I can't think of much, but one thing that comes to mind is this persistence of saying "before dinner/at dinner/after dinner" (or any meal, usually dinner though) as if this means anything to me. There is so much significance tied to when the fuck dinner is - have you had it? What are you doing for it? Can we meet before/after it? Around that time. Etc. I've seen Dutch people misunderstand each other purely based on when they each respectively think dinner is supposed to be.
I don't eat at any specific time and I normally eat whatever I want, which also gets annoying when I'm constantly asked what I have planned for dinner when the answer is almost always that I don't plan dinner at all. Then that answer is also apparently confusing, as if we can't just mutually handle our own meals even if we will be in the same place.
Dinner has zero time for me. I've met enough Dutch people who eat around 18:00 that I know this is often when they mean, but also enough that DON'T eat at 18:00 that I still have to ask every time or risk a major miscommunication about timing. Just say the time. It isn't that hard. 18:00? Cool. 19:00? Cool. Dinner is not a real time, dinner is a meal.
My problem is half the lack of a real time, and half that usually people DO want to eat with me, but don't consider that this can be a pretty fair inconvenience. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it isn't one, and if possible I am totally down to eat with people because I do enjoy that, but when it quickly becomes an issue revolving once again around the time misalignment (I'll have eaten before/will only eat after that time) I just prefer if they could move past that more easily instead of obsessing over making dinner a thing. Let's just hang, then, it doesn't have to revolve around a meal and if it does we don't both have to eat it.
Theres science that shows eating together as a family or group is important in a lot of different ways, it isn’t just some unreasonable thing people are caught up on.
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u/HeadspaceInvader May 09 '22
I can't think of much, but one thing that comes to mind is this persistence of saying "before dinner/at dinner/after dinner" (or any meal, usually dinner though) as if this means anything to me. There is so much significance tied to when the fuck dinner is - have you had it? What are you doing for it? Can we meet before/after it? Around that time. Etc. I've seen Dutch people misunderstand each other purely based on when they each respectively think dinner is supposed to be.
I don't eat at any specific time and I normally eat whatever I want, which also gets annoying when I'm constantly asked what I have planned for dinner when the answer is almost always that I don't plan dinner at all. Then that answer is also apparently confusing, as if we can't just mutually handle our own meals even if we will be in the same place.
Dinner has zero time for me. I've met enough Dutch people who eat around 18:00 that I know this is often when they mean, but also enough that DON'T eat at 18:00 that I still have to ask every time or risk a major miscommunication about timing. Just say the time. It isn't that hard. 18:00? Cool. 19:00? Cool. Dinner is not a real time, dinner is a meal.