While researching Matthijs van Boxsel, who makes his living out of stupidity (encyclopedias; lectures; he even ran a course on the subject of unintelligence at one time), I stumbled across an article on scientifically proven signs that you’re smarter than average (why do we all think we are smarter than average?).

Later on, while heading to the Albert Heijn supermarket I experienced my second flirtation with a local since my arrival in Amsterdam four months ago (twice, we both unwittingly stepped the same side to let the other pass which led to the subtle flirtation). My Australian friend jokes that the low-level teasing among Dutchmen is, ‘Because they’re waiting for us to chat them up.’ The lack of flirting is all the more noticeable because Amsterdam is such an ethnically diverse city, so Italian, Spanish, Moroccan and French men act as you would expect Italian, Spanish, Moroccan and French men to behave towards the fairer sex.

My theory is that there is a direct correlation between countries that are leading the way in gender equality (Northern European countries dominate the top 10; the Netherlands is 11th; the UK is 18th according to The Global Gender Gap Report 2012) and the level of sexual banter. After all, the side-stepping Dutchman had literally walked into a flirtatious situation (and the other local who chatted me up was a little tipsy). If this theory proves true, helping my Amsterdam-based friend from London to find a Dutchman will be an interesting challenge…

Notably, one of the signs of intelligence according to the scientifically proven survey is, ‘You’re a guy who doesn’t sleep around.’ This is due to ‘thinking and acting out against historical human ways’. Interestingly, ‘The same is not true of females; being monogamous does not deem them more intelligent.’ This made me think of Matthijs van Boxsel’s maxim, ‘Stupidity is the foundation of our civilisation.’