Our First Meeting

            Days had gone by and still no notification of who was going to be my communication partner. Everyday I would check my email constantly refreshing the browser in hopes that it would somehow pop up with a new message in my inbox, as if one second was going to make a difference. Finally on Wednesday of September 16, 2015, at approximately 5:06 pm, Britt Luby sent me the email that I had been waiting for. As I scrolled through the email, I was carefully analyzing the text of the email in order to find the name of my communication partner. At last towards the end of the email (of course it is at the end of the email), I found my communication partner’s name. His name was Anderson Bronzato, and he was from the largest nation in South America, Brazil.

            The email contained Anderson’s contact information, which was simply his email. The art of the email has been a form of communication that I have struggled with from time to time. One may send me an email in August and finally receive a response in either that very same day or two months from then. Emails, as one might say, are “not my thing”. However, this was going to be something that I was not planning on messing up. I proceeded to email Anderson, not really knowing what to put in the email. Should I start the email in a formal manner with, “Hello Mr. Bronzato”? Would it be more appropriate to email him in a more relaxed and friendly way with, “Hey Anderson”? What if I tried the, “Hey what’s up dude” method? I surprisingly took a whole 5 minutes on this complex and strenuous thing known as “greeting someone”. As I continued with the email message, I started to relax and simply “go with the flow”. I then sent the message and waited patiently for his response. Thankfully, he replied the next morning to my message, and we were able to set up a time to meet up and grab some food at the one and only “Market Square.” According to the Zagat, Market Square had the best chicken fried steak and burgers out of all of TCU 4 years in a row! We decided to meet up on Tuesday at around 1:20.

                        Tuesday finally came around, and as usual, I was running late to our planned lunch. As I was walking to Market Square from Hays Hall, I could not help but start thinking about how Anderson was going to be. Is he tall? What kind of clothes does he wear? Does her prefer soccer or football? Does he like to take long walks on the beach? Is he more of a cheesecake kind of guy, or would he rather have some pecan pie? All sorts of questions popped into my head as I walked towards Market Square. As I got closer to Market Square, the more I worried that my communication partner would either not get along with me or that we would fall into stump when it came to conversing with my communication partner due to the language and cultural barrier. I soon approached the doors of the Brown Lupton University Union and proceeded to Market Square. I walked into Market Square and had my ID swiped. I then found a spot to sit and eat and texted Anderson my location. A man in his mid 20’s approached me. He stuck his hand out and introduced himself as Anderson Bronzato. I was caught completely off guard more than anything because this guy was about 10 years older than me and not some 19 year old teen who has soaking in the college experience and having the time of his life. I struggled initially to get a conversation going with Anderson simply because typically conversations between teens and people in their mid to late twenties tend to differ and on top of that this guy grew up in Brazil while I grew up in conservative west Texas. However as we continued with our conversation, I started warming up to Anderson and began to feel more and more comfortable around him. We talked about a wide array of topics despite having a short encounter due to my need to leave to get to class in time. What first started as a conversation that entailed similarities progressed to one of just growing up in different parts of the world. For instance, Anderson grew in Rio de Janeiro and is a married man with no children to disturb him in his studies. As we came to a close with our discussion, I got up and told him goodbye saying that we should do this again sometime in the near future. He glanced up at me and smiled at me with a small nod in agreement. Since then we have planned another meeting at Market Square.