Two vegan Dutchies with so-called autism/HSP, ADD, OCD (severe germaphobia) and migraine (me). Misanthropists, noncomformists, minimalists, sustainablists, confronters, freethinkers, free spirits and speakers of our mind. Yup, we’re THAT similar.

Outsiders by Choice: This Is Our Quiet Rebellion

We are two Dutch souls — vegan by choice, free by nature, and wired a little differently than most. Words like autism, HSP, ADD, OCD, migraine… they’re just labels. We know our wiring inside out by now: we feel too much, sense too much, think too much, and the world rarely slows down enough to let us just be.

We found each other on a dating app more than eight years ago, back when we thought maybe nobody would ever really understand us. We answered thousands of questions; ninety-six percent matched. That ninety-six percent still holds us together through every storm and every quiet moment.

We live slow, simple and out of step with a world that worships speed and noise. In summer, we drink water. In winter, tea. Small rituals keep us steady.

We don’t shower the way most people do. Not because we don’t care, but because we care too much — about what touches our skin, what runs through our rivers, what our bodies learn to do on their own when we stop scrubbing them raw. Give us a cold lake over a warm bathroom any day. Eat clean, live clean. It works.

Freedom is our backbone. We’ve never wanted to belong to bosses, governments or traditions that don’t make sense anymore. Marriage? No thank you. We love each other more than any ring or ceremony could prove. No kids either — we choose to do as little harm as possible, for the animals, the forests, and the future that’s already burning at the edges.

We’re misfits, yes — misanthropic some days, confrontational if we must be, but more often just quiet observers. We watch, we think, we talk it out between ourselves. We don’t small-talk. We don’t fake-smile. We say what needs saying and leave it at that.

Authority, rules for the sake of rules, shallow chatter — all things we’d rather skip. I (the more sensitive one) pick up on every smell, every noise, every trace of a stranger’s perfume drifting through the garden. It makes crowds feel like battlefields. Since the pandemic, every so-called peaceful trail is now swarming with people who have nowhere else to go — but they bring the city with them in their soaps and sprays. So we stay away more and more, longing for wilder corners where we can disappear into birdsong and silence.

We feed the pigeons every day — twenty-five regulars wait for us near mum’s house. We greet every animal as if it’s family. We’d rather be around dogs and crows than most people.

When we were kids, creativity was our hiding place. Clay, pencils, cameras, keyboards — all ways to make sense of the chaos. Some things never change.

I’ve never wanted to be someone’s employee — never could stand being told what to do. If I work, I want it to be mine, ours, built from the ground up, free from clocks and pay grades.

We’re addicted to nasal spray, because yes — clean, open airways mean survival to us. We don’t want to take in your smoke, your exhaust fumes, your stale room air. So if we hold our breath around you, don’t take it personally.

All of this makes us who we are: two stubborn souls choosing honesty over comfort, depth over distraction, freedom over fitting in. If that makes us outsiders, so be it.