Best belgian dating site

rendez-vous.be

Period.

I have tried some of them these last few weeks, and this one is one step above the others.

Functions are what you may expect from this kind of site: relative anonymity, stored search criteria and features that you rarely see elsewhere except on "speciality" sites. The best part is this: you may subscribe by SMS (so you so not have to fear for your credit cardas it is not required). And it is cheap. Beyond the fact that it is the best site available as far as value for money is concerned, their tariff and payment policy are just right. I have met more interesting people through this site than from all the other ones combined.

Noise vs signal

The trouble with being smarter than everyone is that you soon learn to block the background noise.

Angry

Anger.

Enduring anger.

Something I usually do not feel. Something I do not know.

Displeasure on occasion, a fit of anger here and there, that I know. Fury on occasions, twice in my life to be precise. 

That I know. That I can deal with.

But not this.

It all started with an email from Ms I earlier today. Well, it all started a long ago, if one really want to dig at the roots.We have been more open toward each for a month or so. We have been quite open about who we were seeing and why. I we have continued this sane disclosure during our email chitchats.

So, to be honest, I shouldn't be surprised. And in fact I was not. She was just telling me that she is feeling frustrated at work, and is compensating by granting herself instant gratification. To be honest, so do I, even though, for me, frustration is not a state I strive to live in, but to each hie, or her, own.

So, my reply to that was that I was busy with work, that I deplored the fact that she had chosen not to spend time with me but that this regret was quite selfish given that my current predicaments forbids me to take proper care of her. Or something to that effect.

It took me four hours to feel angry, and I do not know what angers me most.

• The fact that she is actively looking elsewhere? She told me, I knew, and even though this situation is not to my liking, to say the least, well, I understand.
• The fact that she has deliberately chosen not to contact me? Well, nothing really new here.
• The fact that I took the pain to be gracious when I was not feeling gracious at all? Well, that's closer to it.
• The fact that I might have given her the impression that I do not care, that this is all well and dandy in the best of all possible worlds. That's even more angering.

So my guess is that it is a combination of all that, all the things I am not comfortable with but that I pretend not to disapprove (in other world: lies), and all the things I have made to make me at least appearing not to disapprove (mor elies and even worst, lying to myself).

I am quite angry with her, but, above all, I am furious with myself.

Jeez, this is a "I have to work on myself day", and not an easy one...

40!

and five days, yeeepeeee :-)

I am still wondering about how I got there in one piece ;-)

So, how are things going for me?

On the family front, there is not much change.

My father is back home, prefers in house revalidation instead of being treated as an out patient at the local hospital, and my mother seems to enter a depressive phase. There isn't much joy there, but everyone has to adapt to the new situation, and, all things being considered, my father seems to be coping quite well. He is reading, taking a keen interest in his recreative activities and even though his physical condition doesn't seem to be improving, he seems to be morally much more solid than he once was. 

My brother seems to be going fine, but I won't be seeing him nor his family for a few years. Not until my two nieces are a little bit older and easier to travel with. 

On the housing front, my place in the city is a cratered mess. And my place by the sea will soon become less practical with road works preventing access to my garage starting on Monday. I'll have to take some tough decisions here. I am currently envisioning geting a bike and a train pass for the next few months.

About work, well, things are no longer so grim as they once were. The new project manager is doing a good job, and is proving to be a very effective umbrella.

I haven't seen my best friends for a few weeks now: commuting is taking quite a toll on my time, and getting by with four hours of sleep during the week is getting tiresome. 

About dating, well, I haven't been that lucky since the beginning of the year: it seems that the curse I am under is blanketing my whole life...

Out of my last four first dates, here is what I have fished:

- "I am not really divorced." Huhuhhhhh...

- "I am not exactly of legal age." Riiiight...

- "Sorry, I haven't found a dog sitter." And the damned beast kept her nose to my crotch for almost the whole date. And it had this wonderful wet and strong wet dog smell too...

- "My husband and I are a very open minded couple, would you like to meet him too?" Nooooo...

The only good thing in this whole mess is, as usual, Miss I. It seems that we are indeed in speaking terms, and I cannot help but feel deeply for her, as usual. We both have our issues, aren't leading a balanced life to say the least, but at least we can talk and share something.

