Learning a new language

At the BlogHer Conference, I heard Kerry Miller speak about her inspiration for her blog, PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. She was on a terrible date, explaining the passive aggressive notes her roommates would leave one another on post-its. She joked that she should put them on a blog, and she did, and the rest is history. It's now become a very popular site with hundreds of people logging in every day. Even a bad date can have a good outcome, even if it's not the good outcome you were hoping for. 

Which is how I consoled myself last night after a date that might be described as one of the worst dates ever. I rarely dish about dating on this site, though this story had some usefulness eventually. To give you a taste of what transpired - after regaling me with his ability to find a bargain, his side business scalping concert tickets on Ebay, and his knowledge of five French vocabulary words, he then managed to use curse words relating to the human anatomy and phrases like "wow, the youngsters here are enthusiastic." (We were at a rock concert - note to self, rock concerts are not a good venue for a first date.) The date ended with me getting so sick to my stomach and dizzy from all of the smoking in the audience that I had to go outside, get some fresh air, and in the process dropped my ticket, banning me from re-entry. Thankfully, I had written down his cell phone number so I  sent him a text to let him know I was grabbing a cab home. The Universe saved me by snatching that ticket from my pocket. 

So what good could come out of this night that I wished I had stayed home and watched the Food Network? Two things: I know now that my mother was right - when dating, using the decade rule is best. In general, it's very hard to romantically relate to someone who is 10 years older or younger than me. There of course are exceptions like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. But by and large, I believe my mother on this one. The other terrific thing to come out of this unfortunate date is a new on-line tool that my date told me about. It's the one he's used to learn his five French words. Don't hold that against the site. 

www.livemocha.com is a language learning site that doubles as a social network The lessons go at your selected pace, and it's free. So long as you're motivated to put in the time, you can build your own classroom across the world to help you learn or re-learn a language, and you can help others in the process. While the language of love was clearly eluding me last night, there's now renewed hope for brushing up on my Spanish! Que bueno!