Thursday, May 31, 2007

Further Adventures in Linguistics


Practice Dialogues: Listening for the Unsaid

Dialogue One

I wanted to quickly write you before I head out the door to get my run in, and let you know how much I enjoyed our conversation! I really appreciate your willingness to listen to me, and hopefully have an understanding of what I'm looking for.

I think your idea is a wonderful one, and hopefully all the necessary factors will work out for us to begin creating experiences for each other, starting with a nice dinner…perhaps we could plan on meeting around… depending of course upon your schedule and availability.

I hope my picture comes through ok, and need to apologize up front for the lack of quality of the photo. Hopefully it will serve the purpose until we actually do meet.

Thanks again for the lovely conversation, and I believe we have much to discover with each other :-)

Have a fun and safe weekend, and I look forward to your email soon,
Tourist


Notes for the student:
- Correct spelling and use of polysyllabic words indicate Tourist’s willingness to communicate in the appropriate forms.
- Mention of his “run” indicates probable lack of pasty waistline fat.
- The translator may or may not choose to indicate the slightly submissive tone.

Mandy responds, indicating her desire to know more about him as a person, her interest in knowing more about his fantasies, and:

…we should both be on the same page as far as the financial side goes. Generally, I receive a gift of $XXXX for an afternoon through early evening or late afternoon through late evening plus the next morning meeting. This includes my time, travel and hotel, and fun conversations before and after via phone and email. Shorter meetings (long afternoon or long morning) can be arranged with a 25% reduction. I really like to be able to focus on you not just in our time together, but before and after for enough time that we can truly feel a connection, and I think this will be especially helpful in terms of extended role-playing.

I'm looking forward to meeting you. As I mentioned, I am in the Midwestern City area for something else so you are not 'on the hook' for most of my travel, but if you would like to gift me for my time I will leave that to your discretion.

xo - and a little slap on the hand -

Mandy


Notes for the student:
- Mandy indicates that her emails and conversations are included in her fee, thus clarifying up front that they are paid time. This is as much for her benefit as for his, reminding herself that taking on too many things leads to doing them all poorly.
- Mandy sets a test for Tourist – will he show his generosity on the very first meeting?
- Note suggestive closing, a foray into whether or not Tourist may be interested in D/s in addition to his stated desire to roleplay.


***

Dialogue Two

Tourist responds cautiously:

The only part I didn't quite get is the "xo - and a little slap on the hand - "
Not sure if I said something that upset you, but hope I didn't, and didn't mean to if I did.


One must always be willing to clarify intention in a new language:

It's a playful little smack, not because you did anything bad, but because perhaps you'll like it :)

Glad to hear I didn't do anything wrong, and it looks like you have a pretty good intuition about me :-) I'm so ready to have you help expand my horizons!

***

You have successfully completed this practice dialogue. Now try some conversation with your new friends!

Monday: more History.

A PS to Anonymous Girl on the Verge – I think my closing comment about ‘competition’ sounded way snarkier than I meant. Holler if you would like an apology.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow... this is why you are the expert. You made that jump to his possible submissive tendencies, which I would never have done. I thought at first that his response indicated that he didn't in fact have those tendencies, and then it turned out that you nailed it. Well done. I must practice (even) more. :)

Anonymous said...

Tourist: (I conveniently don't mention that on the way to my run, I pick up a soda and a candy bar so my hands are full.) *

* If you can't hear me, it's because I'm in parentheses.


This is all so complicated. Can we learn more about Urdu, or fondue, or even more whoredu? ;)


A. Reader, Esq.

Mandy said...

Is it an achievement to become parodable?

Thanks, LFM - it was more a leap of intuition than anything else, and I had the advantage of hearing him on the phone, too, so don't knock your own skills! (Our problem is not not knowing about people, it's listening to the little robot when he starts waving his arms)

Anonymous said...

"Is it an achievement to become parodable?"

Natch. It was a detour. Your Tourist reminded me of someone I used to work with. Hopelessly addicted to junk food that even exercise was a snack time.




A. Reader, Esq.