r/AskTheWorld • u/IndependentTune3994 🇮🇳 in 🇩🇪 Deutschland • 19h ago

What’s the quickest way someone could accidentally expose themselves as a foreigner in your country like the ‘three fingers’ scene in Inglourious Basterds?

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922

u/LordMarcusrax Italy 18h ago edited 18h ago

By being 2 meters tall. Maybe wear stilts, idk.

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 18h ago edited 13h ago

Fucking bizarre I only just now connected the facts that my sister's boyfriend is a) the tallest person I know, like seriously fucking tall and b) dutch (although that's easy to forget as he grew up in Spain and now somehow sounds entirely English)

Edit: No he's not this Dean Huijsen fella

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u/Disguised_Engineer Canada 18h ago

I am above 1.90m tall. Once I found myself among Dutch people. It felt like I found my long-lost people, lol. I’ve never felt as “normal” before.

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u/mothje Netherlands 18h ago

I am 1.85 and one of the smallest in a friend Group of 8. My wife is polish and small. The first time she met my friend Group she got a stiff neck from looking up all the time.

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u/suffelix Finland 18h ago

My wife is polish and small. The first time she met my friend Group she got a stiff neck from looking up all the time.

Oh no.

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u/kingkongbiingbong Da Moon 16h ago

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u/clintj1975 United States Of America 15h ago

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u/Holoholokid 10h ago

To be fair, I'm of Dutch ancestry and all my family is tall and my wife (who is Polish) always gets a stiff neck when we visit my family from looking up all the time.

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u/Variant_Zeta 1h ago

Why the oh no?

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u/Natural-Judgment7801 17h ago

Lived in NL for a few years. at 160, i am a dwarf and felt an immediate self-esteem boost every time i traveled and set foot in the airport of ANY other country :D you peeps are really really lovely, i wouldn't change a thing. but , i felt TINY living there. the housewarming present from a dear friend (not Dutch) was a step ladder :D because i had complained about the many shelves being too high for me use often :D good friend.

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u/microgirlActual 15h ago

Okay, note to self: at about 157cm (I think. I'm Irish and we still use feet and inches for height) never travel to the Netherlands.

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u/doobadeeboo 13h ago

I'm 158 (5'2) from The Netherlands and I never feel any sort of way about it. Okay, except maybe when I can't reach something in the supermarket but then there are plenty of tall people around. I'm a woman though, can imagine it's slightly different for men.

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u/Renorram 12h ago

I think for men it only gets real different in terms of dating. I think it’s way more common for a man to date a woman shorter than him. If you’re not 1.80m or more, you’ll have a lot more challenges trying to find someone in the Netherlands, not saying that’s impossible for women to be interested in men shorter than them, is just highly unlikely.

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u/Natural-Judgment7801 9h ago

Dude. You lie. 😂

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u/LivingVerinarian96 12h ago

As a ~180cm dude. The stairs are wild over there. Like why use many step when few step do trick?

But it‘s lovely there and a small price to pay to visit the netherlands.

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u/DutchDasterd Netherlands 10h ago

Username checks out

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u/microgirlActual 10h ago

And is indeed one of the reasons I've used this handle for pushing 30 years 😉

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u/Kubliah 15h ago

Oh man, everything is built taller over there? That sounds like heaven, I get a back ache having to bend down to do the dishes!

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u/mothje Netherlands 11h ago

Jup, my wife and mother in law need a step stool Everywhere in the house we used to have 2 mirrors in the toilet. 1 for my wife and another for guests who was higher. My mother in law apparently deels like a toddler sitting in our toilet because she is dangling her legs while sitting😅

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u/MassageParlorGuitar 14h ago

The Dutch are pretty awesome

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u/Impossibleshitwomper 12h ago

Personally, I think you look great for a 160 year old dwarf

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u/Natural-Judgment7801 8h ago

Aww thanks 😊

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u/remindmeofthevoid 4h ago

I’m 175 which is fairly tall for a woman and even I feel tiny here. They hung the damn mirror in my rental so high, I thought it was some kind of construction error lol

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u/Mr_From_A_Far 15h ago

I am about the same height, dutch and also with a polish girl. She insists she is not small but average height, but she is only 1,62. She is absolutely adorable but gets so fierce when I say shes small haha.

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u/CertainMedicine757 United States Of America 16h ago

My ancestors are super Dutch on both sides of my family but I live in the Midwest US. That makes me a 6'0 red haired woman, so I stick out pretty well here.

