The International Language of Love

I am lucky where I get to travel all the time for work and many times International destinations! So, I was at a trade show in Germany and was with some clients on a bus. We were waiting for everyone to arrive so we had some down time and were just making conversation.

The subject of dating came up and many of the group that I was with were married. They asked if I did online dating? I said, almost exclusively!

They said, how does it work? I said, let me fire up Tinder right here. It pulls matches based on where you are located so this will be fun to check out the German talent!

So, we start swiping left and right and wouldn’t you know it, I get a live one who messaged me! My demonstration just got more interesting. Now, I know I am blonde but this day I was extra blonde. It never occurred to me that the message he would send me would be in German. Oops!

I open the message and I see something I clearly didn’t understand. One of my friends behind me from Zurich said, I speak German, let me send him a note back! Not thinking anything of it, I say sure and hand him my phone.

Well, I should have known better because this prankster sent quite a message. I didn’t understand much of it but at the end, it said “bratwurst”. I panicked and said, what did you say? He is killing himself laughing and I immediately knew it was naughty. Actually, the whole bus is now finding it very amusing.

Of course, everyone wanted to know if he was going to message back. For those who have ever been to Germany, the culture can be very proper, so I had a feeling I scared this guy.

Sure enough, he went dark for 24 hours. So, whatever my friend texted back, definitely caused him to pause.

He did get back to me but again it was a mystery. And, using google translate seemed to be a lot of work for a goof.

My favorite part about this story is everyone on the bus kept coming to our trade show booth the next day to see if he replied!

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Lesson learned? Language barriers make it virtually impossible to do online dating when you are traveling. Not sure how 90 Day Fiancé people do it!