When I decided to move to Brussels, I had a very clear image of the city. I knew where I was coming:
Big part of the people are between 25 and 35 years old, generally starting or recently started their careers, foreigners.
I was actually right.
Here is the people you meet around Brussels:
The Belgians
What foreigners say about the Belgians is that “we don’t see them, we don’t know them”. And that’s often mutual. The Belgians although they’re not as snob as the French are, often do not know or go to the places foreigners go. Some do not even know of places which are packed with people like the square next to the European Parliament – Place du Luxembourg.
They prefer some bars or clubs outside of the city – where public transportation is non-existent. Generally the Belgians live and go out in places where there is no public transportation – they love their cars. I guess this is also some form of filtering from the massive amounts of immigrants who live here. (I do understand them to be perfectly honest)
Brussels Belgian girls are not typically beautiful, tall, blonde, thin, or stylish. (If you wanna see some of that, go up north to the Flemish region)
The couples
Big part of the Belgian or Foreign people are long-term couples, engaged or married. In my honest opinion they have the best life: Travel a lot, are able to leave outside the city centre (which can easily be described as stinky as the Athenian one – and sometimes even stinkier) cause they don’t care about going out so distance from the town is not a problem, can afford better houses, etc. They spend lots of their time thinking of where to move: whether the south or another more interesting country/city, they don’t seem to like it over here. Obstacle: Brussels PAYS..
The Eastern-European newcomers
Sub-category of the foreigners/Eurocrats, the recent expansion of the EU to include many countries from Eastern Europe (such as Latvia, Slovenia, etc) brought a massive wave of people from these countries to work to the EU Institutions. I have the impression they are so many – or maybe I keep meeting them because they are all new here as I am, who knows. Interestingly, dating-wise, Eastern European girls do follow many clichés that made them famous: They prefer older men, want to get settled, married, create a family, etc. That’s something you wouldn’t hear from a 25 year old girl otherwise. (most of the northern one’s have other worries: how to get cheap drinks, and where to find the best parties)
The Ghetto
Brussels is the European city with the biggest percentage of African immigrants. This results in several areas of Brussels (such as the city centre) which are dangerous, dirty, and should be avoided. Almost all of my friends-girls have had some kind of problem when walking near the city centre after the sunset.
The Students / Interns
I am not sure the Students should be in the same category as the Interns. This is because the Belgian Students do a more or less normal life – the Interns – Especially those of the Commission, party-hardy quite a lot. When I first got here, all men where narrating all these stories for Intern girls, saying how easy they were etc. I think the EU Interns of Brussels are the Erasmus students of elsewhere. Rumour has it that many Intern girls try to hook up with Permanent EU employees so that they have someone who can support their application in case they want to be permanent employees.
The rest
The big majority of the foreigners working here work in companies that have to do directly or indirectly with the European institutions. Most of them are single, and most of them spend quite some of their time trying to find someone. This makes absolute sense, as Brussels is a boring city, and when you are in the 25-35 period of your life, you usually want to get settled – or just have someone on your side. What does not make any sense is why a really big part of these people remain single for a longtime. This is a phenomena that until this day I haven’t managed to understand. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that many consider this city as a “transitional” phase in their lives, they come and they go, thus have a conscious or subconscious fear of commitment – leading to a break-up some months (or years?) later.
I am also sure I am forgetting some categories that I had in mind when planning to write this post over here. I’ll just update it as soon as I remember them.
Pretty bummed. Especially if your daily routine is .. average, you need some good news to be happy again.