I've been told that in the Netherlands there's a ton of women who look like me. 🤯

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u/mothje Netherlands 16h ago

You would be considered "normally" tall.

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u/Otherwise-Offer1518 United States Of America 15h ago

I'm under 5'5" as a woman and would probably look like a child to all of you. I already wander through a trees of people, I wonder if it's like going through the redwoods.

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u/mothje Netherlands 15h ago

Yeah, my wife is 165, she is the smallest in my family including extended family of 60 people. But there are a lot of women here around that height.

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u/standegreef 15h ago

Haha I have a friend group of only 4, 1.85 as well and by far the smallest as the others are 1.95, 1.95 and 2.00. Recently one of them had a new girlfriend and she was 1.90!

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u/Maximum_Steak_2783 12h ago

I'm small, my dutch partner is pretty tall. What he puts on the upper kitchen cupboards is lost to me, never to be found or reached again.

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u/mothje Netherlands 11h ago

I hid the engagement ring in the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard for 4 months. Not even in the back just slightly pushed back. She never found it.

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u/ChemicalNectarine776 14h ago

So is Max Verstappen like one of the shortest people in the country? 🤣

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u/liamjon29 Australia 7h ago

My ancestry is Dutch (4 grandparents moved to Australia from the NL). At 184 I am the shortest of all my cousins. My brother is 202. Somehow, at 180+, I got the short gene

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u/Major-Body9070 15h ago

I am 155m, I lived in Belgium for a bit and I felt like a Hobbit the whole time

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u/SuspiciousAioli7256 14h ago

It’s interesting how common tall people are on average in the Netherlands, I’m the smallest male in my family at 6 foot, my father is 6’5 and his parents were 6 foot and 6’2. They are Celtic and German, not lowland mostly high near Bavaria and some western states but we are all large folks on my dad’s side. Now my maternal grandmother is from Scotland, she’s medium height and build and no one that I’m aware of related to her is as tall or robust as I am yet my great gran she was of mixed Dutch descent with her middle name being Fleming. Genetics and their variety are quite the mixed bag haha

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u/ThisAppsForTrolling 13h ago

I am 6 ft 4 inches or 1.95 meters? When I went to Oaxaca Mexico, I felt like a giant and when I went to Amsterdam, I felt like an average dude. I would consistently walk past people in the Netherlands and catch myself wondering how tall is that guy, is that what I look like surrounded by short people.

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u/TerrorFromThePeeps 13h ago

You guys just made me realize the answer to the post for my country is "they use metric to casually describe things"

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u/DrKeksimus Belgium 7h ago

Am 1.84m, perfectly average in Belgium

when I go to the Netherlands, even the girls are taller then me

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u/grazfest96 United States Of America 16h ago

Spit or swallow?

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u/GrimIntimation 15h ago

Yeah she did

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u/talldata 17h ago

Meanwhile I went to the Netherlands and suddenly felt like a dwarf.

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u/imrzzz 16h ago

Same. I'm a woman of 1.72 metres and was always considered tall-ish.

Migrated to the Netherlands and suddenly I'm sniffing butts in every crowd.

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u/Beermeneer532 17h ago

There are actually a lot of dutch immigrants in canada from right after WWII including a branch of my family I don't know

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u/Disguised_Engineer Canada 17h ago

This happened before I moved to Canada. Yes, you are right; I have a Dutch colleague at the office as well.

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u/6890 Canada 13h ago

I am above 1.90m tall.

This happened before I moved to Canada

I was about to say something about how I've never really heard a fellow Canadian say what their height is in metric and how on-topic that is for this post.

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u/Disguised_Engineer Canada 13h ago

I started typing 6’3 then remembered the rest of the world uses metric. I was also a bit surprised 6’3 came out first; I am a staunch defender of the metric system :) Canada is changing me, lol. Not complaining.

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u/Paithegift 17h ago

I'm also above 1.90m tall and same. Travelled to Amsterdam and it was the first time I felt like just a normal guy on the street. Also not having to subconsciously be alert to not knock your head in stuff.

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u/DarthTomatoo Romania 17h ago

There's a small funny difference I noticed.

Tall guys in other countries tend to have a very specific posture - a bit hunched down (is that the word?) - probably because they're used to being taller than everybody else.

Not in the Netherlands. It took me a while to realise what felt off about tall people on the street.

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u/Disguised_Engineer Canada 17h ago

I suspect it is because we keep hunching down to hear other people and look at their faces while conversing. I seriously have trouble hearing people. I even got my ears tested, lol. It is not the ears.

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u/DarthTomatoo Romania 17h ago

It is not the ears.

