The only thing worse than a “man” who only speaks English is a “man” who thinks he speaks other languages when in actuality he is just ejaculating more diarrhea than usual from his mouth. These types can usually be found at Italian and French restaurants throughout North Brooklyn. They are the sort who believe that it’s endlessly impressive to take a girl to someplace like Aurora or Cafe Mogador.

To add to their “cachet,” they start telling their date about how much time they’ve spent in this, that or the other obscure country. Though, obscure, to them, is Italy or France. Always Italy or France–countries with among the easiest languages to learn and yet somehow the most butcherable pronunciation to “men.” Like, how is it that they can say a word that comes out so differently from how it’s supposed to sound?

The girl, bless her nonplussed little twig self, will nod along because it’s a free dinner and you can’t ask too much of a straight “man” anyway–least of all in the twenty-first century. So even though she might be fully aware, somewhere deep down, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the sentence, “We’ll have the boh-loh-nyay-say pap-er-dahl-ay,” she will not bat an eye. Alas, it’s only the girl sitting alone nearby who can see and hear the diarrhea coming out of his mouth.