Gezellig! Or: How to Behave Dutch
Forget the tulips. Being Dutch is about cheese, cycling in the rain, complaining and more. Here is a list (plus tips on where to meet the real Dutch).
On social media, there’s this image of Dutch people supposedly buying tulips every week at the supermarket. Sorry gurl, that’s not even possible year‑round. And every week? That would cost a fortune.
How to be Parisian, How to be Italian, or those books about Hygge (Danish culture) or Lagom (Swedish). But no books telling you how to embrace Dutch culture (only to explain it). There’s nothing romantic about being Dutch. We’re fairly comfortable with our clumsy behaviour and don’t take ourselves too seriously (well, apart from a few exceptions).
We’re the act normal kind: straightforward, direct and sometimes a bit uncouth, but never quite crossing the line. We’re practical, punctual and productive. Slightly inelegant. We don’t need frills. We’re cheerful and kind of neat. And occasionally very impatient.
It’s all about how to behave Dutch, not how to act Dutch. Don’t force it; we don’t either.
So let’s start with a random list. Without any hierarchy, of course.
How to behave Dutch
1: Everything can be Gezellig
The mother of all Dutchness! Gezellig is a word on its own and cannot be translated. You can try - cosy, fun, pleasant, social, relaxed, comfortable, enjoyable - but it never really covers it. There are also some misconceptions 🤦♀️ about the term1:
What Does "Gezellig" Mean In Amsterdam?
"Gezellig"– The Word Americans Can’t Translate
The word is used on all sorts of occasions. A place can look gezellig, a social event can be gezellig, and sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee is gezellig. Even when you’ve got something planned, it can already be gezellig beforehand.
I’m curious how often the word gezellig shows up in text messages.
‘Shall we keep it gezellig’ has a different meaning. Code for: let’s not go there. It usually means the company shouldn’t touch a specific subject, or when there’s tension in the air (think political debates, big life events, and other heavy topics). It’s something you might hear at family gatherings.
The following video is a commercial from the eighties from a Dutch coffee brand “Always a gezellig moment, with the best coffee you know.”
2: You always know it better
Don’t be shy, you do have an opinion on everything. Even when you know absolutely nothing about it.
Be the uncle or brother‑in‑law at parties and take the stage with a few bold statements. Shamelessly. They really should have called you when they were looking for the analyst of everything!
3: Eat cheese
As slices on bread for breakfast and lunch. Melted into fried snacks (kaas soufflé or a kaas croquet). Cubes of cheese with pickles or onions as a snack. Grated on savoury pies. Baked into croissants or puff‑pastry snacks. Bring it to the camping, because there is no such thing as Dutch cheese. Eat a few slices when you’re hungry or just bored. Put it on a rice cracker or a beschuit. Or melted in a tosti. Kaas is everywhere, even in art2.
4: Hate Amsterdam profoundly
Almost everyone outside the capital claims to hate Amsterdam. For many reasons — and they’re more than eager to explain exactly why they feel that way. Read more in this post:
5: Complain about everything
And I mean literally everything. Not just the weather or the public transport.
The broken air‑con at the office. The office then handing out ice cream to all employees to make up for the broken air‑con.
The manager. No vision whatsoever (they should have known better if they’d only listened to you). A rude IT person. The co‑worker who always leaves early. The utterly lazy co‑worker.
“This isn’t what I ordered. It’s cold.”
Memphis Depay. The line-up of the Dutch team. Ajax. Heracles. The referee.
Noisy youngsters. Fatbikes. Road cyclists in packs.Roadworks. Traffic jams. Bad drivers (you, of course, drive perfectly). The road is awful, yet the train is no alternative. All those delays! And way too crowded.
People doing renovations at the weekend - ever heard of sleep? And those cats; can they stop fighting, please?
Parking spots. Parking costs. For what I pay in Amsterdam, I could buy a house. A small one in Weerselo, maybe. Because houses everywhere are outrageously overpriced anyway.
“We can’t say that anymore, can we?”
Taxes. Too many taxes. Let’s not even get started on the government.
Holidays are ridiculously expensive, yet we still go four times a year. Everything’s expensive nowadays.
Did you see this? There’s a product with a bad reputation. How dare they! (Still buy it, though.)
The hairdresser who won’t stop talking. The lift is broken. Again. Rubbish on the street. Filthy pigeons, rats, crows and seagulls are making it even worse.
A queue. And then someone cut the queue. 😩
The weather! What is wrong with the weather? It’s grey for 80% of the year.
6: You are not made of sugar
Cycle in every weather condition; whether it’s sunny, windy, snowing or pouring with rain. You’re not made of sugar; you won’t melt from a drop of rain. And besides, it’s just another thing to complain about.
7: Embrace the comfort of Dutch food
Recently, a guy from Belarus told me how much he loves Dutch stamppot, and that he’s developed his own way of perfecting it. I was a little surprised by his enthusiasm for such a boring dish.
Stamppot is basically mashed potatoes with vegetables, usually served with meat and gravy. It’s more or less the winter version of the backbone of Dutch cuisine: AGV, which stands for Aardappel, Groente, Vlees (Potatoes, Vegetables, Meat).
