Travel Date: The Story of One Dutch

Cheating That Cost Him Parenting Deprival

Diary to Public

Before I start, I want to make a confession. I know for sure that I’ll regret writing and posting this story. Sometimes there are too personal things for me that perhaps deserve a place nowhere but in my diary.

There are also reasons for being pushed to share them and you yourself will recognize them when you read the story till the end. There won’t be one conclusion.

3 years ago I experimented a lot with dating websites. On one of them, I met Daan. He was, as he presented himself, a gentleman of Dutch descent. He worked in the field of finance, several years before we met he was leading one of the top ten banks in Europe.

Tall handsome man with blue eyes, 38 years old, lover of sports, philosophical conversations, and lovely ladies. After a few weeks of our constant chatting & calling, he invited me to Amsterdam, offering to take over the organization of my trip.

My conditions were unshakable. I asked for a decent hotel and the room booked under my and only name. I warned him that there won’t be even a chance to sleep with me. None. Zero. Additionally, I wanted a copy of his passport. That was my first travel date ever.

Daan, like a true gentleman, fulfilled the initial conditions and now I already had his personal information. Google on request showed some incredible info. He was divorced, deprived of parental rights. The former wife claimed that he was repeatedly seen in infidelity and once tried to put his mother-in-law on the street of the Red Light district. The USA court document was available online.

I spread his number to my friends just in case and went to Amsterdam…

I was met by a very nice man with an unusually sad face and kind eyes. I checked into the hotel and we went for dinner. We were going to spend the next three days together.

I asked many questions and, of course, one of the first was…What happened to Mrs. X? And from that moment, our three-day “psychological session” began. He was telling the story of his life and I was listening to it with dedication.

Daan’s Confession but It’s Too Late to Apologize

Daan looked at me with his big blue sad eyes and answered shortly: “I blame myself for everything that’s happened.”

Further, his narration was more like a plot from a dramatic film.

Daan met his wife in London. He held a very high position in one of the largest banks in Europe. She is an American by birth and a graduate of the University of Oxford School of Law.

Everything went according to a plan. They were madly in love. They got married and moved to the USA. Daan started his own business. The long-awaited baby-girl was born. And only one thing spoil their life is the prolonged depression of his wife, which she clearly could not cope with. At one of the down moments, she dropped her newborn daughter to the floor. At that moment Daan almost started to cry when he was telling me the story. The baby was suspected of having a crack in her head, but everything was bypassed, and everybody continued to live happily ever after until the wife found the synced iCloud photos on the tablet, as well as Daan’s correspondence and the countless facts of infidelity and love affairs in different countries that he flew to.

Daan explained that he couldn’t find another way around since he didn’t have sex with his wife for 2 years because depression and antidepressants made her absolutely frigid and, indeed, he decided to walk right and left in neighboring countries.

His wife’s Oxford education and one of the most conservative in US jurisprudence, the Louisiana State Court did their job. Daan offered his ex-wife $20k of monthly alimony in exchange for maintaining contact with his daughter, but she still deprived him of parental rights and permission to communicate with the child, even on Facetime since 2013.

This is the perfect scenario for making any man’s life turn to hell.

A Shoulder To Cry On

That evening we drank and talked a lot, but the fateful story of his life stuck in my head. He escorted me to my hotel. We started to kiss passionately. I really liked Daan. That was the first and only time he asked me if he could stay with me. Goosebumps went down my skin, and I really wanted to say yes, but I firmly said no.

“No” — because that was my rule.

“No” — because this is a good test for a man.

“No” — because I am not a shoulder to cry on.

… and the fourth “no”, because Daan has never changed since then and continued to make the same old mistakes.

He has been still inviting girls for a travel date, bribing them with his generosity and hoping that everything will go smooth, and then the next one is on hold. Perhaps this option would suit many, but at that moment I was looking for a long-term relationship with a man who would see me as a person with my values ​​and attitude.

There were still several days ahead together, and I decided not to strain too much and be truly myself. I told funny stories, he continued to unwind the ball of an ornate story.

The boat ride turned into the Red-light district where we looked at the sex workers together and joked that one of them could be his mother-in-law that he “tried” to put there according to his ex. Then luxurious dinner at the restaurant at a height, coffee with a view on one of the oldest mills in Amsterdam. The sea trip to Noordwijk, where we were the most decent couple among German nudists.

It felt so good to be with Daan. He had “soft” and cozy male energy. At some point, I even thought that I could give him a chance, and I did, but he never used it.

Last evening, we went to a museum and the only thing I missed trying in Amsterdam was that weed chocolate muffin. Daan refused to participate in it but strongly recommended me to take that chance.

On that day, the museum seemed to be a very unusual place, I literally stopped and stared at each and every picture for five mins, the wind was blowing in my head. Daan was looking at me and laughing.

We still had a few hours before my departure. We sat for a coffee. His aroma of “Fucking” perfume enveloped me in some misty haze. He smiled, and I understood that our paths started to diverge, but I was wrong…

The Games that We Lose

I flew to Budapest with a smile and still under the control of muffin power. Every day I remembered Daan less and less. I looked at that trip as a therapy session for both of us.

Two years later, I received a message: “Hi. Do you remember me? I am in Budapest with my friend from Oxford University. Would you like to meet up?”

Everything was so simple and easy... I agreed. We walked around the city, I talked about Hungary. We discussed politics a lot. It felt so comfortable being with him, like an old friend whom you meet in decades, but you always have something to talk about.

“Do you want to watch football tonight? Russia-Croatia is playing” — I asked, feeling his kind of depressed state. He accepted the invitation with great pleasure.

That day Russia lost the game. We lost that too, and this is the philosophy of life perhaps. We lose something in order to find something else.

By this date, Daan still tries to win his court case against his ex-wife. This year, he was denied the right to see the child on FaceTime.