Hello Penis

 I am continually astounded to find people commonly using Hello Talk, the language sharing app I use, as a dating/hook up site. I don't get it. Aren't there countless dating apps out there that exist for this very purpose? Of course there are. So why do people imagine that an app tailored to sharing one's native language and learning another is an invitation to seek 'significant others', or worse yet as an amateur pornography platform? 

My friend Dhi from Jakarta can tell you all about that. She will meet a man on the app, exchange a brief chat or two, and then the first thing she knows she is receiving a photo of his penis on her screen. Not a flaccid one, of course. Who wants to see a flaccid penis? But for that matter, who wants to see any sort of penis on a language sharing app? And why in the world would anyone send his penis here and there online anyway, unless perhaps if the site were called Hello Penis? 

"Why," Dhi will occasionally ask, "have you sent a picture of a penis?"

"It's not just any penis," the man may object. 

Who knew, right? 

"Yes, but why would you suddenly send your penis? This is an app for those interested in learning a language."

"Because you're so sexy." 

Ugh. 

And it gets worse. I don't necessarily have to go into further detail. Perhaps you can imagine what might penetrate cyberspace next. 

What is the thought process here? I keep trying to figure it out. 

"Hi, I want to learn Indonesian." 

"Good! I can help you. And maybe you can help me with English." 

"Okay. By the way, here is a picture of my penis." 

I met a woman about a week ago. She is from Riau. We had a pleasant conversation and then the next day she contacted me again and we had another pleasant conversation. I guess I was a bit suspicious that she was using no English at all, but maybe she was just shy or afraid of making mistakes, I thought. 

So the next time I talked to her she wrote, in Indonesian, "Hey, let's exchange our pictures and our stories and see if we are compatible."

Compatible? Compatible for what? I thought we were here to learn a foreign language. 

"Uh yeah ... cool," I said, then mentioned that I needed to log off and meet my girlfriend for dinner. I didn't, because I don't actually have a girlfriend, but the point is that I never heard from that woman again.  Too bad, really. The app seemed actually to be functioning as intended for a short time. 

My friend Ira, in Borneo, has received everything from sexual propositions to marriage proposals. She has been harangued for being kind and then unspeakably cruel for rejecting uninvited advances. She too, you see, had been under the impression that we are here to share languages. It seems that there is very little a woman can say that will not be taken as an invitation for sexual involvement. 

"All I did was chat with him!" 

"Ah, that was your mistake."

"But I thought that was what the app is for. Why else would it be called Hello Talk?"

Why indeed?