On cross-cultural texting and excessive awkwardness

Some days, you just want to hide under the couch. Today is one of those days.

Somehow, and I’m not actually sure when, my life has turned into one of those horribly awkward movies. You know, the kind that star Ben Stiller, and make you do the cringe-face for two full hours.

It goes a little something like this. There’s a lovely woman whose restaurant I eat at most days, who’s also one of my conversation partners here. We’ve recently swapped phone numbers so we can text using LINE, a Thai equivalent of WhatsApp that everyone here uses to text.

In my mind, this was to make coordinating good times for conversation exchanges simple. One day in, I’m really starting to wonder if it meant the same thing to her. There are a lot of texts coming in. With lots and lots of emoji.

Like this:

And then, later, one that said, “My family I want see you.”

Wait. What?

Understand that historically, I’m almost a catastrophically clueless guy. But even accounting for that, I didn’t see this coming. The cracking sound you just heard was the clue-bat making contact with my skull. The screaming noise was my amygdala, emphatic. “Flight!! Flight!!”

The big problem is, I have no actual idea if this is totally normal foreigner-as-a-friend stuff, heavy flirting, or something completely different that’s lost in translation. I’m also wondering if I’ve done something by just hanging out and talking that indicated something more. I complimented her food (because it’s fantastic!) - was I saying something more? There’s a saying in Thailand about getting a man- that once he has a taste of her curry, he’ll never be able to leave. I’ve eaten her curry. It was delicious. What have I done??

Communicating via text messaging makes it worse. Thai text messaging is massively, massively emoji-based - which should be awesome (no words!) - except the emoji are all completely unfamiliar.

Let me illustrate.

This is a normal sort of text exchange with one of my close friends in the states. Mostly text, minimal emojis. Minus drunken poodle. Nobody tells drunken poodle what to do.

This is what I’m getting, here in Thailand.

This causes layers and layers of problems. Clearly, I should be replying with giant animated icons - but which one?? There are pages and pages and pages of them!

Also, in this particular situation, if I’m not reading this situation totally wrong, and there is some kind of flirty thing happening, which of the thousands of icons, each laden with cultural meanings I do not understand says, “You’re cool, and I enjoy being your friend and chatting”, and not “Let’s totally hook up and have lots of curry.”

One of these faces?

Or these?

Or do I use the bears? What does a bear holding a rabbit even mean?

Which brings me to hiding under my couch. Clearly, it’s not a long-term solution, but right now, it's working really well. Mr. Stiller? Any help?