How to be a bachelor at 40?

The recipe is quite simple: always put your business first. Let nothing and nobody get between you. Derive you interests from your work. Never stop. Choose a field almost entirely devoid of members of the sex you are interested in. 

Know your priorities, intentions and motivations ; and live according to them.

Easy ;-)  

ping

Sitrep

My father has been back home since Thursday and I'll go visit him tomorrow. He has very little mobility, and my mother fears she won't be able to support him.  However, he is fully himself now, no longer confused. I do observe that his mobility is getting better. My mother, seeing him more often than me, doesn't seem to perceive these slight betterments.

It seems that Miss I and I are no longer on speaking terms. A shame really.

My home office is still a mess. The situation isn't helped by the facts that I am not often there, that there is only one key and that the concierge is now working part time so asking her to keep my keys isn't an option, not even taking my unusual working hours into account. Still, the leak(s) issue seems to be solved. 

My place by the sea hasn't been repaired since last year's leak, but I am living there now. The issue was less damaging there anyway. I can live with soiled walls and not with cratered bathroom and washroom.

The good thing is that I am living 75 miles from where I am working. It means that I am commuting daily, for a total time of a little less than three hours, or as much as seven on very bad days. And this is good news indeed. It gives me time to get out of my work, think about other things, listen to music, smoke cigars and just disconnect. The down side is that I am back to four hours nights.

Talking about work (tks PS):

"I want good data,

A data model,

But I got a project straight from hell..."

Add to that the complete technical and functional ignorance of most of my coworkers, cowboy-style solution management and casino-style contracting and you will get a better idea of the whole mess.

Innsmouth

I am cursed.

Twenty years or so ago, I rented this flat near the university. It was a small cosy affair with the bed right in the middle of the room, a desk close by and a little kitchen. One night, when I was half asleep, I heard a noise coming from above, opened my eyes to see a crack forming in the ceiling and had just the time to grab a big heavy tome (fiscal law, I think) to protect my head while the ceiling descended upon me in one big piece.

That one was just bad luck, or so I said to myself then.

Ten years or so ago, I rented an apartment a few hundreds yards from my old flat. It was an old building, not really a nice place, but I wasn't there often and there was a lot of parking space nearby, thanks to the uni, so it was fine for a time.

A strange and somewhat unpleasant smell had been lingering in my toilet and bathroom for a few weeks, but I thought nothing of it: stranger things, be it sounds or odours had already come out of the common technical space, when it was not crawling things. It so appeared that my neighbour had been sent to a nursing home for a few months and had just come back to discover that the main toilet duct, common for all tenants on this side of the building, had broken in the floor between her apartment and mine. It turned out that she had fully carpeted her place. There were four apartments above hers...

In the same apartment, I came back one day after a few months abroad to discover that my kitchen's ceiling was now on the floor. And the stove. And the sinks. And the washing machine. Then I had enough of it.

My place by the sea is a nice apartment on the seaside, with a glorious view, a lot of space and the building has been well maintained and its front was in the process of being renovated when I got it. While the front was being worked on, most people took to their winter home and the concierge suffered from a heart attack. So my apartment was left unsupervised for a few months. And a leak three floors up had the time to go to the floor below mine. Now, the hall is mushroom field, the parquet is ruined, and I am still waiting to know whether or not the heating system set in the flooded technical space is still certified.

For a few years now, I have been renting the Archi's old place. It is a nice apartment. A garage. A concierge (crucial, as she can pick up my deliveries when I am not there). Somewhat recent. Top floor.

Nothing could happen there. 

If you are ignoring the Innsmouth curse, that's it.

Now, I no longer have cold water, and they are planning to blow the (parqueted) floor to check whether or not the corrosion has spread.

I am cursed.

