Today I read on a Dutch historical page on Facebook about the 'boys' walk' and the 'girls' walk' in a specific Dutch town. Many reactions showed that many cities, towns and villages had had similar traditions. It was essentially all about walking around at night, first a separated boys' and girls' group, often walking in opposite directions, until after a while the groups split up as much as possible in pairs, who largely walked together kissing and caressing, though apparently not more intimate than that. These traditions ended, apparently dependent on what place, somewhere between 1960 and 1975.

Reading about this made me sad. It sounded to me as if something that could be so simple has unnecessarily become unbearably complicated since. Especially the fact that both boys and girls rather openly started this walk to find somebody to kiss that night, not afraid to be shamed as slut, creep, player or whatever, sounds unimaginable in our 'open, liberated' time. Maybe this was because it was just about kissing, not really about sex. Sometimes I get the impression nowadays it's often 'sex or nothing', with the idea that a taboo is destroyed, but in practice making sex harder to reach, by destroying in-between steps.

One reaction said 'since flower power started, everything became easier', while I got the impression everything became a big mess since then. The post itself started with the stupid notion 'this was all before we had the luxury of internet dating'. I'd give all the luxury of boring, exhausting internet dating to be a boy and do a boys' walk in the 60s.