But, considering the life decisions I might make, I want to know if he finds this serious enough to pursue. I wrote him a letter addressing a few of these points and I think he felt overwhelmed or unable to express feelings.

All of this is really starting to get to me and I hate confrontation and based on the other posts I've read, is this the Dutch in him or are these mixed signals a sign of uncertainty on his part? We're not technically official, should that worry me? Should I ask him where this is going? Am I crazy here everyone?

Thanks for reading. Any advice/comments/criticism is greatly appreciated.

Hi there, if that's you in the photo your a very pretty girl who can get who she wants and apparently you also gave this guy a big head and you gotta watch that with the Dutch because they always have pride and arrogance as part of their cultural behavior. DON'T CHASE A GUY DOWN. That's universal, they will always sense they can manipulate your feelings. Be a bit cold, as they can be. Oh and dutch guys love it when the woman chases them down and does all the work then they don't have to do much giving and get some free hoochie koochie too.  I say your overdoing it with one guy, there's a ton of them around here!

French is a heck of alot easier than Dutch and more useful in the world!

Sorry the Difference between Belgium/Holland/Europe, your admired if your just like them and in the USA your admired when your an individual

If you love multi culture and mult food choices and a variety of beautiful people from all kinds of blood lines and nationalites and everything from around the world in one city you will love the USA, If you want to go on vacation and enjoy another culture and look at history and then take a plane home and kiss the ground, you will love the USA. If you love working and want to be anything you want and you can go to school and be anything you want at any age, you will love the USA. If you want to live in a village with a predomenantly white race and stare down anyone who doesn't come from your village and have a bunch of kids from 3 different men and gossip with all the village women and food shop with your recycled old bag with your bike everyday cause the food in European supermarkets rot after 2 days so you have to shop daily, and if you love buying goods that you can buy in the USA but are 3-4x the cost higher than in the USA, you will love Europe.

slayergrl99 said:
I am sure this is the wrong forum for this, but the other "rant" forum seemed to be mostly about politics and they were bashing each other, I didn't want to get involved in that.

I've been in Belgium since July 11th, and I am officially beginning to go crazy it has not even been two weeks yet.

My husband works in Namur and we live in a small village outside of town. Because of the size and locale of the village, no one speaks English here and my french is poor, to say the least. A fireman came to the door the other day trying to explain something and I was able to hack enough French together to say that my husband would be home at 5:30 and to come back then.

My husband's brother is getting married and chose two weeks before our Belgian ceremony to do his (they'd been engaged for 6years...we've been engaged 9 months) when we'd already picked out a date, and I feel constantly barraged that everything I say (when I open my mouth, I get looks...) or do (apparently I hold my fork and knife wrong), or wear (tennis shoes? when you're not running? Are you crazy?) feels like it is being picked apart. And to top it all off, I pretty much have my husband to speak to and no one else because...I don't speak French yet!

I don't start work until August 25th, so i have 4 more weeks of being stuck in this situation and I've reached a point where I don't feel like I can actually live here. And my husband so badly wants me to be happy here and I think he's contemplating quitting his job and moving back to the states, and I don't want that. One, the immigration issues would be monumental, plus... worse health care, worse finances...etc.


*sighs* Sorry to vent, I just am so overwhelmed and I am hoping someone here can relate and tell me that it'll all be OK and that eventually I won't be crazy anymore.

- - Gabrielle

There should be some kind of minister of cultural interrelations that over see's these kind of complaints as I am in Holland and your echoeing the same thing to me and I am sure alot of women feel of  hollow and isolating, Hey I was just in that area, Namur is full of relics of WW2 American Heros. Wow, their spirit is everywhere, I was in Stavelot last sunday and saw the ww2 memorial and also in Malmedy the Battle of the Bulge Museum, god bless the souls of those poor guys who died for Europe. The skunks in Belgium never seem to think of how their freedom got to be.   much love from Denise.   I would tell you there is a website that a bunch of expats get together on Meetup but alot of them are very conservative and try very very hard to be dutch when they are american and they are also very stingy people in a way they expect you to do all the giving since they are offering you their friendship with english attached to it. I find people behave desperate when they are here in europe. Don't be like them!

This post was edited by tuliper at March 14, 2012 10:29:58 AM CET