Hospital life

So, my dad fell on the floor on the 4th of August. He is still in revalidation now, and he is not getting better. October saw a dramatic improvement, but he has been regressing since then. He was scheduled for surgery a few days ago, and even if he seems to be better, to me at least, his doctors are seeing very little progress. I have observed that he is now able to cross his legs, even if walking is still past him. He didn't receive the surgery he was scheduled to, the post op exam happened too early, and, from what I can deduce, he seems to be treated for both his stroke and Parkinson disease. The last one was supposed to have been excluded a few years ago, but perhaps was it too early by then. I can understand that treatments can be conflicting, but I have a hard time understanding why he is not treated fully. Still, he seems to be taking it all in stride, which is reassuring. He is no longer confused, and the spinal fluid drain seems to have had some very positive effects. As long as he is reasonably well, what can I say? I would like him to start accepting visits from friends, but he doesn't want them. He has been spending months with nurses and a television for company. He no longer reads much, but he is very articulate and has, surprisingly, a lot to say. 

I do not know how to end this post. No clever remark, no clear ending, even though I would very much like this situation to come to an end and close this chapter, to be able to put this behind me, not having to worry any more. Well, it is still ongoing, so I'll leave it at that.

Role models

When your role models were, and to some extent still are, Edmund Lyons, Winston Churchill, Hugh Sinclair, Hasimir Fenring, number 6 and the omega man, your very own standards can hurt you sometimes...

long time no see

Wow, five months already...

Five full months actually. Very full. Too full.

It all started with Miss J getting a new job and me having to find a new main contract. As usual Miss I and I were going nowhere slow and had reached some kind of unsaid mutual agreement. So Miss J and I met in a hallway, one thing lead to another and before I knew it I had a drawer and her cat had me fully adopted. I knew it wasn't a good idea. And it wasn't. We may thank the Belgian politics for this one. Back to square one. 

The timing was good: I had to leave for my two weeks, and I fully expected for things to have cooled down by the time I was back. I came back with a new rank (time to find a new nick;-), and was still unpacking my bags when I learned that my father was having a stroke. 

The situation was touch and go, uncertain to say the least, and the prognosis was very bleak for a few weeks. He stayed in the ICU for two weeks, went to the neuro wing for another two, and his physical condition started to improve. Right now he is in rehabilitation and should move to outpatient physiotherapy once the house has been transformed. He is getting better, putting on weight and, physically, everything is well except for his right hand. Walking is no longer an issue, but he won't be climbing stairs soon. Mentally it is another story. He is still very confused sometimes, even though this is happening less often than it used to be. Of course, I had to somehow support my mother, not only morally, granted that she is unable to use an ATM or fill up her car. And, to top it all, I had to renew my certifications and clearances.

In the meantime, there was an inundation at my place by the sea. On the good side of things, I didn't had to look for another contract besides making two phone calls. The situation isn't completely clear on this point, but I have more than a few options available to me. 

So, what now?

• My father will be going home in the next few weeks.
• My mother is busy being herself: anxious.
• Miss J and I are still on speaking term and have found out that our respective political opinions are irreconciliable to the point of making cohabitation almost impossible.
• Miss I and I are still going nowhere. 
• I am fully certified again.
• My clearances will be renewed.
• I'll have the opportunity to meet new people and learn new things soon.

Yeah, interesting times ;-)

Country roads

... or an evening with Miss J.

How come that I always get the one I do not want and let the one I want slip away?

How come that I have never been able to reset my default settings?

Talking about the revolution

Miss I and I shared another pleasant evening.

To be honest, I wasn't so sure that she would be coming, and, to be even more honest, I wasn't so sure that I wanted to see her either. Not that I wanted not to see her, just that I was still digesting our last emails. 

I was tired, feeling somewhat inadequate, lacking of something, and, up to a point I still feel that way.

The last few days weren't my best. I felt sad, and when your iPod randomly feeds you some Daho and then you suddenly feel that it has been written for you and you just want to pull over and cry it out, well, obviously, something is very wrong with you. But, in a way, that particular incident helped me a lot. Because then I realized that something was indeed wrong with me. Not that what I was feeling was wrong: I was true to myself and tried to communicate as openly and frankly as I could. What was wrong was that I was that I was trying to find answers, hoping that they would close the issue. That, magically, understanding would bring me peace. And I was unable to find answers, so no peace for me. So I decided to accept the situation as it is, acknowledge the fact that I was living it, and then try to understand something, maybe not everything, but enough to be able to understand what hit me and how it came. Accepting is easy. Easier than trying to find answers to questions you do not fully understand anyway. And then some kind of understanding began to trickle and slowly diffuse.

