Mantra-Henno (38) is a people person. Yes – “really a people person”, he has been clear about that from the start. And about how well he is at “connecting” and “aligning energy”. Good energy is of course also half the connection. Henno didn’t say that out loud, but somewhere in his serene mind that phrase was probably already floating around. Get to know me Henno.
Admittedly: I have only known mantra-Henno for three days. Since Monday, to be precise, because that’s when the second season of On the way to love has started, a KRO-NCRV program in which ‘vanlifers’ (people who lead a traveling life in a van) look for the right one. Yet Henno immediately felt like an old acquaintance. Presumably this is due to the tendency towards typecasting in dating shows. For example, exactly a year ago I wrote here about an eccentric participant in the first season of On the way to love: tantra-Martijn. Martijn was called tantra-Martijn in my head because he, in turn, reminded me strongly of tantra-Walter, the legendary Zen king from the third season of B&B full of love (RTL).
Like his spiritual predecessors, Henno loves long hugs, spontaneous ladies and thorough meditation. A striking difference is that he has not yet started talking about tantra, but fortunately he compensates for this with a pronounced passion for mantra singing, and so everything more or less falls into place (apart from that one letter). Following tantra-Martijn, mantra-Henno made a woman cry in record time. Henno wanted the “spark”, the “twin flame”the “flame in the pan” – in short: fire. It only took one meditation session to decide in the early morning that his first love candidate, Joyce (34), did not meet those expectations. She was allowed to go again within one day.
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In ‘On the way to love’ tantra-Martijn is, well, too tantra
On Wednesday, holistic coach Joyce was almost immediately replaced by holistic coach Milou (31). Henno was delighted, but for the viewer all energies followed each other very quickly. In addition, the lack of tantra started to get a bit boring. While Henno compared women to the ideal image in his head, I compared him to the men in whose footsteps he had followed. A pointless, unfair comparison, which made me slightly melancholy: mantra-Henno will never be tantra-Martijn, just as tantra-Martijn was not tantra-Walter.
Renovation chateau
In the meantime, melancholy was fiercely avoided on RTL4. The first episode was shown there Bought a castle, what now?which follows people who have purchased a refurbished château in France and now have their hands full with odd jobs and arrangements. This did not yet produce truly exciting television. Exorbitant cost estimates were discussed and insights were given into the lives of the castle buyers, the majority of whom were already well established.
Things were sometimes different for the children of the handymen. While one Frenchified at a rapid pace, the other dreamed in Dutch. Teenager Didi, for example. She had made friends in the south of France, but no one came close to Junah, the girl she had become devoted to in fifth grade and with whom she still called for an hour and a half every week, five years later. She missed her best friend very much, she confided to the camera. “But I can’t sit around feeling sad every day because I don’t have Junah here in France.” She smiled bravely and encouraged herself out loud, using words she had undoubtedly heard before: “So I guess I have to make something of it.”
I think so too, but there’s nothing wrong with an occasional day of being sad about people you miss. And of all the love seekers on Wednesday evening, I wish Didi the most that she finds nice company that can comfort her on those days. A sweet French teenager – an Odille perhaps, or a Collete, or a Genevieve. She will not be a second Junah. But that’s not necessary. As long as she still turns out to be a true best friend in her own, incomparable way.
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