My Chinese Girlfriend part 1: The Date

So me and GI Joe go to this buffet, (quick ADD tangent. The buffets here are crap American food: shit pizza, french fries, chicken nuggets, etc. I just thought that was funny cuz the buffets in America are primarily crap Chinese food. But i digress.) So the waitresses are eyeing us and giggling. And then they go "Hello. How are you doing?" So we go "oh you speak English?" And they're like "[inaudible Chinese], hello. How are you doing?" So we catch on and switch over to Chinese. (Mine is still crap so GI Joe does most of the talking.)

Bear in mind, the girls here seem to act about 5 years younger than they really are for any given age. So one girl goes "Huang Min wants to know if you'll be her boyfriend." The other one laughs, pushes her, and says "Shut up! Don't listen to her. Ge Hua Fen wants to know if she can get your digits." I shouldn't really use quotes here cuz this whole thing is in Chinese but whatever, it's my story, I can translate it how I want. Anyway, I figure, sure. what the hell. How bad could this be. At least now I can say I have a Chinese girlfriend. So I give one of the girls my number, we all talk a little more and me and GI Joe leave. i then realize, that I'm not even sure which girl is my "new girlfriend." Whatever. Id figure it out later.

So over the next 24 hours, I get bombarded with text messages i can't understand, and phone calls I can understand even less. And they're from both girls, so I'm still not even sure which one is my girlfriend. I finally agree to meet one of the girls for dinner the following night and I figure whichever one shows up, is my girlfriend. She leaves me a text message saying something like, "Awesome! Your treat!" I chalked it up as miscommunication, but still a bad start nonetheless. I told her I'd meet her there at 7:30. At 7:28, I get a text message saying "where are you?". Since I find "where are you" texts atrocious, I ignored it. At 7:29, I received a "where are you" phone call, which I find even more atrocious. I didn't answer that either. Shanghai girls are way too pushy. Again, not a good start.

Scene 3: the Date...Action: I arrive, and see her, say hi and the first thing she says is "Oh why didn't you bring your friend?" I'm like "why would I bring my friend? that would make 3 people and that's the wrong number of people that are supposed to go on a date." She accepts my answer so I ask:
-Where do you want to go eat?
-How about here.
-Here? But you work here.
-Not a problem. DOn't worry about it.
-But i just ate here yesterday.
-Don't worry about it.
-(Thoughts in my head: But this is a buffet. I've never taken a girl out to eat a buffet b4. This is definitely not a good start...)

So we sit down and it's very awkward. I didn't get up to the "date" chapter in my Chinese textbook yet. I have no idea how to do this. Dating is awkward for a lot of people when they speak the same language. Try going on a date with someone who speaks no English. I dare you! So i'm trying to make small talk, and she's giving one-word answers. I couldn't blame her. If she ever gave more than 1 word answers, I didn't understand her. One thing i did understand her say is that she was only eighteen. hm... Oh and here's another thing. The other girl was there (the one who didn't turn out to be my girlfriend), and SHE WAS OUR WAITRESS! AH! The date got bad, she spent most of the time texting her friends on her phone. I actually received a fake phone call and was like "hello?...what?...really?...when?...with who?...hm...I might be able to go. I'm kinda busy right now. I'll call you later." I made sure to say it all in CHinese so she would get the gist(sp?) Wow this is a long story. I'm going to break it up into 2 parts.