Sex and the student city

How many times have we heard this stereotype, that Delft is that magical town the Weather Girls had described in their biggest hit ‘Raining Men’: full of brilliant, sexy, charismatic, and charming young men, all at a 10:1 male to female ratio?
To an outsider, Delft sounds like single girl heaven. But for a fun fearless female, what is the dating scene in Delft really like? And more pressingly, what is the scene like for the brilliant, sexy, charismatic, and charming young men in question? Is it true that any Delft gal can just go to a party and have her pick, while a guy should consider himself lucky if any girl even looks his way? Are Delft girls really spoiled rotten with attention and end up with unrealistically high opinions of themselves? At the other end of the spectrum, do Delft guys end up with low self-esteem after living in this city for a couple of years? And what can both guys and girls do to increase (or decrease) the amount of attention coming from the opposite sex?
All of these and other pressing questions regarding dating, flirting, and general love-life in Delft will be addressed here in the Sex and the Student City column. The authors (two charming and oh-so-modest Delft students) firmly believe in two truths: that a student life and a love life go hand in hand, and that sex is something that all young people want to read about. So for your entertainment purposes, through real-life stories from friends, fellow students, and of course personal experience, we will paint a picture of what the love life of Delft is really like, from all angles. Enjoy reading!

Ahmet Bektes (24) is a young man with his feet firmly planted in two different worlds. As an MSc student at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, he is pursuing a double-degree program between TU Delft and Middle East Technical University (Metu), in Ankara, Turkey. As a young designer, he’s developing products using the technical support and acumen available at TU Delft, yet also doing so with two co-designers based in Istanbul and with an eye towards manufacturing and marketing their products in Turkey, at least initially. 
Recently Bektes and his co-designers created two kitchenware product designs, named ‘AltUst’ and ‘Tagg’, which won first prizes in a design competition organized by the Istanbul Mineral and Metal Exporters association. The genesis for AltUst was the design team’s simple belief that food is a vital part of every culture. AltUst, which means upside-down in Turkish, is a cooking appliance specifically designed to prepare an internationally recognized dish, and one that’s also a big part of the TU Delft student diet: wraps, or in Turkish, durum. Tagg meanwhile is a more practicable product: a color-coded categorization tool that helps people organize the wares in their kitchen cupboards and drawers. If all goes to plan, both products will one day become household names.

Where does your story begin? What compelled you to study design?
“I was born and raised in Manisa, a small city on Turkey’s west coast. After passing my higher education exams, I chose to study design. My exam results were quite good, though, so my father wanted to me to go to medical school. We argued for a long time about this, but in the end I was like a Don Quixote and set off for design school in Ankara. My father made fun of me for the next four or five years, until I came to do my Master’s degree here. When I was admitted to TU Delft, I guess he finally figured out that I knew something about design engineering after all.”

Is TU Delft regarded so highly then where you come from?
“All my family lives within a 200 km radius of each other in Turkey; I’m the only one living outside that circle. So Delft is something big for them. I applied to do this double-degree program because TU Delft has huge credibility and the Design for Interaction MSc program was exactly what I wanted to focus on. Happily I can say the awards we’ve won and the MSc degree in Delft has changed my relationship with my father.” 

How did you come up with the idea for the AltUst ‘durum machine’?
“Actually, we didn’t immediately think of a wrap machine. We first agreed on the fact that cuisine is the most popular form of culture, and that the wrap, durum, tortilla or whatever it’s called in many Latin and Mediterranean countries is a popular dish. The idea was more about ‘how can we bring this very human sense of tasting a culture to the kitchen’, than it was about ‘lets make a durum machine!’”

What is it about a durum or wraps that makes them so popular?
“The great thing about preparing wraps is that you decide what you’re going to put in them, and with every ingredient you add, the wrap becomes something else. This is why no one can dislike wraps. Plus, they’re easy to prepare. We were inspired by the ‘sac’, which is a traditional Turkish cooking pan. AltUst is mainly designed for cooking wraps, but you could also use it as a normal pan or for warming up something else on top. It can be put in the same category as an Italian spaghetti-cooker or Chinese rice-cooker: just a tool that makes it easy for you to take your own food-culture anywhere you want!”
When will AltUst go on the market?
“After receiving first prize in the competition, we also received offers from various manufacturers. These companies definitely believe that AltUst has a chance. We don’t have a set deal yet, but as soon as we agree on everything, we hope to see AltUst in the kitchen-electronics market.”

This was a group product design, yet you weren’t actually in the same country as your co-designers. Wasn’t that difficult?
“My two group mates were in Istanbul, and I in Delft, so we usually worked via Skype and in Google documents. Skype has some add-ons that we could also use for sketching. Right now the others are busy with the marketing part in Istanbul.”

As you are doing a double-degree program, what educational differences do you notice between TU Delft and Metu?
“It’s great to have this international atmosphere at TU Delft, which is something Metu lacks. And Delft is more focused on the technical aspects, which I think is an advantage for your future work. Otherwise you’ll be lost in the art of your design, and it might not be possible to actually produce it. You always have to balance the art and the technique. Design education is a different kind of education, because you translate the things you learn to your own design-language, and I believe this is more about your own observations than the way in which you are educated.”

Single girl heaven

“Delft, the city of men!” was an actual phrase a female friend who had studied in Utrecht used to describe our lovely city. “You’re living and studying there? Lucky girl!” My friend’s enthusiasm was genuine so I chose the smug reply, “Well, I’m not complaining! (wink wink)”, but the truth is, the inner me was rolling her eyes instead of winking. How many times have we heard this stereotype, that Delft is that magical town the Weather Girls had described in their biggest hit ‘Raining Men’: full of brilliant, sexy, charismatic, and charming young men, all at a 10:1 male to female ratio?
To an outsider, Delft sounds like single girl heaven. But for a fun fearless female, what is the dating scene in Delft really like? And more pressingly, what is the scene like for the brilliant, sexy, charismatic, and charming young men in question? Is it true that any Delft gal can just go to a party and have her pick, while a guy should consider himself lucky if any girl even looks his way? Are Delft girls really spoiled rotten with attention and end up with unrealistically high opinions of themselves? At the other end of the spectrum, do Delft guys end up with low self-esteem after living in this city for a couple of years? And what can both guys and girls do to increase (or decrease) the amount of attention coming from the opposite sex?
All of these and other pressing questions regarding dating, flirting, and general love-life in Delft will be addressed here in the Sex and the Student City column. The authors (two charming and oh-so-modest Delft students) firmly believe in two truths: that a student life and a love life go hand in hand, and that sex is something that all young people want to read about. So for your entertainment purposes, through real-life stories from friends, fellow students, and of course personal experience, we will paint a picture of what the love life of Delft is really like, from all angles. Enjoy reading!