Fear

I am currently in a paradoxical position. I'm about to start the job that I've always dreamed of (not that I would ever do anything so sentimental as dream, but let's pretend). Or in any case that I've dreamed of since that amusing little game in French conversation class where one lectrice pretends not to speak English and the other not to speak French and it's all terribly jolly.
The contradiction is that I'm absolutely terrified. My first day won't be for a little while yet and I'm avoiding all work-type buildings as far as possible. When I do go in (usually to fill in forms) I find myself unthinkingly edging along the corridors, close to the walls, as if I'm in some bizarre Eurothriller, with gun-toting enemies waiting around the corner. I end up standing in the front corner of the lift, nearest the door, not making eye contact with anyone and hoping no-one with heart trouble steps in on the next floor. I peer around doors before entering. I wish I could become invisible.
I am also frightened of colleagues. Even (especially) the lady who sells newspapers on the ground floor. I can just about manage consecutive practice with a Polish colleague. Meeting with English colleagues is slightly fraught but not impossible (all text and email correspondence is edited repeatedly: some people eat under stress - I correct grammar). I am Absolutely Petrified of the boss - quite irrationally because he is actually very nice.

The other day I got what appeared to be a medical bill written in Flemish. It took me a little while to work out what it was and then I remembered.
In about my second week here, I went on a date in Antwerp. I don't often go on dates, for fear of causing harm to myself and to other people.
Some time in the early evening on this date, I begin to feel a slight ache in my stomach. I had skipped lunch (because I was a/ nervous and b/ late for my train) and drunk a beer on an empty stomach, so this was not entirely out of the ordinary. We decided to go and get something to eat, and found a table at a rather posh Thai restaurant.
The food arrived. I ate a little. The stomach ache got worse.
- This is really great, said my date, 'you should try some'
I shook my head.
- Mmm, yours is really good too! He reached over with the fork and speared several chunks of chicken and cashew nuts, while I turned a fetching shade of pale green.
 - I think I need to go home. I said.
We paid up and headed for the station.
The pain got worse.
I started to drag my feet.
- Maybe you should see a doctor?
- No, I'm fine, really, I just need to go home. Sorry.
We moved on, me hunched over and shuffling.
- Just give me a second... I said, and sank to my heels for a few moments.
And then the guy decided to play knight-in-shining-armour.
- I'm taking you to the hospital. Come on, we're getting a taxi.

I wasn't going to argue, and it was a huge relief to sink into the back seat of the taxi.

So that was how I ended up spending half a night in the emergency room of Antwerp hospital. Nothing was wrong with me. When I get nervous, my guts play up. And I was nervous, because I liked the guy.
They bundled me into an x-ray machine, asked me at least fifty times whether I was pregnant and whether I was sure I wasn't pregnant, and then gave me some horrible purgative thing, and I felt worse. It was far from dignified. I missed my last train back to Brussels and had to throw my contact lenses down the sink and stumble home half-blind the next morning (afternoon).

Needless to say, there was no second date.

And now - four months later - a hospital bill for seventy euros, reminding me of what an idiot I am, reminding me that I need to sort out my health insurance and transfer some money into my Belgian account, reminding me that I should really simply not date, at all, for the health and well-being of everyone.

And that fear and nerves have a way of sabotaging everything.

Of birds and bees

Sigh.
They say that were it not for alcohol there would be no British people. And I am coming to realise just how ill-prepared my British upbringing has left me for the world of dating outside the UK.

For those of you not in the know, the traditional courting ritual of the British mating pair involves nervously avoiding each other for anything from one week up to six months (in rare cases this phase of the mating cycle may last for years), a wary circling which sooner or later culminates in one frenzied night of passion, largely fuelled by any one or combination of the following:

- Stella tops
- Bombay Sapphire and Tonic
- Snakebite and Black (students only)
- Sainsbury's Valpolicella

etc.

After fleeing the scene - normally within twelve hours of copulation, and often in haste leaving behind appendages of varying degrees of essentiality (shoes, bras, contact lenses - known as 'Cinderella syndrome') - Phase Two, or Sub-phase One, 'secondary avoidance', begins. The tension begins to build again, eventually reaching its climax - excuse the terminology - in a second night of liquid-laced activity. At this point, the couple in question is generally no longer able to fend off probing questions from members of their social circle, and - somewhat sheepishly - a relationship begins.

As the relationship progresses, the volume of alcohol required prior to mating may vary in either direct or indirect proportion to its duration.

Typical mating calls of the Anglo-Saxon female may include:
- God, I'm so wasted!

***And they all lived happily ever after***

It has become clear that this method ceases to be effective across the Channel.

Now in Belgium, the avoidance and booze technique is simply getting me nowhere. Ultimately it results in my sitting at home in front of Spooks with a bottle of Cotes de Rhone, inadvertently avoiding more or less everyone.

I wouldn't mind all that much (I'm starting to get into the new series, and 75cl of Carrefour red is an awful lot cheaper than going halves on a candlelit dinner for two), only the effects are starting to show in other areas, namely that I tend to channel pent-up - ahem - physical energy into feverish yet futile mental activity.

I have two degrees, speak Polish and play the organ and can't believe it's taken me this long to work that one out.

So, to save my neighbours from the inevitable insanity that can only come from frequent repetition of pages three and four* of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody on organ setting; to prevent my floor becoming completely lost under a pile of old copies of Polityka and to stop me missing most of Grey's Anatomy by trying to read the Dutch subtitles, I'm enlisting your help. Teach me how to date in Europe! That's all I ask.

In return, I'll avoid you for a month and then come round with a bathtub full of snakebite and black...


*the only two pages that I can play.