Right before our date, I was in the opinion that I maneuvered myself in this relationship on my own. Granted, it takes two to tango, but my expectations, hopes and fears were mine and mine only. Granted, I had done my best at expressing them, but perhaps my best is not enough. And perhaps my best is absolutely not the way to go. And, perhaps, no matter what and how I might say things, the one I have been talking to wasn't willing to hear me. I was at the crossroad between self-doubt and  loosing my bienveillance on the way to betterment. 

Here we are, without awkward moments, chatting about her new job, how things are going, exactly as if nothing happened. Well, we have enough practice I guess ;-)

Then we talked. About what we had written about the days before. She needs to establish an emotional dialogue before opening up, I need to feel a connection, share something before being emotional, that sort of things. Let's be frank, at this point, we both have opened up to a point and formed an emotional bond. If we cannot go on from there now, it is sad but it most probably is that we never will. Why? Well, communication style is a part of it. For my part, expressing my feelings is a long and arduous process where I find myself battling with words I half understand in the hope of conveying something meaningful. I am far much better at this game when I write than when I speak. Well, less abysmal better describes it actually. I thrive in regulated environments, where there is a clear and well known  boundary between who you are and who you should be. And I guess that most if not all of my past relationships followed the same pattern: meet someone, act as we are supposed to, find a mutually agreeable way to go out of context, share, feel. She goes exactly the opposite way. Besides, I have no idea of what she wants and how she wants it. What does she expect me to share when our common experience is restricted? It is truly beyond me. Perhaps are we doomed to stay at the friend level, which isn't a bad proposition but not where I expected to be. 

Anyway, this whole thing is tiring me. There may be an opening, somewhere, but I do not count on finding it on purpose. As I see things now, we will most probably stay friends, and if our relationship evolves it won't be because one of us wanted it, but just because, at some point, I'll say something utterly trivial to me that she has been waiting for. 

Right now, I am still working on what we said, I am tired, sad and neither happy nor unhappy. 

Tired, mostly.

You have no idea...

- "You have no idea what it is like what I have been through."

- "I kind of guess."

Those three days in cac weren't eleven months without a job, but the intensity more than largely made up for brevity when it comes to learn a few unpleasant things about who you thought you were, how much you need friends when you are less than yourself and about who your friends really are.

And about not letting people down when they need you most.

Among a few other things.

Loop the loop

Once again, for the third time in almost two years, Miss I and I have looped the loop.

I won't say I am overjoyed. I won't say I am content. But I won't say I am unhappy either. I am just back to planet Earth. 

Each and every time, we hit the communication wall. I still do not understand her as fully as I would like to. I do not understand what she wants me to say or do or be. She doesn't understand what I mean nor, I strongly suspect, who and how I am. 

But, this time, we managed to say what we mean to each other and what we are expecting. And to understand it. 

Which is an improvement, in a way. 

Not that I am disappointed, just that, on the onset, I was hoping for something more. 

Anyway, "l'existence, c'est la vie" (TM) ;-)

A busy week.

On Monday I had a date with Miss Bee, on Tuesday with Miss J, and on Wednesday with Miss I.

Let's cheerfully forget about Miss J: she is a nice enough person, but thanks but no thanks. Far too weird for me. And I know weird...

Now, Miss Bee is a nice person too, quite attractive in her own right, intelligent, cheerful, interesting, charming even, but... she isn't a Miss at all. No, not that kind of "not a Miss at all" :-) About to be divorced, two kids, not really living somewhere, torn between friends and families: the work. Been there, done that, I would gladly see her again but I am not up for that kind of involvement. Besides, I am not that sure that she will actually carry on with her divorce plans and my policy is not to interfere with other people life anyway. Mine is busy and complicated enough  already, so thank you, it is tempting, but I will have to pass. Nothing new under the Sun. 

The interesting part is this: as it was a first date, we exposed our most recent relationships, and I had to talk about Miss I. I said something along the line of "A kind of soft relationship. You know, when no one is really getting it moving". Which isn't true. What would have been true to say would have been "When no one dares to get it moving", or "When no one is confident enough to get it moving".

Which brings us to Miss I.

