In a rare burst of Bangla-learning motivation (or desperation – I actually seem to be regressing this week) last night I explored the world of online language exchanges. There are tons of pages out there, I discovered, the idea being that native speakers of different languages come together over the internet to chat and help each other learn new languages. A little sketchy, you might think? Turns out … it is a little weird.
In reality, on the two pages I signed up for (a third didn’t have a single Bengali speaker) I only ran across one profile of a guy looking to meet “pretty young ladies” … but then again I mostly just looked for female conversation partners, which seemed generally safer. It’s just weird to sign up for these pages, and be greeted with hundreds of automatic messages saying LETS BE FRINDS! (sic). I just can’t shake the feeling that whomever I eventually find to be a conversation partner will inevitably show up on my front step the day I move to Bangladesh with the desire to be BEST FRIENDS for the duration of my stay there. Maybe it will work out great. Or not.