Let’s just say that, as comfort food, Dutch cuisine can be fine. Nothing more.
(Oh, and by the way: the most popular dish in the Netherlands is pasta3.)
8: Act normal, that's crazy enough.
9: Be part of the Dutch muppet show
Don’t be afraid of making those weird Dutch noises; we do it all the time. It’s how the Dutch language sounds. For us, it’s normal, and we can always spot the “camping accent” of our fellow Dutchies when travelling (and try to avoid them).
And it’s not only that infamous Ggggggggg, but also the Rrrrgggrrr, Schggggg, Ochggg, eu, ui, ij, oe, ou4 and more.
10: Join a neighbourhood chat group.
You can learn a lot about Dutch behaviour when you join a neighbourhood app group. In my case, it’s mostly about parcel deliveries, renovation noise and the occasional missing cat.
But recently, there was a whole other discussion - about the rubbish containers at the end of the street. For recycling, the municipality collects glass and paper separately. The paper container was full, and some people left their boxes next to it. This is what happened:
11: Money, money 🤑
Yes, we are economical. We truly are. Going Dutch is a well‑known term. No surprise, then, that apps5 for sharing costs or splitting the bill are extremely popular in the Netherlands.
12: East, west, Home is best
We have plenty of sayings about the place we live. Home is not only where the heart is; it’s a very sacred place. There’s a big difference between the world outside the front door and what happens inside the house.
Buiten de voordeur houden: Keep it outside the front door (don’t let it into your private life).
Eigen straatje schoon vegen: Sweep your own doorstep first (mind your own business).
Zoals het klokje thuis tikt, tikt het nergens: There’s no place like home.
Ieder huisje heeft zijn kruisje: Every home has its own cross to bear (every family has its troubles).
The Dutch prefer to keep things indoors — especially things we don’t want others to know or interfere with. A “home” is also a metaphor for family, but not the whole family (that would be far too warm and open). It’s usually just the inner circle: parents and children.
Some Dutch people are so fond of their cocoon that they put the word home on one of their walls. Or, even worse, hang up an ‘artwork’ with the words “In this house, blah blah blah 🤮”.
Most Dutch people are fine with inviting guests into their homes, but only at set times. Nothing too spontaneous. And then there are those people (you know exactly who I mean) who casually invite themselves for lunch or dinner by just hanging around. Of course, you still feed them… and then spend the rest of the evening complaining about it to someone else.
🏠 Interested in how we live? Check Funda.nl!
13: Travel a lot
Where to go for a touch of the real Dutch?
Yes, here it is: the For Your Itinerary part of this post. A list of places where you can spot Dutch people in their natural habitat.
Go to the Thialf ice stadium in Heerenveen and attend a speed skating competition - especially the Olympic Qualification Tournament (OKT) this winter. If you manage to understand the qualification matrix, you’re more Dutch than most of us.
Visit a garden centre in the weeks before Christmas (the one in Duiven is wildly popular), or when spring arrives.
Join the orange6 army at a national football match. The games are played in several stadiums around the country.
Stroll through the main shopping7 street of a mid‑sized town; think Tilburg, Beverwijk, Almere, Hengelo, Winschoten, Hoogeveen, Zoetermeer, to name a few. And play this Bingo8 while you’re there:
Take a Sunday walk in the forest, the dunes or across a heather field, and reward yourself with a coffee, hot chocolate with whipped cream, apple pie or pancakes afterwards. For routes and areas, check the websites of Natuurmonumenten and Staatsbosbeheer.
Join a local event. Carnival in lesser‑known cities such as Sittard, Oldenzaal or Roosendaal. A flower parade in places like Zundert, Leersum, Lichtenvoorde or Noordwijk. Or a summer cycling criterium in Surhuisterveen, Boxmeer or Chaam.
Uitsmijter: Dutch Humour
Besides cheerful, we like to laugh a lot. And pretty loud, to be honest.
As found on Instagram (several accounts).
More on Rijksmuseum.nl
I recently learned that these vowel glides (like ei, ou, eu, ui) are called diphthongs.
Examples are wiebetaaltwat.nl and Tikkie.
Made with myfreebingocards.com.
Having lived in the Netherlands for 5 years, this resonated profoundly! Especially the part where Dutch people act like they invented football (or at least how to play it correctly). It is thus no coincidence that the Netherlands never brings on a foreign manager but England does routinely now (and now even Brazil 😅
As for Dutch food, I get a cold sweat thinking about half eaten frikandels in the vending machine at Utrecht Centraal.
Other than that, if everyone was half as direct as the Dutch are, then maybe the world would be slightly more gezellig for everyone!
Great piece, thanks for sharing!
Good to have these explanations. Before we lived there, in my Masters program I had a class with a Dutch professor, two Dutch students, and one Flemish student—so I got to see the culture firsthand as the only outsider.
After living there, my biggest complaint would be the steep stairs, even in rural houses with plenty of room, and the lack of personal space (compared to Austria). But we really liked the directness and honesty of the people. I know stairs wasn’t something you mentioned, but I feel like steep stairs are the most Dutch thing jn tbd world.