Shouting or a Performance Review: Fifty Ways to Dump Your Lover

There are countless ways to break a heart: slowly or quickly, empathetically or cruelly, with elaborate explanations or blunt words. Dutch dating shows have displayed many of them, from “I think you’re a lovely woman, but I don’t feel a click” to declarations that two people’s energies do not match.

Then there are the contestants who choose something far harsher. After watching enough episodes, the columnist writes, viewers begin to classify the heartbreakers: the “click” woman, the “energies” man, the person who reaches for an especially vicious insult. But Monday night’s episode of “B&B Vol Liefde” offered another method of rejection.

Chateau owner Mireille had to part ways with Dick, a romantic candidate whose handling of a chainsaw had immediately made a poor impression. She already knew she wanted him to leave, but did not want to make the decision alone. So she consulted Kasper, who had arrived hoping for romance but had become the chateau’s “house friend.”

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We had a nice time. I got to know you. Got to be allowed to know you.

While Dick sat outside enjoying the view, Mireille and Kasper discussed his departure inside the 14th-century castle. The timing added an awkward twist: Dick was celebrating his birthday. His friends called and sang “Lang zal hij leven,” unaware that his exit was being decided inside.

Mireille later invited Dick in for a final feedback session. “We had a nice time,” she told him. “I got to know you. Got to be allowed to know you.” To the columnist, the phrasing sounded less like a romantic rejection than a workplace evaluation and the termination of a probationary period. Dick, Mireille said, was pleasant and sociable, but she could not keep him because the chateau work would be too much for him. Dick disagreed, saying chainsaw work should not be a deal-breaker in true love.

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I don’t think woodcutting should be a deal-breaker in true love.