I Take Back Everything I Ever Said About Russians. For Now.

All names in this post have been changed to protect ME, in case they ever read it. Plausible deniability is huge in my life.

I've spent a good amount of time bitching about Russians. Mostly because it's easy, partly because it's true. I've gotten more chuckles with stories about Russian classmates than anything else so far. I'm not going to take back what I said about them, I just want to add an addendum to what I said about the ladies being a tad aggressive.


I would like to thank them, for a moment, for a complete about-face. Yes, they proved aggressive. But I understand - you have to do something to keep warm in the winter. If not sex, then you end up writing an extremely depressing 800 page novel and dying of liver failure at a very young age if you haven't already rotted in a Siberian gulag for making a pooting Putin joke. 

This man really needs a girl. Asceticism is bad for your health.

 

Anyway, I was cornered in a really awkward situation the other evening with a [slightly inebriated] young lady who simply wouldn't catch a hint, no matter how many times I mentioned my girlfriend. While obvious, she hadn't said anything that would leave her without plausible deniability (there's that damn word again) if I called her more bluntly on her advances. The situation was clear enough, though - or maybe it was my distress - that Svetlana (who, by this point, knows all about Dayaamayi) swooped in to my rescue with the grace and subtlety I've seen in a Russian before, "Alec, come wit me, you need more dr-rink. Anna, I will take dis boy from you. He has a date vith his own self when he gets home. I sure you vill find another American for tonight."

There was another exchange, most of which I missed, in which Anna (western European) harangued Svetlana in a very whiny tone about the previous interaction. The important part is that she used the term, "knocking down her Berlin Wall." Something which I gathered hadn't happened in a bit. I'll leave that to your imagination.

"Tear down that wall!" A moment of great relief and catharsis for both the East and West.  It was a long time coming, apparently (I wouldn't know. Wasn't there.).