A little context first: Miss I is finally out of her predicaments, things are looking good for her at last, and we have kind of acknowledged that we have forged some kind of still indefinite bond. Which is an improvement in a way. Another step in the long and tortuous route to wild cats bonding. I know that too...

We ended up in her hallway, having one of these open but veiled and heavily subtexted talks she is so fond of. I rarely congratulate someone, but here I have to give her credit: she has been very close of making me furious. I actually had to go out, telling her that I would write her soon. I had far too much to say and not enough composure left to take it in stride. Not to say that her points weren't valid ones. She got me thinking about a few things. More than a few actually. Yes, I have already conceded it, we do have very different outlooks on, mostly, everything. Yes, I hadn't given a thought about some of my feelings, and, yes again, I dare not go further. Because, the truth is that I do not understand her as much as I would like to feel, not safe, just that I am not heading in the wrong way. The conclusion is that I am now standing right where I was in December 2008 (the 28th, to be precise), which, I gather, was the way I had been feeling for a few months then. I have tried a few things, went to investigate supposedly greener pastures, tried to bury her, to no avail. And still I do not understand what she says she is expecting of me. It is driving me mad when I think of it. The more I try, the more I fail. The more she talks, the less I understand. Still, I keep on trying. And I honestly do not know why. I am a fucking pathetic mess. What I am trying to say is that I am trying to give her some answers, because I know that they will mean something to her, but I do not even know whether or not I have understood her questions. Sometimes it feels like I am a blind man talking about paintings, sometimes like I am talking colours with someone who has Daltonism. I just do not get it. It's like the first time I picked up a Rubik's cube. 

Anyway, I do not want to give up. There is something. We both feel it. We just cannot find a way to make it to the light. Maye it is me, maybe it is her, maybe it is both of us. Maybe we need more time just to learn about each other. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

I wrote her something along these lines, as I said I would, and I am still in the dark. 

I'll see soon enough ;-)

The story of S

Once again, I have spent the last Thursday evening with Miss I. It came as a surprise, as she was supposed to have something else to do. Anyway, as usual, she came up with a conversation that acted like a long fuse, the kind that triggers the sudden realisation that you have been missing on something for years, waking you up the following night. 20+ years in this case.

She asked me about someone I went to high school with. She knew her from college, and found S quite distasteful. I told her that she once was a very good friend of mine, and that she indeed turned out to be a less than a sterling person.
S is very intelligent: math and language oriented, with a lot of people skills and a daring attitude. She had a supportive family, was quite popular, fun to be with and a great friend of mine when I had trouble adjusting. My surrogate A at the time.
Then her older sister died. Her older sister was just like her, really brilliant. I do not know, I cannot explain what happened. The only thing I know is what I saw: a family being transformed. They all stayed together, of course, but, in a way, they took her death as a failure. They lost something more than a loved one. Something good was broken, and replaced by the intimate understanding that life is indeed too short.
I'll leave it at that.
Things changed, we were still friends but not that close any more. Then we grew apart.
We lost touch a few years later. I heard of her and her family. And what I heard through different channels, some of them very public, some other informal and very private didn't really made me want to get back in touch.
I'll leave it at that too.

But, beyond some vague feelings and half formed opinions, I hadn't seriously thought about this episode and how it had affected me, even though it got me to adopt a very well defined and consequential attitude toward some people.
Thanks to Miss I and a funny dream, I now know.
Basically, I have found out what I already knew and had never formulated.

Two kinds of people get my attention: those who serve, because they believe in something bigger than themselves ; and those who hack, in a very broad sense, because they question systems that shouldn't be able to deprive us from basic dignity.

But only those who exhibit these two traits gain my respect.
Serving without hacking is being a mindless drone. Hacking without serving is being blindly self serving. You must have purpose and the means and will to question your purposes.
 
Motivation, intention, will and means. We always get back to those.

39

Happy birthday to me ;-)

Sex and fury

So, Miss I and I went to watch a film at the Offscreen Festival, and she carefully selected this. Her main criteria was that it was the first film not part of a series she could see. Right.

