Monday, November 2, 2015

The Nervous Stage

Conversation One:
            I will be completely honest. Before this first conversation I felt that I would be completely out of my element. The only thing helping me was the fact that I was going with Elle. If it were to be just Frances and me, I could tell you exactly how it would have gone—awkwardly. Meeting new people and making conversation (aka small talk) is not my forte; not to mention, it makes me a nervous wreck. To add on top of that, it is someone that may or may not be able to communicate efficiently with me. If I wouldn’t have been able to understand what she was saying, then my automatic go-to is to nervously laugh. However, I could not do that in this case because God forbid she said something that was not meant to be laughed at. All these thoughts were running through my head consistently the day before and the day of the dinner I was going to. To say the least, I was apprehensive.
            As dinner time approached, there was another thing weighing on my mind as I was waiting. I had no idea whether or not Frances was a girl or a guy. My first instinct was to look up their Chinese name on Google and see if it was a girl or guy’s name. That did not help either. Like Frances, the Chinese name was also one that could go both ways. The next thing I did was email her asking what they were wearing so that I could identify them. Frances emailed back saying “a black t-shirt and a red cap.” At that point, I was almost certain it was a guy. Later on, Elle and I were walking to Dutch’s (which I was excited about because I had not had it all semester) and I saw a person with a red cap and a black shirt on. It was a girl. I had it so wrong.

            We sat down for dinner and Elle’s partner, Cindy, and Frances, who are coincidentally friends, both asked me what they should get. I said they should get the burgers, but I warned them that they were pretty big and that I usually do not finish them. Much to my surprise, Frances, who is quite petite, ate the entire burger. I was in shock. The conversation flowed greatly; there were points of awkwardness, but that was to be expected. We talked about each other’s families and boyfriends. Also, we talked about their home and whether they liked it better here. They both said, almost instantaneously, that the food back home was much better than here. They also mentioned going back to China one day. Overall, it was a great dinner and made me excited for the next time that we would meet.

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