They had a ‘click’. A spark, or what it’s called these days… a spark. Emma Wortelboer, born in 1996 in Deventer, and Maarten van Rossem, born in 1943 in Zeist, are more than half a century apart, but they seemed to get along extremely well during the recording of The smartest person. She was there as a candidate, he has been there for years as a regular commentator and professional grumbler. And there and then, or shortly afterwards, it must have been thought that it would be fun to have those two make a program together.
Such a program is called natural, entirely according to today’s standards Wortelboer and Van Rossem. Because it’s all about them, let there be no misunderstanding about that. On Thursday I saw the first of the six episodes. It was, very appropriately given their spontaneous chemistry, about relationships, love, and choice of partner. How did it go then and how does it go now? The idea is that these two people will bridge the “yawning generation gap” that separates them. And that worked quite well.
Emma’s first question to Maarten was how many people he has kissed. No shortage of swagger. For a moment I feared that this program would have a high content of ‘Everything you never dared to ask your grandfather’, an elderly version of Squirt and swallow. Question two was whether Maarten could speak a little. I didn’t necessarily want that image to be conjured up, but I must say that Maarten van Rossem responded adequately. He said he had never received bad feedback. However, he noted that there was also an obligation of best efforts on the part of the other party. “Otherwise you might as well kiss a damp cave.”
Emma takes Maarten to a bridal shop to try on wedding dresses. She wants the whole shebang. The dress, the yes word, the church, the whole ritual. His wedding took place on a weekday, he wore his daily ‘clothes’, his bride a green summer dress. No family there. There is a generational divide here. They closed it with friendly mutual incomprehension. Maarten hides herself on the bench in the shop with Easter eggs brought from home and comments with amusement on the wedding dresses she is wearing.
Powdered and rolled up
He takes her to the drugstore De Eekhoorn, the only place where condoms were sold under the counter in his youth. She finds it prehistoric that the broken pieces were rinsed after use, powdered and rolled up for the next occasion. He makes fun of the Tinder app on her phone, on which he can swipe women right (like) or left (dislike). “She looks like my brother.” Together they visit the contemporary drugstore where the choice of contraceptives is enormous. She shows him the ‘satisfyer’ with which she experienced her first orgasm, he offers the tip of his nose to experience what she felt.
If it had stayed with these kinds of fun outings, I don’t really know what I would have thought of this program. But somewhere in the middle, we see why these two people “click.” A clinical psychologist and relationship therapist has them draw a picture of the family from the past. “The relationships of the past color your relationships today.” Where Emma draws a colorful tangle of her two sisters, a father and a mother, Maarten draws his parents, brother, sister and himself with white spaces in between. His father was distant, he explains. His mother grabbed her. “She hit.” Completely against the spirit of the times, his parents divorced in 1959. Maarten subsequently decided: 1: never to divorce, 2: not to make such a mess of things, and 3: never to hit his children.
He can put it in such flowery terms. Distant, reasoned. Emma sees through that trick. Tears come to her eyes. Under his swagger she recognizes the soft heart and suffering suffered.