intriguing. âItâs just we all work so hard,â I trilled. âWe have no time for love, so Iâm traveling the world dating people to see if I can find my Soul Mate.â
I finished with a flourish and turned, expecting to see Willem smiling, relaxed, and ready to talk. Clearly I had fallen short of the tone I was striving for: Willem was still surveying the flowerbed, staring ahead stonily but now with a grim expression that unflatteringly hovered somewhere between disgust and disbelief. It was as if Iâd suggested we both take off our underpants and look at each otherâs bottoms. A moment passed. Then another. Not a word was said. I sat rigid with rising panic, feeling a wave of hot shame wash over me, completely and horribly mortified. And this was only Date #3.
Willem, maybe sensing my distress, maybe just wanting to end his own, got to his feet.
âShall we have some lunch?â he asked politely. I nodded gratefully, misery robbing me of the ability to speak. As we walked past the raspberry posies that peppered the rhododendron and the soft papery apricot of the azaleas, I watched Willem take the tulip he had picked for but not actually given to me. As he walked, he neatly and methodically folded the flower over and over and over on itself until its broken stem and crushed head were no more than a ruined, sap-bleeding ball. I pretended not to notice when he silently dropped it into a trash bin at the side of the path and continued marching without breaking his stride.
Willem relaxed a little over lunch and actually turned out to be quite amiable, with a dry sense of humor. But after a gentle walk around the beautiful gardens and a look at the gorgeous displays of scented lilies, I was grateful to be back in my car and heading for Schiphol airport, alone with my thoughts about the journey ahead. What if my Dating Odyssey failed to find me a boyfriend and just succeeded in making me feel freaky and bad about myself?
As I took endless wrong turns and dodged through rush-hour traffic, trying to make it in time for my connection, the phone started ringing on the seat next to me. An Amsterdam number. It would be Henk ringing to collect on the promised second date. I frowned and gripped the steering wheel harder, ignoring the phone; I just didnât have the emotional energy to deal with Henk now. Also, I donât mean this horribly, but I didnât want to go back over old Dates; I wanted to look forward and get on to the new ones. I was flying to Sweden in the hope that my next Date would give me some much-needed insight and perspective on the journey I had undertaken. Professor Lars-Görsta Dahlöf at Gothenburg University was one of the worldâs leading authorities on psychology and sexologyâthe science of love and attraction.
This was one Date Iâd happily devote a day to.
Chapter Three
Gothenburg, Sweden
Date #5âThe mysterious
Anders in Gothenburg, Sweden
Gothenburg does itself no favors having a Volvo museum. Drawing attention to the fact that itâs the birthplace of arguably the dullest, least-adventurous car in the world is not a PR coup for a city thatâs easily as hip as Stockholm and just as much the party town as Malmo.
But Sweden generally seems to suffer from a bit of a personality crisis, and I donât think Iâm going to win any awards for insight by suggesting itâs probably due to the weather. Nearly a sixth of Sweden is north of the Arctic Circle and winter nights last anything up to eighteen stay indoors, stare at the walls for four months hours. From May to August, however, the height of the sun and the tilt of the earthâs axis go to the other extreme, creating the midnight sun and up to twenty-three hours of sunshine a day.
And when the midnight sun shines, so do the Swedes. Everyone seems to spin and show, like overwound ballerinas in a music box, making the most of every bright second before the lid slams shut
I finished with a flourish and turned, expecting to see Willem smiling, relaxed, and ready to talk. Clearly I had fallen short of the tone I was striving for: Willem was still surveying the flowerbed, staring ahead stonily but now with a grim expression that unflatteringly hovered somewhere between disgust and disbelief. It was as if Iâd suggested we both take off our underpants and look at each otherâs bottoms. A moment passed. Then another. Not a word was said. I sat rigid with rising panic, feeling a wave of hot shame wash over me, completely and horribly mortified. And this was only Date #3.
Willem, maybe sensing my distress, maybe just wanting to end his own, got to his feet.
âShall we have some lunch?â he asked politely. I nodded gratefully, misery robbing me of the ability to speak. As we walked past the raspberry posies that peppered the rhododendron and the soft papery apricot of the azaleas, I watched Willem take the tulip he had picked for but not actually given to me. As he walked, he neatly and methodically folded the flower over and over and over on itself until its broken stem and crushed head were no more than a ruined, sap-bleeding ball. I pretended not to notice when he silently dropped it into a trash bin at the side of the path and continued marching without breaking his stride.
Willem relaxed a little over lunch and actually turned out to be quite amiable, with a dry sense of humor. But after a gentle walk around the beautiful gardens and a look at the gorgeous displays of scented lilies, I was grateful to be back in my car and heading for Schiphol airport, alone with my thoughts about the journey ahead. What if my Dating Odyssey failed to find me a boyfriend and just succeeded in making me feel freaky and bad about myself?
As I took endless wrong turns and dodged through rush-hour traffic, trying to make it in time for my connection, the phone started ringing on the seat next to me. An Amsterdam number. It would be Henk ringing to collect on the promised second date. I frowned and gripped the steering wheel harder, ignoring the phone; I just didnât have the emotional energy to deal with Henk now. Also, I donât mean this horribly, but I didnât want to go back over old Dates; I wanted to look forward and get on to the new ones. I was flying to Sweden in the hope that my next Date would give me some much-needed insight and perspective on the journey I had undertaken. Professor Lars-Görsta Dahlöf at Gothenburg University was one of the worldâs leading authorities on psychology and sexologyâthe science of love and attraction.
This was one Date Iâd happily devote a day to.
Chapter Three
Gothenburg, Sweden
Date #5âThe mysterious
Anders in Gothenburg, Sweden
Gothenburg does itself no favors having a Volvo museum. Drawing attention to the fact that itâs the birthplace of arguably the dullest, least-adventurous car in the world is not a PR coup for a city thatâs easily as hip as Stockholm and just as much the party town as Malmo.
But Sweden generally seems to suffer from a bit of a personality crisis, and I donât think Iâm going to win any awards for insight by suggesting itâs probably due to the weather. Nearly a sixth of Sweden is north of the Arctic Circle and winter nights last anything up to eighteen stay indoors, stare at the walls for four months hours. From May to August, however, the height of the sun and the tilt of the earthâs axis go to the other extreme, creating the midnight sun and up to twenty-three hours of sunshine a day.
And when the midnight sun shines, so do the Swedes. Everyone seems to spin and show, like overwound ballerinas in a music box, making the most of every bright second before the lid slams shut
Similar Books
