It’s time for another AskWoobie feedback! As you read this post, you will see why this topic deserves its own page (and why I asked the feedback giver to let me publish her issue).

Tala (not her real name) wrote me this initially. The stuff in square brackets is mine:

“I am surprised you are not white. By the way you speak, I couldn’t tell. It is easy for you to get chats in rooms because they think you are not [Asian]?”

One of the more startling news to me since I published this romance blog is finding out some reasons why people do not want to try internet dating. Some simply do not want to fall in love online, while some others (like Tala ) fear that being unable to speak perfect English is a horrible liability.

Not true. The fact that you are from another country and that you probably live each day in a different way compared to them will get attention faster than the fact that you are a walking lexicon. It’s the willingness to interact that matters to people who are also there for that same reason.

If you find a gem of a chatmate, let your guard down, speak in a manner that you are comfortable with and focus on pushing your personality more than writing out all your sentences perfectly. Intelligible communication means being understood and conveying a message, even if it is not said in a Pulitzer-award-winning way.

Playing the “Exotic” Card

Once your online date notices that you speak in a peculiar manner, he or she will start getting curious about your country, the stuff that you can share about it, and travelling to your location. It’s a vast world, and not everyone will know about what’s uniquely Asian, African or Meditterranean (in my case, Filipino). They crave for information that is dished from a local. It is what will keep them rapt for a long time, maybe even forever.

When I find a wonderful chat companion, I instantly reveal that I am Filipina, In a sense, I am even helping out my country’s travel industry by talking about it and describing it to people I meet online. Being “exotic” isn’t a fault, and if you feel at ease about who you are and how you interact, you don’t have to get pressured by the fact that your English is “funny”.

Just the same as you won’t go under the knife for a nose job if you feel comfortable with your nose, you don’t have to speak “perfect” English to express yourself when you feel comfortable talking the way you do.

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