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John19 ist Deutsche. For my more provincial and monolingual readers, he is German. From Germany. Of German stock. He said he was one hundred percent bilingual. He probably is in his mind. Or according to Englisch 101. But my idea of bilingual is a little different from John19's idea of bilingual. Bilingual is not the ability to order a cup of tea in your non-mother tongue: being able to say "Konnte ich eine tasse tee haben?" does not mean I am bilingual. Sadly. Otherwise I may have attained better matric marks for the various languages I wrote. As for Mary1 and Deutsche: "Ich verstehe nicht."
John19 is a gorgeous European man. I have a penchant for the international man. A clean man. Truly metrosexual. I can imagine his hanging clothes are arranged on matching wooden (cedar) hangers. Hooks facing in one direction. Colour-coded rainbow arranged jersey pile, no socks sans a partner. No ill-fitting jeans. No collarless t-shirts.
Conversation was easy at first. It usually is as one traverses the light terrain of one's day-to-day life. Work. Qualifications. Kids. Exes. Home. Holidaying. Who hasn't something to say; we all have a contribution to make as we all work (or used to), have qualifications (matric is a qualification), have kids (or none - points go up - nothing better than a man sans kids, even better sans parents), have a home (I have yet to date a homeless man), go on holidays (we have all gone somewhere, and except for John29 aspire to go somewhere in the future). Exes, now that subject can take up a glass of bubbles with ease. Especially in the case of John2.
John19 and I had a seamless conversation for the first hour. However, I began to detect a lack of nuance consciousness on his part. I became aware that the subtleties of my words were not being grasped by John19 adequately. I felt he was losing me in translation so to speak. As soon as I veered off into metaphorical landscapes the cracks began to show. Conversation became laboured. I found myself speaking really s-l-o-w-l-y and e-n-u-n-c-I-a-t-I-n-g my words perfectly. Like a school speech therapist. Big 'O' and a deep "aaaah". And I started speaking louder. Which is very loud. Like one does when speaking to someone one perceives as a little dumb. Like our mothers did to the gardener in the 1970s (read: apartheid era). Nice and slowly so that he understands, you know. "Poor chap, straight out the bush. It's not his fault. He has never come across a hosepipe before." Actually chatting in the '70s to our gardener, aka Mr Mbakaza, was easier than chatting to John19. By the way, Mr Mbakaza left us after purchasing his first car (he parked it outside our house in the road, the neighbours were not impressed, lowered the tone of the 'hood they muttered) and went on to owning a fleet of taxis, just saying.
The champagne (real, not Cap Classique for the European fellows) was delicious. Love those dinky little bubbles. So sizzly on the tongue. I decided for the sake of world peace (the war only ended under 70 years prior to our rendezvous) and so as not to upset the apfelkarren (#apple cart) that I would return to more simple topics of conversation. I was a bit naughty, I have to admit. I did ask him if his grandparents had hidden any Jews during the war. I had hoped so. I would feel happier dating a German man whose family had been that way inclined. He said no. Getting a little bolder I then said I presumed then that they were Nazis. He took it well but he used his Germanic poker face well. Just as well we were in a public venue.
That did not deter John19. A second date invite arrived. I explained to John19 that we were not that well suited on a couple basis. You see, John19 I am rather wordy. I am seduced by words. I find deep and meaningful discourse magnetic. Words and the ability to dance with words (tango, foxtrot, and not just boogie-woogie) are deal breakers for me.
John19 said he was one hundred percent bilingual. A bit like Mary1? "Konnte ich eine tasse tee haben?"