Das Experiment: Part One

Since I had a relatively lazy Sunday ahead of me when I finally woke up this morning, I thought I was feeling brave enough to conduct a little experiment I'd been meaning to try for ages:

Go out on a date with a girl five years younger.

The subject: an acquaintaince from Yahoo! Messenger, who is now finishing her TESL degree (which somewhat ensures a competent command of English).

The task: Go for a movie, possibly dinner afterwards; and to record my impressions of the whole deal.

(looking back, I now realise it's one hell of a way to kick off a new year. Why bother with resolutions when you can find out if it's worth resoluting for?)

The preliminary results:

Though conditions appear to be workable, there are enough differences in multiple areas to warrant a closer examination of my mental capacity should I wish to indulge in this activity to the next level. I now have firsthand experience that more than ever confirms the rather large (but bridgeable) gap that exists between a male working in an educational institution such as myself and an average university student in Malaysia. Read on to find out.

First Impressions:

As my initial chats and conversation indicated (and of course validated by previous experience) girls much younger can be quite pleasant conversation. However, straddling electron beams on IM and actually spending time in meatspace together are two totally different things, as I found out.

First of all, speech patterns are demonstrably different, perhaps due to environmental factors such as locality and current trends. The age factor does seem to come into play here, as the topics for conversation mainly revolve around events that affect student/campus life directly. Subject performed several verbal parries and displayed quirks that showed promise during the conversation, although these were tempered by expressions and body language unique to people of that age bracket.

It will be quite unfair to "review" the person I went out with, or even to come to a conclusion this early in the scenario (since of course this is a person we're talking about here, not a cow). What I can say however is that there is an interesting dynamic going on that makes for an excellent reason to continue this experiment; even if it is to simply see if the initial interest can be sustained.

I will be posting regular updates as time goes by, so keep tuned as I kick off the first possibly mentally damaging act of the year!