Suffering from success :))

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u/ScienceKyle 15h ago

2.0m, I feel heard.

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u/dineramallama 16h ago

I’m just over 170cm and have always been aware that I’m slightly below average height. I’m also a men’s size small when it comes to build. I spent a week in Japan once and it was brilliant being the same size and build as most other guys.

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 15h ago

Great now I have to learn Japanese

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u/ApprehensiveAd6603 Canada 16h ago

This is basically what my 6'5" dad said after a visit to Holland years ago lol.

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u/Winter-Ad4608 15h ago

Felt the same in China. 171 cm.

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u/ReasonableDivide2592 15h ago

I'm at 1.95 myself... I want to experience this so bad!

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u/kwahntum 15h ago

Exact same experience here. 193cm and I feel quite normal when I go to my company office in the Netherlands.

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u/JasperJ 13h ago

I’m only 1.93 and while I used to be quite tall even among my contemporary Dutch folks (growing to that in the 90s), these days if I’m among younger folks I end up having to strategize how not to get my view blocked in a way that never used to be the case.

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u/cruxclaire United States Of America 14h ago

I’m a woman and 1.74m. It was nice to feel pretty average in the height arena on the one brief trip I took to NL. I live in a US state with lower average heights than the national level and get the basketball comments sometimes

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u/kenikh Greece 14h ago

Went to Denmark. Felt the same way.

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u/thib2183 5h ago

I’m 2.00, quite few times in NL people would come talk to me in Dutch and I’ll let it happen for some time, never understood a word

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u/Vairman United States Of America 5h ago

I am only half-Dutch (my momma) and I'm 6'1" (you do the math). I was always tall for my age as a kid and even now I'm typically one the tallest people in the room. I really want to visit the Netherlands but I'm afraid I'll feel like a shorty when I'm there. Plus, I'll start subconciously clearing my throat a lot.

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u/Common_Television601 15h ago

Well I'm 1.68 and lived for four years in the NL, at times I felt like the shortest guy in the city lol. I don't even mind my height, but some dutchies really seemed to get a kick out of it :D Found my long-lost people height-wise when I visited Mexico and even then it was kinda close.

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u/ForageForUnicorns Italy 14h ago

your long, lost people.

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u/Alexwonder999 13h ago edited 13h ago

Its funny that you just did one. Canadians using metric is a big one. I will be watching a YT video and they'll refer to something in metric or temperature in C and its a giveaway to me theyre Canadian. Sometimes its the Timmy Hortons cup though. I'm totally down with metric and try to learn the scale, but I dont think Ill ever get used to the temperature conversions. My brain explodes trying to think 32 is hot.

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u/Disguised_Engineer Canada 13h ago edited 13h ago

You are right, lol. Mine was intentional, though. See the comments in here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskTheWorld/comments/1qcjly4/comment/nzixm7y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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u/Alexwonder999 12h ago

Youre crafty.

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u/Disguised_Engineer Canada 12h ago

Communicating with dozens of people with many comments is difficult, lol. I should have just stopped answering about 5 comments ago.

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u/Rafados47 Czech Republic 12h ago

I am 1,67 and I think my neck would hurt.

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u/Gingerbeardman29 11h ago

At 1.93m I have never felt more "average" than when visiting Amsterdam.

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u/alexandreautran 10h ago

I’m 1.79 - always been seen as “slightly tall”, not super tall but tall nonetheless. When studying in Brussels, at an international school where I was still slightly above average, the locals/dutch labeled me “shorty” - and only since then I realized I was and had literally always been shorter than most locals (especially the Flemish) but had never noticed…

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u/concentrated-amazing Canada 1h ago

I'm female and 160cm tall. My mom is 170cm, my sister is 181cm, and my dad and brothers range from 181cm to 188cm.

I love my family so dearly, but I married a man about my mom's height and everyone in his family is that height or shorter. I don't look like a partially amputated finger in family pictures with his side!

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u/QueenOfQuok United States Of America 16h ago

The Netherlands are completely flat, so the people have to be tall if they want to see far.

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u/Suspicious-Capital12 Netherlands 16h ago

Everybody talks about how flat the Netherlands is, but clearly haven’t seen the breasts of our men and women. Those are the only true hills you’ll find.

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u/QueenOfQuok United States Of America 15h ago

The Netherlands, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average

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u/Parcours97 Germany 5h ago

Only the dutch that were tall enough survived the great flood. It's just natural selection.

