Making Friends Ain't Easy

Man, I’ll tell you, as time has elapsed it has gotten even more difficult to make friends. Its not for a lack of effort on my part either! I go out of my way to say hi to virtually everyone at the palestra (Gym) but more often than not its me who needs to initiate the conversation and at times the response can be downright chilly (Again, not completely sure just yet as to why Florentine’s are so cold, but I will get to the bottom of its origin in time)! It surely doesn’t help that I am incapable of having much in the way of conversation in Italian.

When Kirk was here, I was telling him that the nature of my dialogue is extremely superficial: “Ciao, come stai? Bene, I tu? Bene Gratsie. Hai buno fine settimana? Si. Che si fa?” (Then a whole bunch of things, many which I don’t understand. Following a look of deer staring in headlights, I reply “Hai Buono Giornata. Anche Te.” That’s it! Pretty much the same routine day in and day out. The translation is pretty simple: “Hello how are you? Good and you? Great thank you. Did you have a nice weekend? Yes. What did you do?” Then a whole list of things that the person did, which some I get and some I don’t! By this point, I’m so self conscious of the way my glassy eyes look that I say “Have a beautiful day. You too” they respond! Lots of studying to do on the flight. Next year needs to be about having a meaningful conversation with people :>)

Anna, on the other hand does much better than I in understanding what people are saying. The differences with her to two fold: 1. She is much more shy and really doesn’t seem to care so much about making friends AND Italian woman are simply much more closed, period! The number of times that Anna gets a complete “Once Over” from head to toe is beyond the point of calculation! There are certainly many guys at the gym that are willing to engage in conversation with me, but once again, my abilities are somewhat limited.

The result is that I have a totally new appreciation for people who come to America with a native tongue other than English. I never realized how self conscious I would be about speaking in Italian.