I didn't speak German. He didn't speak English. Okay, he did, but only a little bit.
We met at a bar (couldn't hear the heavy accent over the heavy bass), danced, exchanged numbers, yada blah blah... decided to go to dinner at Spice near Union Square a few days later (recommended btw). Before the food even arrived, it became clear that plays on words and cultural references would not help me. The language of dancing was all we had.. that and maybe the language of rumandcoke.
We struggled into a conversation about working in restaurants (it helped that I could point at things) and apparently the correlation between high tipping and previously working as a waitress crosses cultures... to find out if I was a big tipper, he asked if I was ever a waitress:
German: So, zen have you been.. a urh... waiter, waitress?
Me: Yeah, but I'm not like, a Nazi about it.
What? Read that again to see how quickly I made it awkward. And offensive.
My immediate reaction was to turn red and laugh like a maniac. People stared. Including date. Two minutes later I stopped giggling. Later I realized he probably had no idea what was going on. We didn't do dinner again.
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i had a similar experience. I met a blind date for brunch, and while he was a bit older he was cute enough and was very nice* (i think he was nice. it was very difficult to understand him through his reeeeeeeeeeedic-olus ACZENT!)
after trying to make some jokes (never joke with the chezch. they are a hearty people, been through a lot. they don't appreciate smug sarcasm of american infidels, children.)i asked him "so how long have you been in the united states?" and he responded "i was born here."
CHECK PLEASE!
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