I was chatting on WhatsApp with my friend last night about why people use non-dating apps such as Hello Talk, a language sharing app we both use, as a 'meet-up' app, as if it were just another dating app.
"Mencari batu akik," she answered.
It took me a while to figure this out, but akik means 'agate'. They are looking for an agate among all the common stones on the shore.
I realized that she is exactly right, and that this was an elegant, apt way of putting it. No matter what else we night be doing, or pretending to be doing, we are all looking for an agate among the common stones.
Most people on Hello Talk, and on any other app ostensibly designed for whatever else, are not ultimately intending to use the app for any other purpose than to make a personal connection, very often a romantic or sexual connection.
This is especially obvious where females are concerned, for my friend had just posted a profile on Hello Talk and immediately began to receive messages from male users, who asked within two or three sentences whether she was dating or married or had a boyfriend and on. As if that has anything to do with learning a language, right? For me, it is usually more like ten sentences or so before a woman begins to ask about my relationship status, and of course the woman usually does this in a more roundabout interrogatory way. More finesse. But the information sought and the intent is the same--and it is not focused on learning a language.
Curious creatures are we human beings.
"Mencari batu akik," she answered.
It took me a while to figure this out, but akik means 'agate'. They are looking for an agate among all the common stones on the shore.
I realized that she is exactly right, and that this was an elegant, apt way of putting it. No matter what else we night be doing, or pretending to be doing, we are all looking for an agate among the common stones.
Most people on Hello Talk, and on any other app ostensibly designed for whatever else, are not ultimately intending to use the app for any other purpose than to make a personal connection, very often a romantic or sexual connection.
This is especially obvious where females are concerned, for my friend had just posted a profile on Hello Talk and immediately began to receive messages from male users, who asked within two or three sentences whether she was dating or married or had a boyfriend and on. As if that has anything to do with learning a language, right? For me, it is usually more like ten sentences or so before a woman begins to ask about my relationship status, and of course the woman usually does this in a more roundabout interrogatory way. More finesse. But the information sought and the intent is the same--and it is not focused on learning a language.
Curious creatures are we human beings.
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