Columnist Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe writes in her weekly column about life as an expat in Romania. This week she tells about the talk she had with a Romanian taxi driver about marriage, love and games.

One of my Danish friends from school has just been visiting Romania for the first time, and on one tour we had by taxi, we entered into quite a conversation with the taxi driver. He was a young man, in his mid 30s I would imagine and seemed to be in a talkative mood. For some reason, I always end up talking with the taxi drivers, and this was one of those moments. But this talk was quite something, since he ended up sort of confessing things about his love life to us.

Shortly after we entered the taxi, we began a lively chat about music and life in general. But out of the blue, when he where talking about Romanian Music and Abba, he said: “I am married, but I have other women also on the side, of course”.

My friend and I amusingly looked at each other in our back of the car seats, but picked up the sentence and asked: “What do you mean with others? “ “Well, I have my wife, she is number 1, but then I also have numbers 2, 3 and 4. I respect my wife,” he underlined.

His answer and honesty surprised us - perhaps I was least surprised, as I have been living in Romania for a while, and I have heard about these kind of men, and also sadly meet them more than once, so I just said to my Danish friend: “Welcome to Romania and here are the Romanian men!" But this was also a perfect chance to find out more.

So we asked a lot of questions. I asked him how he can talk about respect and at the same have three other women on the side? “Well, I respect my wife,” he underlined again, “she is number 1, but I have a different kind of love for number 2, you know how it is, while number 3 and 4 are just for fun. We have warm blood here, we just can’t help it. Of course numbers 2, 3 and 4 know about number 1, but she doesn’t know about them.”

My curiosity was at peak. “Does your wife do the same ?”, I asked him. He was prompt: “No, she is not like that, I wouldn’t allow that, but on the other hand what I don’t know of, I don’t know.” I went on: “Isn't that really a double standard, you can do what you want, but if your wife does it, she is kicked out?” His answer this time was laughter, but he agreed it was indeed a gray area, and added again how much he respected her. But obviously the idea that his wife could be as well doing the same game did not make him comfortable.

I did not let the story die: “What about the other women, do they know that they are numbers 2, 3 and 4, respectively?” The man admitted, laughing, that they all think they are only number 2. And then he added: “I am searching for a new number 2! “ We agreed that it must be a number 5 he was searching for, but he stated more than once that he wanted a new number 2.

I wondered how complicated it must be to handle four women at the same time. Our driver however seemed to have a structure for it: he always had to know which one of them he was meeting, and they never met in public, but he always had to know where number 1 – his wife – and the number twos were. So he did not have common friends with his wife.

And then he revealed another scheme he uses with the ladies, this time via Facebook: he would post songs on Facebook and each woman would know the songs were for her – the whole scheme also involved some codes, and it was a bit unclear to us.

“What about payment?” I asked him, trying to figure out if he paid for dinners and everything else for these women, which must be quite expensive. He said he only paid his wife every month from his salary, but with the others they would share the bills, as a taxi driver he didn’t earn a lot so it wasn't possible for him to pay it all.

We arrived at the airport and I had several more questions to ask, but time ran out, so it was not possible to dig more into the confessions of the taxi driver, who knows what else I would have found out? When I told my friend jokingly that she should be happy to go back to Denmark, the taxi driver started another discussion out of which I could only understand bits and pieces where he was in a way defending his wife, and saying she is a good girl. Maybe his conscience had a little wake up call, who knows?

By Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe, columnist

Eleonore is Danish, she holds a BA in Organization and Management and specializes in Corporate Communication & Strategic Development. She is also a Market Economist and a Multimedia Designer. She is currently working in Bucharest as the Executive Director of UAPR the Romanian Advertising Association. As a Danish Viking in Romania, with a great passion for ’covrigi’, she has a burning desire to find out more about Romania especially Bucharest, and enlighten the small differences in the culture between Denmark and Romania.. Her weekly columns will give you insights into an expats life in Bucharest written with humor and a big Danish smile.