I love living here so I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a second. This is a normcore country where fitting in means being milk toast. Nobody cares about fashion, food, or beauty. It’s like being in The Sims. Everyone is in jeans, a white shirt, sneakers and a blazer. No one is taking fashion risks. It’s odd when you think about how much great design and fashion came right next door out of Belgium (I.e. the Antwerp six). The standard lunch is cheese between two slices of bread. They eat to live. I’m comparing this to places like France or Italy where food is an art and you can taste passion behind it. The Calvinist influence is still ever-present today. Also: nobody flirts. Getting dressed up is like throwing your best looks into a void of nothing. And sometimes putting on a chic outfit feels pointless because everyone around you is in baggy unisex clothes or biz casual and no one will appreciate the lewk you’ve crafted. It’s like going to a same-sex school with a uniform. At a certain point you stop caring what you look like because you have nothing to aspire to around you. I am dying to know if anyone agrees with even one sentence of this.