Any egregious examples of native Taiwanese using you as English practice?
Met someone online once via a personals website. Chatted nicely, things were friendly. I thought we had good rapport, so I suggested we meet in person. She immediately replied she doesn’t meet people in person because it’s dangerous but she comes online to chat and wants me available so that she can practice her English. She literally said this.
Another female friend (although I guess it turns out we were just acquaintances and not friends) I knew for 4 years. We got along great. We called each other the other-gendered equivalent of each other. Always fun chatting and we had real roles in each other’s lives (although it was mostly online, we met only once or twice a year as we were living in different cities). I had my romantic hopes on her, even though she was already in a relationship when we first met. But whenever we discussed her relationship, she’d tell me tell me how things weren’t going well, and I always interpreted it to myself as meaning I had a chance with her. One day years into knowing her, out of the blue, she told me she was getting married to the guy she was seeing. It came as a total surprise because I always thought her relationship was rocky. I later determined she was using me all along for English practice. Her enthusiasm for chatting with me was because she was happy she had such a great language exchange. And although I don’t think she purposely only shared the “bad” news about her relationship with me, her knowing I liked her (she knew I liked her, and admitted as such) probably motivated her to only share the bad things in her relationship, and none of the good. It was only when she finally couldn’t hold the secret any longer (she was going to get married, you can’t really hide that), that she broke the news to me. Made me feel like a total idiot because I thought we would at some eventually date each other. Given my age at the time, it was such a waste of hope and innocence. Horrific.
Once I was dancing at a club. A woman came over and started talking to me, asking if I wanted to come talk to her and her friends. I was responding in Chinese, as I might normally, and she said that she thought it was weird and wasn’t used to it. I answered “mei guan xi” and kept talking. She left. I kept dancing.
Learning the language sincerely is a hedge against any possible friend zone woes. If you go with the approach that the language is first priority, and anything else is a bonus, you have already won.
As Sun Tzu and Wei Liaozi remind us
If you even turn up to a “language exchange” with a pen and paper, you put yourself in the top 20-50% of applicants, so to speak. If you record the young lady speaking her native tongue, with phrases at your Mandarin level, you will have a resource you can use even ten years later.
They call this the friend zone. That sucks when that happens. In my own experience I would categorize that variety of pain as self inflicted, and file under do not repeat.
I have had only a couple of occasions where people approached me in the wild for english practice.
One was a ladyboy that approached me on a bench and blankly said ‘do u want to be my language partner’ i said no and they left.
Another was an absolute freak who approached me on the MRT asking for my line for english practice. Her line photo was a selfie with another acosted foreigner on the MRT… i didnt add her.
Besides that its mainly my gf who uses me for english practice, replies to me in english when im using chinese etc. Quite winds me up to be honest.
To me it sounds less like she was using you for language exchange and more that she was stringing you along, keeping you as a backup option in the event that things went south with the main guy (though I suppose it could be both). And plenty of people, but especially women approaching a certain age, marry for reasons other than love. It wouldn’t surprise me if most of what she was telling you about the boyfriend was actually true, and she withheld fewer of the positives than you think.
Also, if it makes you feel even a little bit better, I would bet she probably did have some feelings for you. But what should of course really make you feel better is knowing you dodged a bullet; based on her behavior, I cannot possibly imagine you would have had a happy long-term relationship together. I suspect you wouldn’t want to change places with her husband, even if you could.
What about that thing where you speak Mandarin/Spanish/Whatever and they reply in English? I’ve had friendships that have lasted for years like that. Keeps both sides happy. You can take a pen and write down useful phrases for both sides if they come up. Its all about discipline and attention to detail. Making sure to stuff a pen and hardback notebook in your pocket every time you go out…
OPs existential torpor most likely stems from his manichaeistic attachment to des
I only had one time a guy approached me in MRT asking me if I would practice English with him. I said sure feeling happy that at least someone came to me and I wasn’t ignored
Then he asked me if I am from US and I said no. His smile faded away as he turned around and walked away.
