The Language Barrier

I am an American, but I am currently doing a semester abroad in Germany.  I have been here about four weeks, and still do not feel like I have settled in.  I have the essentials down by now - food, laundry, bus routes, school supplies - but I am still lacking something that actually ties me here.  All my friends are foreign.  I also have a borderline social phobia when it comes to talking to strangers.

You see, here is the greatest irony of my life:

I am good at languages.  Not super-genius-can-pick-up-a-new-language-in-five-minutes, but I am pretty damn good.  Even with English - I learned how to read Scout Finch style, without being taught.  I don't remember a time before I could read.  I already knew all the words on the vocabulary lists and aced every spelling test without even studying. 

When I got to middle and high school and started learning Spanish, and then German, it was the same way.  I understood language better than the others.  New vocab?  Don't even bother to study.  By the end of class, I'll have it down.  While others struggled with adjective agreement and case endings, I saw the logic in it. An insane, often contradictory logic, but there was a definite pattern that I saw and understood.

Now here's the ironic part.

Language is all about communication.  I am awesome at languages.  I suck at communication. 

I had no friends as a child.  I exaggerate only slightly.  I did not socialize.  I sat quietly in a corner by myself and read.  Which, if the adults are to be believed, is apparently a sign of maturity, rather than social retardation.  My theory is that it took me about eight years to get over the culture shock of being thrown into kindergarten.

In any case, though I am able to function at a mostly normal level by now, I am still very quiet and slow to trust others with my words.  Words are personal.  Words are my soul.  It's also why I don't let people read my stories, not even my most trusted friends, especially my most trusted friends.  When you read something, you make it your own.  I am not yet ready to give away myself like that.

This was really just a roundabout way of complaining that I have no friends in Germany, and it's my own stupid fault for not talking to people.  The fact that it's German is not even a problem.  The language barrier is that I just don't know what to say, in any language.  Something interesting.  Something the other person will like.  Something that will let me know if I like the other person.  Something not too personal and dangerous for them to know if it turns out I don't.

Still to come:  Thoughts on reading, and on writing.  Having friends.  And what my dangerous secrets that I don't want strangers to know are.