Disclaimer

Background
I wanted to write a blog for a long time now, being a ITer, I was mainly targeting a technical blog, but there are already so many around, most of them much better than what I could produce. So the idea came to me a little while ago, having started a new job I now have to commute by train again (which I hadn't have to do in the last 3 years or so), that's when it became obvious to me, I had to write about people's everyday incivilities.... Why would I care? Well, let's call it a therapy, and let's say it prevents me from tearing all my hair apart in frustration and will hopefully save me from an anus cancer in twenty years...

but why the Dutch?
That's indeed a very good question, being French, protocol, manners and politeness are concepts that I highly value. If you have ever lived in the Netherlands, you have probably been told that Dutch are directs, franks, and some other blah blah bullshit. I will, along this blog, simply prove to you that they simply are rude. Not because they are bad people or anything like that, but just because they have been raised like that, caring about themselves, and only themselves.

I first thought that I was just being too French - yes, we are indeed pretentious bastards with a high image of ourselves and we think the world owes us, but hey, we invented paid holidays, so please show a bit of respect next time you go camping in Ardeche, because it is, after all, a bit because of us ;-) -.

Anyway, I thought therefore that I was being too French, and I had always been told that people from the north of Europe were a bit colder people (and all the clichés coming with it). But after I spoke with many foreigners, other French of course, English, Scottish, German (yes dude, even Germans think you are rude! can you imagine that?) I understood that was a general consensus between foreigners living in this country.

I know what most people would think, "Holland, like it or leave it" (yeah, we had a few funny guys like this in France too), and that's my problem, I actually like the Netherlands, believe me or not, I actually even like how Ducth people, probably thanks to this directness, are entrepreneurial, I even like most Dutch people I came to know. But still put them together, and they can be so "antisociaal".

So I decided to fight rather than fly, and to try to educate Dutch people to basic good manners as they exist in the rest of the world...

Here come the real disclaimer part
First of all, if you are Dutch, I invite you to read further, if you feel offended by what you read, please, READ EVEN FURTHER, because then you probably are the right target for this piece of crap I am writing.

Indeed, most of what you are going to read here could be applied to most big cities in the world, but as I wrote before, everybody seems to agree that this is particularly true in the Netherlands. I am not trying to be mean here, nor to discredit Dutch people - although you might feel some frustration sometimes - I am indeed genuinely trying to help Dutch people to give a better image of themselves to foreigners (which could start by stopping the hypocrisy being drug traffics and prostitution, but that's probably a whole topic in itself, and one I am not expert in).

If you are a foreigner and you want to share your frustration, feel free to do so.

If you are Dutch and you want to insult me, well, feel free to do so, it can be very liberating sometimes :-).

And if you really think what I am writing here is complete bullshit, please prove it to me everyday, I would love to walk among nice and polite people!

In any cases, just enjoy the reading!