Count to Ten and Say Hello

Two years/twenty-four months/a hundred and four weeks/seven hundred and thirty days. That’s the amount of time that has passed since this day occurred. That’s right, seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours or one million fifty-one thousand and two hundred seconds. But hey, who’s counting?

It’s a day I’ll remember for the rest of my life. It’s a day that, little did I know, would change my life indefinitely. It’s the day I met my special someone.

I started my day as I usually would — drink tea, eat breakfast, get showered, (attempt to) dress myself, brush my teeth and walk right out the door. Very mundane; very usual. What wasn’t so usual was what would happen later into the afternoon as the clock struck two.

Two o’clock was the time at which, like clockwork, I would visit the local library before work to check out the French books and magazines. Two o’clock, by divine chance, also happened to be the time at which my special someone would walk into the library to the languages section. I overheard her whispering on the phone, trying to be quiet to avoid disrupting the peace of the library. She was talking French. She spoke so fluently and with perfect pronunciation — too perfectly for it to be a second language.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d been craving an opportunity to talk to a native French speaker ever since I started learning the language myself. She had now hung up the phone. This was my chance.

I pivoted around, as confident as ever, ready to initiate conversation with my best attempt at a French accent. But then, before I could open my mouth, she caught my eye. She halted my motion and I began to tremble. I turned back around.

“What should I do?” “She’s actually beautiful, how can I possibly approach this girl?” I asked myself once or twice. Alright, maybe three, four or several (hundred) times. I concluded that I’d count to ten and then say “bonjour” when my count reached ten. “Here goes nothing...”, I told myself.

After an awkwardly stammered “bonjour” and a back-and-forth introduction, we got talking about French and my interest in languages in general. She told me that she was born in France and had only just moved to England two years ago.

She was intrigued by my fascination with languages as she hadn’t met any other English people yet that had the same approach to foreign languages as she did. It was then that I discovered we shared a passion: a passion for languages. I ditched work and we went for coffee. We went on to find out that we shared many more common interests and attributes. I couldn’t believe my luck.

We hung out throughout the day and parted at around 11PM that night. It turned out that she was only in the city until the next day and then she must leave to start university in a different city two hundred miles away.

We made it work, though. We spoke on the phone every night and she helped me with my French. Today, one million fifty-one thousand and two hundred seconds down the line, I am fluent in French and our relationship is as strong as ever.

I wouldn’t have even been able to fathom this at the moment she walked into the library and I had to count to ten before taking the plunge to speak to her. Meeting new people is a funny thing. It’s often daunting and scary, but if you take a chance, what will happen might surprise you.

If you want to contact the author: dan@bwent.co.uk.