How to meet people: Be an English speaker

I feel a little bit barreled over...okay, completely barreled over.

My language school publishes a small pamphlet each month that lets the students know all the various activities that are going on at the school during that particular month. Some times, there is the same event on the same day of each week. For example, there is a "language exchange cafe" every Wednesday. There is usually a movie every week. There are outings: last week was ice skating, next week is a tour of a chocolate factory.

For an introvert like me who sometimes needs events to force me to leave the peaceful solitude of my house, this kind of pamphlet is GOLD. I can look it over, decide which events look interesting, plan ahead, invite other students so I'm not showing up alone somewhere where I know no one, etc. And I can practice my French at each event.

The calender listed an International Welcome Pot (like a Melting Pot) for tonight, and the language exchange cafe for tomorrow night. My understanding from the descriptions was that the Welcome Pot was for students from the school to all meet one another and practice French, and that at the language exchange people could practice other languages. (Thus, whoever wanted to practice English could talk to me, and I could practice Arabic with others, etc.)

So CSI and I showed up and both got stuck (literally) with a tag that said "English speaker from USA." And then, use whatever imagery you would like here: Moths to a flame. Bees to honey. Shoppers to sales on Black Friday. We could barely come up for air there were so many people around us who wanted to speak to us in English. At one point, there was even a line.

"Are you the only Americans?"

"Can you meet me every week?"

"What are you doing right now? We could go out now?"

"Do you have somewhere to live? You can live me?"

"You're not married? Super!"

Woah. The room was filled with French people, some Asian students, and me and CSI. I was confused. At first I had thought that they were super nice and had come to welcome us to the school and to offer to let us practice speaking French with a real French-speaker and not other students who butcher it just as much as I do. I found out later...the school put out announcements to the community that whichever students from our school who show up to this event ARE WILLING AND READY to meet with the French in order to allow the French to practice our mother tongue. Hence the swarming around the 2 English speakers. Most French don't want to practice Chinese (sorry, classmates...), but they want to practice English.

I feel a little bit duped. I wasn't told the true purpose of the event. I was lured in to be pulled and torn in every direction by people who did not want to let me practice French. But in the end, I did get to practice some, and I made five new friends who all want to spend time with me.

Two girls are going to go with me to see Harry Potter in English. (I don't know how to get to the theatre that shows films in English, so yay!)

One girl is going to drive me and CSI all around the region, taking us to cheese factories and a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is near here.

One lady just wants to practice talking on the phone. We'll see how that goes...

Another lady agreed to do 1/2 hour in French and 1/2 hour in English so that we're both getting language practice.

I've always said that the hardest part of living overseas is that I don't know how to MEET people. Once I've met them, it's fine, I can get the ball rolling for friendship. But just that initial part is so hard for me. And tonight, even if I was sort of tricked into coming, helped me to meet people! I joked afterward that any time I am feeling insecure, I am just going to show up at that event...simply being a native English native speaker made me one of the two most popular people in the room.

And now, the barreled over introvert must retreat to recover...