Better than a native speaker

I know you have been in this situation before - perhaps this exact one, perhaps not, but definitely the awkward social circumstance I'm about to describe.

You're in a bar. In this instance a large bar. It's pretty cool - not overly hip, it's just been one of those steady cool bars. It didn't peak too early in it's "just opened, overhyped and over reviewed as the epitomy of trendy" phase, nor did it attract the diehard trendoids with the desperate "scene queen" air about them. When its popularity started to ween off, a loyal crowd of students and underground influentials still frequented it on weekends, and stabilised it's street rep, and an older, more mature but still rebellious crowd was attracted to it, thereby cementing it's existance in the city's bar scene.

It's the Friday night before Christmas. The bar is pumping with people celebrating the end of year a cometh, and you are there for the birthday drinks of a friend of a friend. You know about 5 people at this very very large party, and to say you "know" them is an overstatement. They are all occupied with their old friends, laughing, drinking, joking, cartwheeling, kissing, hugging, punching each other. It's a tight knit circle of friends. Funky music that you would never know the name of the artist of is playing and you notice it's that completely non offensive, very suave, global, somewhat acoustic, but sort of electric, toe tapping kind of music. You are holding possibly the most awkward physical stance possible; standing in your typical hunched over posture, one hand shoved in pocket, one hand clutching a beer, not really knowing what to do, who to talk to, and noone is giving any friendly "come join" signals.

Then you make eye contact with a guy you have met a couple of times before through these friends, and you have made small talk (possibly mixed with a history of awkward flirtations) previously in similar circumstances . You can assess that it would be a seriously awkward situation if he were to come and talk to you, or vice versa, but it's too late, he has already made stride over to where you stand with your insecure/bored body language.

Fake smiles, and dutch kisses exchanged later, you have already done the "how are you?" conversation that takes about 3 seconds, and you realise the inoffensive music has just gotten louder. A lot louder. And the volume of beer in your glass is getting smaller. Much smaller, as you just took a big gulp to fill in that really strange nanosecond when you realised that you have no idea what to say next.

You: So.... aren't you going travelling soon? Isn't that what everyone does in January here?

Him: Yeah, but I'm leaving a bit later than I originally planned.

You: Oh really? Why? I thought you had your ticket all booked.

This is where it's dawned on you that the music is significantly louder than comfortable conversation level. And you're having trouble hearing the complete sentences he's uttering, and some slightly crucial words as well. It should explained, that the dutch have almost near perfect English. It is unbelievable how good their english language skills are. (It astounds me daily.) There's no such thing as lost in translation here, well, rarely does it happen. And if you compare their english language skills to the french, spanish, italians or even the germans, The only things that they might get confused with are saying the word "learn" instead of "teach". eg. "So you can learn that to him when he comes back into the office." But these mistakes are few and far between, and not only that, they understand english through every type of accent; Irish, English, Australian, South African, Kiwi, thick asian accents, thick middle eastern accents. (I would even go as far to say that their language skills are better than the Nordic countries.)

Him: I decided to wait, I want to get out of here but meanwhile I'm ....(muffled uttering) ... rain.

You: Well, yeah, I can understand that you want to get out of here, because rain equals pain right? (At about now your Internal voice is saying: WHAAAT?!? What did you just say ?! RAIN equals PAIN? Who ARE YOU? Dr Suess?!)

Him: (patient but strange look on his face)

You: I mean with rain, it's a pain to cycle everywhere. And it's also windy, and now, with the snow...

This is where I should also point out that noone is joking when they say the dutch are direct. They'll point out when you're having a bad hair day, when you're makeup is smudged, you're clothes are creased, when you have food on your face, when they don't agree with you, and when you've misunderstood what they are saying. If you think it's socially awkward to do or say something, and would rather be polite and not say anything or dodge around it, the dutch will do the complete opposite. They are just ... direct. They don't see anything wrong with telling things straight up.

Him: I think we are talking about different things.

You: No, I mean it makes sense. Rain? Pain? (For the love of god, just shut your mouth, and walk to the bar.)

Him: I still think we may be talking about different things.

You: What do you mean?

Him: I said I'm waiting for more of my pay to go through.

You: Oh. Right.

Needless to say, you don't want to follow up one awkward conversation with another, so you don't really talk again that night.