I’m Dating Someone Who Can’t Speak English

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I’ve talked about dating whilst travelling before. I’ve also talked about my shit Spanish skills. Allow me to combine the two subjects. Last week I went on a date with a man who spoke no English. Well, he knew about 20 words, which is slightly less than I know in Spanish.

I matched with this dude on Tinder. He’s a beautiful Venezuelan guy who works as a tattoo artist when he’s not chatting up gringa girls on the internet. He was one of those situations where, when you swipe right, you kind of hold your breath in the hope that a match will happen. And in this instance, it did.

PRAISE THE GODS OF PHOTO FILTERS FOR MAKING ME HOTTER THAN I ACTUALLY AM.

We quickly established that he couldn’t speak Inglés and that I am bad at Español. But this guy made my mouth water, so I wasn’t going to let a little thing like speaking completely different languages get in the way. Soon enough, our ‘relationship’ progressed from Tinder to Whatsapp, where we continued to speak in Spanish with the help of my BFF Google Translate. Somehow, we managed to flirt, I did a lot of laughing, and when he sent me a silly GIF of his delicious face it did things to me that I probably shouldn’t be sharing with strangers on the internet. So, when he asked me out for drinks at the weekend, I instantly said sí, por favor. I was full of excitement at the prospect of staring at him for a couple of hours and hammering down some cervezas, but I was also TERRIFIED. I mean, I can be charming in Spanish when I have Google Translate by my side, but face to face talking with my mouth? Scary AF.

So, we chose a place, set a time, and spent the rest of the week sending each other adoring messages about how fit we found each other (mostly via the medium of emojis, thanks to our massive language barrier).

On date day I was a nervous wreck, which is pretty out of character for me. Since I started my solo travel adventure last year, I’ve gotten pretty good at meeting new people and dates don’t phase me one bit. But the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be able to communicate properly made me feel a bit sick. My hands were shaking when I got to the bar, and I could barely speak English let alone Spanish. But, he was late (classic Latino move), so at least I had time to down a beer for courage before he arrived. When he finally showed up, my nerves turned to full excitement: he was even more beautiful in real life, and I vowed that somehow I’d make the evening a success because there was no way I was going home without heavy petting him. I worked my ass off all night, searching my brain for every Spanish word I knew. And somehow, we managed to chat. I sounded like a drunk child and he had to help me a lot, but he was touching my face/hair/hands loads, which made me think that my desperate efforts to charm him were working. Either that, or they were pity caresses, but honestly who cares as long as you’re getting some caresses, right?

After four hours of frantically conjugating various verbs in Spanish, I was exhausted and called it a night. After some brilliant snogging in the doorway of the bar I practically skipped home with a big grin on my face, which grew larger when he messaged the next morning asking if he could see me again. ERM, YES OF COURSE YOU CAN, FUTURE HUSBAND!

After I met this dreamboat I’ve started taking Spanish lessons and practicing my skills every time I have the opportunity. It’s funny how the prospect of more dates with a hot boy ignites a passion for learning, huh? If I’d met him at the beginning of my trip I’d be bloody fluent by now.

UPDATE: I did a really irresponsible thing on our second date, I’ll tell you about it soon.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Ioana

    If only I had a bag of popcorn for this post :))) hilarious and adorable! Good luck and keep us updated how you and hubbi are doing <3

    1. tableforonetravelsoph

      Haha, thank you. I’ll be posting a follow up in two weeks, so keep an eye out for it!

  2. Lajuana Whittemore

    I’d must talk to you here. Which is not some thing Which i do! I like reading an article that can make people believe. Also, thank you for permitting me to comment!

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