Like dating but worse.

I was showing people my room pretty much from when I arrived back 3 weeks ago, and this didn't only given me the opportunity to gain lots of Facebook friends in a bid to avoid the charges spare room websites try and put on you if you want to reply to your emails, but also to be emotionally traumatised.

Finding someone to take my room has just been filled with rejection, criticism, and people who never call back; just when I think I've finally found someone they tell me they're 'seeing other places' and I never hear from them again. And whilst this is obviously not a reflection on me at all (since they don't have to like me, because I won't be there), I found myself feeling genuinely hurt every time someone didn't want to rent the room.

Some people even said it was too expensive, which isn't a complaint I've had before.

That definitely made that worse rather than better.

One girl was actually mortified that the toilet wasn't in the bathroom, and yeah okay, so that's maybe a little less convenient than you would like (you could actually argue that it's more convenient, but whatever), but I'm not sure it would shock me as much as it appalled her.  It's not like the toilet is that far from everything else, it's on the same floor as the bathroom and kitchen, it's not even a yard from them in fact, it's literally the other side of the stairs. It's not like it's in a separate building, you don't have to walk for a mile through a forest to get there, you just make a decision to go right at the bottom of the stairs rather than left. Quite frankly I think that if you can't deal with that situation then you should seriously consider if you deserve to live in a house at all.

That was probably a bit too angry, so you can see what I mean, I became pretty emotionally invested.

But the most important thing is that I now have somewhere to go when the time comes for me to end my contract on Friday, well sort of, I intend to have somewhere to go and I should be going there. Although given my success so far the house will probably burn down between my visit tomorrow and my being made homeless on Friday. Or they'll find asbestos in it, or it will be the only house in Brussels to flood. Something.

So I can say goodbye to Rue de Chambery with it's far too numerous stairs and dingy kitchen and shower that won't stay hot for more than 20 minutes and weird serial killer-esque extra rooms that we weren't allowed in and door that I couldn't open with just one hand free. I can say hello to somewhere with probably just as many flaws and annoyances but with the bonus of not spending my time avoiding the owner of the house because most of what she says makes me want to be fluent in French just so she would understand how angry I am. So that will be nice at least.

And I think it's a good indicator of what the current owner of my house is like that how nice and relaxed about my signing/deposit paying the owner of my new place is being is causing me a great deal of suspicion.

Maybe the house is filled with asbestos.

Merde.

xx

I get paid tomorrow...

...I have €7.17 in my purse, and £0.66 in my bank account. So it would be safe to say I'm pretty excited.

I went to Bruges! Despite the crazy weather (hail, sleet and sun...seriously?) it was by far one of the best days I've had since I got here. Even at the end of October it's just a beautiful and tourist-filled as you would imagine - but don't even bother imagining, there are photos at the bottom. The hot chocolate we had when we got there was probably the best I've ever had, and when your table is the one in front of a log fire in the cafe, it probably couldn't feel more like Christmas.

That's pretty much the only noteworthy thing I've done this week, apart from very stupidly, and unintentionally, use up all €15 of credit on my phone by calling home for 20 minutes (Mobistar...is this about what I said last week? Because that feels like an unnecessarily high tariff to me).

I'm beginning to get really annoyed at the woman on my French learning audio course - she just gets everything wrong all the time, I've never known anyone be this bad at repeating something they've just heard (I should point out that these are on my iPod and she is a 'student' who repeats back what the guy leading the course says, I'm not just getting really angry at some woman who's genuinely trying to learn French). As I'm only 9 lessons in, this is probably a bad sign - there's like 80 more to go, and by the end I'll either be able to speak French, or I'll have spent 10 hours yelling at my laptop. Maybe even both.

I'm also inadvertently following the X Factor, so I know Jade went last week, Union J and District3 are basically One Direction but...no that's it, they're just basically One Direction, and Rylan appears to only still be in the competition to frustrate everyone who watches it. All this horrendously useless knowledge has been gained through my Twitter feed, so thank you Twitter, for making me incredibly well-informed about a programme I have absolutely no interest in, and have never watched.

Finally,

I just had to share this site : http://www.lovepanky.com

Now coming away from the fact that 'panky' should never ever be used as a word (even when preceded by 'hanky'), there is just so much more that's just plain wrong with what they're suggesting.

For starters some of the stuff they suggest is just contradictory, I'm probably going to find it pretty hard to play with my hair if I'm not allowed to move my hands, and that's all gonna look pretty weird if I'm constantly shifting around on my feet at the same time, in fact I'll come out of this less of an attractive young woman, and more of a Weeble (Google it). I'm personally going to find it pretty difficult to express myself full stop if my hands have to be clamped by my side, but then with advice like 'speak softly' and 'barely speak at all', expressing myself clearly isn't the aim here. I think the worst thing is that if this actually works and his heart is suitably melted to the point where we start dating, he's going to get the shock of his life when I stop being cute, and start being myself. And then I'll have to start all over again, although maybe this time I could take their advice on being sexy, and the advice on that one is basically just 'LOOK AMAZING', which might require a lot more prep work, but at least I won't have to put on a voice.

Their first date advice is equally as frustrating, to be fair the article is entitled '14 Signs You're Ruining Your First Date Unknowingly'. It may as well be called '14 Ways Everything is Wrong With You and You'll Die Alone'. And the advice itself is a lot like being yelled at by a maniac - 'be yourself - but not too much like yourself, speak a lot, but not too much, show an interest, but don't be too interested, or friendly, definitely don't be too friendly don't smile too much, dress appropriately and under no circumstances agree to seeing him again,  - oh, and BE PERFECT IN EVERY WAY'.

If I actually read this before a first date I'd probably be a nervous wreck by the time I arrived and sit in silence for the whole date, convinced that even the slightest movement or sound would ruin everything.

It's probably wrong of me to direct this purely at lovepanky.com, I just happened to stumble across it this week and it brought up a lot of the anger I feel about dating advice more generally. I'm not even going to give alternative advice, because I never give advice, and even if I did it would be just as useless. Just behave like a normal person and you'll probably be fine.

This is my last post before I go home on tomorrow night for the Bank Holiday weekend, so if you're in Belgium, enjoy your days off, if not, then enjoy your normal-length weekend.

xx

Thanks to Ash and Francesca for their help in inspiring this post, I hope it's every bit as ranting and angry as you expected.