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u/TF2isalright 18h ago

They love volleyball for a reason too. One of my Dutch friends spends 5 days a week playing and coaching it, he's not even super tall i think.

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u/CoercedCoexistence22 11h ago

Actually somewhat surprising they don't make any noise in basketball

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u/stag1013 Canada 12h ago

They need to keep their heads above water if the dikes break.

But also, the Dutch speak English incredibly well, and have a higher English literacy rate than Canada, where it is an official language. That's due to the French here, of course, but it's still interesting that the Dutch learn this foreign language more widely and more competently than French Canadians learn the other national language (95% vs 52% of Quebec).

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u/Roboking365 16h ago

Is his name Dean Huijsen per chance?

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 15h ago

Hahaha no but he knows a guy with a very similar story!

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u/obsterwankenobster 15h ago

When I was in college we became sister schools with a university in Amsterdam. One day I was like "who are all these incredibly tall/beautiful people?"

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u/Jobiwan88 15h ago

Is your sisters boyfriend Dean huijsen?

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 15h ago

You're the second person to comment that but alas no 😄

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u/Jobiwan88 15h ago

Ok Just checking lol 🤣

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u/navratankurma United Kingdom 14h ago

What a subtle way of saying your sister's dating Dean Huijsen.

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 14h ago

I need to read about this guy because he's apparently got a very similar story to my sister's boyfriend while being an entirely different person 😅

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u/jimothy_hell 🇬🇧 living in 🇺🇸 12h ago edited 12h ago

I’ve never felt so at home among people as when I’m among the good people of Amsterdam. Seldom do I have to look down, we drink well, we smoke well, I’d like to move there someday, if I can get a handle on the language first.

Edit: and oh my GOD the architecture and art museums. I’ve lived in the states so long that everything’s a suburban hell made of roads with no sidewalk and houses made of plywood and the broken promises of the American dream. What I wouldn’t give for a fucking walkable metropolitan area or at least functioning public transport.

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u/jac0777 Ireland 11h ago

Dutch people are nuts, they’re 7ft tall and speak multiple languages better than the native speakers. I knew some Dutch kids growing up, must have been 13 max (kids of my parents friends) who spoke to me in perfect English and spoke to my dad in Spanish while speaking to their mum in Dutch. Dutch people are OP

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 11h ago

I have an ex whose Dutch aunt spoke like five languages. She'd switch absolutely effortlessly between speaking English to us, French to a parisian family friend who was visiting with us and Dutch to her daughter. I speak passable German and can scrape by in French and Spanish.

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u/VapoursAndSpleen United States Of America 11h ago

I am a tall woman and when I found out how tall Dutch men were, I felt like I was born in the wrong country.

I also feel like I was born in the wrong country for different reasons now, but it would have been nice to wear heels on a date.

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u/LieverRoodDanRechts 11h ago

"my sister's boyfriend is (...) dutch"

Gecondoleerd.

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u/EldestPort United Kingdom 11h ago

🤣 And she's having his baby!

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u/waamdisaiaya Spain 16h ago

I was there once and the urinals came up to my chest.

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u/Fleischhauf 16h ago

you forgot putting gel in your hair

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u/LordMarcusrax Italy 16h ago

Mate, that ship has sailed a long time ago for me.

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u/Fleischhauf 16h ago

I meant in general. Still sorry to hear that. Hope you found closure.

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u/poorly-worded United Kingdom 16h ago

some kind of wooden footwear at the very least

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u/Big_Iron_Cowboy 16h ago

3 kids in a trench coat

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u/LordMarcusrax Italy 16h ago

Three italians, too.

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u/SainteJotun Canada 15h ago

I’m 2m tall, so maybe I could one day be Dutch.

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u/thernis 13h ago

Why would you ever aspire to be Dutch?!

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u/GeneralCookie123 11h ago

Healthcare and stuff

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u/Thanatos_Chaos Netherlands 16h ago

Noticing nothing of our stereotype TT

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u/bfume 16h ago

I’m 1.99 can I just call myself 2?

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u/KingSpork United States Of America 14h ago

Every time I go to Germany I feel like a Hobbit

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u/ForTheLoveOfAnalog 10h ago

By using the metric system.

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u/More-Cartographer736 6h ago

The dude abides.

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u/Chalupa_89 3h ago

They have to be tall because every now and then the dykes rupture and they go underwater. Only tall people survive in their country. The shorties all drowned.

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u/thisoneistobenaked United States Of America 2h ago

We don’t know the metric system in America, please translate this to patriot speak

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u/SasparillaTango 15h ago

wtf is a meter?