This is the 7th article in the series Project Dream Dating 2007 – your guide for taking you from single to dating the people you are compatible with in just a few short steps.
I have a story for you. It will demonstrate some good behaviors and some outright blunders. But I have hidden a moral to the story… let’s see if you can figure it out. 
A woman named Sophia is at a conference center for a trade show. She spots a man named Josh who is standing at a nearby booth talking to a computer tech. To her, he seems like her type. He seems confident, well dressed, well groomed.
He looks up and suddenly their eyes meet. She smiles at him and then he smiles at her. Both look away.
Sophia is a confident woman, so she decides she wants to approach this man. So she walks over to him and says one of the only English words she knows. “Hi.”
Josh says “Hi beautiful, where have you been all my life?”
Sophia, a native of Chartres, France, does not speak English, therefore doesn’t understand. “I don’t speak very good English” she says.
Josh realizes that she is French and that he doesn’t speak a word of English. “Man, I should have taken French in High School!” He kicks himself mentally. He always wanted to learn a foreign language so he could travel out of the country.
“Do you speak French?” Sophia asks.
“No, I’m sorry I don’t. I wish I did though.”
Sophia notices Josh glances down at her blouse and wonders if there is either a spot on it or if he’s staring at her breasts. She frowns. She then wonders to herself if he is one of those American psychopaths she’s heard about.
Josh notices the frown and wonders if by not speaking French he’s blown his chances. He grabs a pen and paper. If he can draw pictures, maybe he can communicate with this lovely woman.
Sophia, reaches into her bag and pulls out a French – English dictionary. It is the type of dictionary where if you flip it over, it translates from English to French.
They spend the next 15 minutes in a comedy of errors where they both share the dictionary, in an effort to form a few sentences in their beginning communication. However painstaking the process, Josh discovers Sophia is new to town. She took a job and this Trade show was her first landing in the States. Sophia learns that Josh is a rep from one of the technical firms who supply software to medical companies.
As they settle into the fact that they don’t speak each others language, they still are attracted to one another. Sophia debates on letting this one go, but Josh is persistent. He comes up with an idea. Why don’t they both meet at the coffee shop right outside the conference center a couple nights a week after work and teach each other their native languages?
And so they did. For two months, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday they met for coffee and learned about each other’s language. Sophia had the advantage of being in an English speaking culture 24/7 so she learned quicker. So much of the time, it was her teaching Josh how to ask questions, conjugate verbs and generally not piss off people when he visited France.
Yet, Josh was catching up to her quickly. He not only loved spending time with the beautiful Sophia, he was getting a kick out of learning French. Plus, it didn’t hurt matters that he wanted to impress her. So he spent many lunch hours and commutes listening to French courses and study.
As they both learned to speak with each other, they learned that they had a great deal in common. They both enjoyed old movies. He did wood carving in his spare time. Her father did wood carving after work and into retirement. She was a marvelous cook. He wasn’t a great cook, but had worked his fair share of short order cooking gigs in his 20′s. Both enjoyed playing cards, walking in the park and listening to guitar music.
So after two months of sharing each other’s language, culture and heritage with one another, Josh took a chance and asked Sophia out on their first date which was a Saturday afternoon walk in the park.
They hit it off and lived happily ever after…
Care to take a guess at the moral of the story? Post below if you get it!
Part 8: How to Ask Someone Out for a Date
{ 13 comments }
The moral of the story is that if you date someone who is not fluent in your language, you will not be able to have arguments about politics and religion and will thus get along beautifully. Also, if one of you is stupid, it will take the other person quite a while to catch on.
The moral of the story is that some relationships, at first glance, seem impossible. If one takes the time to look beyond those initial “impossible” incompatibilities, one can find that a relationship can blossom into something very special that can stand the test of time.
@Bloggrrl, sorry, you’re not close to the meaning at least I intended.
@B You are a little closer, I’ll drop a hint by saying the above story could apply to all first meetings.
I know, I just like to run off at the mouth.
For me the moral of the story is that she has to be interested in you first. If the guy wants her but she doesn’t want the guy dating is pointless. As for the “happily ever after”, i doubt you can truly meet a person that you want to spend your life with in 2 months. It sure happens but hurrying love also leads to awful marriages and painful divorce stories (nearly 50% of the time if I’m not wrong).
I’d say the moral is learn to communicate with each other – all great relationships are built on good communication skills. Without them you’ll never get to know the other person properly and there’s a good chance there will be plenty of misunderstandings!
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
The moral is to hope when you use a lame line like “hi beautiful, where have you been all my life” the recipient won’t understand it.
I see the moral of this story as: Don’t Let Things Stand in the Way of What You Want. If the guy had given up when he realized that they couldn’t communicate easily then he never would have gotten to the ‘happily ever after’ part.
‘everything is possible, if you can find the fun in it’
probably not what you were looking for, but it sure works for me!
Don’t judge too harshly too quickly; don’t read too much into the little things; keep trying to communicate until it happens.
Getting close?
Hi Mark, the answer you are looking for is How to ask someone out on a date
There are ALWAYS ways to communicate. All human beings need to connect with one another. Read Robinson Crusoe. Or, if you’re lazy, watch the movie, Castaway. If there is no one with whom to connect, we’ll invent someone. Or imbue an animal or plant with human characteristics and then relate to that. Everyone wants some kind of companionship. The effort to communicate is almost always worth the price. The moral of the story is, if you are open to new experiences, you will be far more likely to find fulfillment. (and that does apply across the board)
{ 1 trackback }