It tells the story of a girl intent on revenge. She witnessed her father assassination, became a pickpocket and a gambler and went on to avenge the murder. Naked. In the snow. On her way she meets a guy in love with the most ridiculous spy ever, a corrupt politician or two, her long lost mother, nuns with knives, a lesbian maid and gets whipped in a church. Yeah. Right. 

The main actress is nice enough, the score is nice for a 1973 motion picture (read: a kitsch fashion statement nowadays), and the scenery and props are just awful (read: they were laughable even in 1973). The scenery is particularly bad, with parts looking to be made for dwarves because the perspective is completely screwed. And the colours, especially the walls, are just plain ugly. So ugly it is shocking. 

The plot is good, when you consider that it is mainly an excuse for some bad (very) softcore porn scenes and bloody chambara (with bad fake artifical blood, of course, you know, the purple gruelly kind) with a female ass popping in and out of it.

Still, I liked it. It has some good scenes, isn't really boring, and is adequately played. All things being considered, if you take it for what it is worth and come to it without any expectations, it is good enough. And, the chances are you have never seen it before. An interesting experience, but not a film I'll watch twice. On some points it is better than Kill Bill. The main ones being that it is shorter, the plot is clearly an excuse for some visual carnage, and that it is just plain funny, deliberately or not ;-)

Twin Peaks vs. Grey's Anatomy

Until very recently, my only exposure to Twin Peaks was half an episode seen 20 or so years ago, and listening for hours to the score looping ad nauseam in an ex girlfriend's car for months. I progressively came to hate Angelo Badalamenti, but I hated driving more, so I put up with the music. Since then, I have been unable to watch a single episode past the opening credits.
Anyway.
I usually like Lynch, so I bought the Twin Peaks DVDs when they came out a few years ago, but I hadn't gotten around to watching then since.
Until now that is.
And I like it. There are quite a few characters that I like, my favourites being Audrey Horne and Maj. Briggs. The seer with the log before the opening credits is nice too. The story is typically Lynchian, which means to me nice for an hour or three, and hardly bearable beyond that.
And what do I do when I am bored watching DVDs? I pump iron. Then the boredom induced by the show strangely abates, as if both boredom sources were working against each other to keep me focused on something else I have running in my mind. I find this very satisfying in a weird way.

Until now, my favourite show for weight lifting was Grey's Anatomy. It is in no way comparable to Twin Peaks. Grey's Anatomy sheer inanity is at first compelling then extremely annoying. Twin Peaks has the same effect to me: its sheer strangeness is at first attractive then profoundly annoying. Add the score and the annoyance becomes insufferable. Until I pick up the weights. Then it becomes bearable again.
You can pick up Grey's Anatomy at any time, and you will understand it all. When you pick up Twin Peaks at random, you won't understand a single thing.

So, for completely different reasons but according to the very same weird process, these two series make perfect weight lifting background.

Something must be very wrong with me :-)

The one that got away

Once upon a time there was this guy who left everything behind to face a new challenge. Opportunities were there, sure, but they weren't that good. When all is said and done, there isn't much to say about retirement plan, health insurance or a new car... It wasn't the conditions but the challenge that brought the man in.
He wasn't the ideal candidate. Far from it. But, for some jobs, the ideal candidate is an HR wet dream. He didn't speak the language, had a very narrow focus, and didn't exercised leadership as he should have. As far as I understand it, he didn't even knew what leadership is, he took it all for granted.
It didn't took long for things to go sour. People began asking for reassignment ("I do not know what I should be doing.", "I do not understand what is expected of us.", "What are we here for? What is the plan?"), or just plainly quit. People depending upon his work began to ask questions ("What is he doing?", "Why is he here?", "What is his role?", "Should I go through him for that?"). Then the criticisms ("We all agreed upon that, but he doesn't know/remember/understand.", "He isn't from around here, how can we trust him?", "He doesn't know us."). Possibly, he ran afoul of some deal, picked the wrong resource or contractor, made the wrong friends, was unable to gain the trust he needed.
In the meantime, he established quality standards, reasserted the end-user responsibility in requirements analysis, brought a new methodology and new talent in.
And then he was out.
Not of his own choosing.

A few words to the wise:

• never take leadership for granted ;
• there is no excuse ;
• learn the game before playing it ;
• listen carefully ;
• talk sparingly but, for God sake, *say* something.