Part 2. Love in Hungary

For simplicity's sake, I must boil love down to simply the lustful longing for, the passionate pursuit of, and the energetic execution of touching another human being. If you're willing to be that masculine-ly insensitive to any more grandiose notion of love, all of a sudden, there's a lot to consider after four months in Hungary.

We should state the obvious at this point: Hungarians are hungry for love.

But not hungry as in "I'm starving and can't wait to eat anything in sight." But rather that kind of hungry you feel a bite or two into a really big meal, laid out in front of you, that will manage to tide you over for at least a day to come.

Everyone -- every man and woman (or child) of marriageable age in Hungary -- has a lover. Often that boyfriend or girlfriend lives in a far-off village. That's made it fairly difficult for the dozen Americans who landed here, in the prime of their vitality.

Your first step onto Hungarian soul, whether by plane, train or bus, you will notice Hungarians in love. Making out before, during and after using public transportation is a particular favorite in these parts. When you have a lover half-way across a country the size of Indiana, apparently the best option to spend a Sunday is by lingering over a goodbye conveyed with lips, not vocabulary. And Fridays? What better way to end a 5-day-love-fast than by greeting your lover with your tongue at that same bus station? And in between? Just go at it on the subway, it's cool.

So they're crazy in where they make love, but I must admit I have very little (fine, none) evidence if there's a craziness in how they make love. But with whom? Yup, crazy.

In America, we're rather static with our definitions of good and bad. We expect that a man might be a little older than his love interests -- there may even be biological reasons to explain the preference of an age gap of a couple years -- but couples more than a couple years apart? Goodness, get ready to become a pariah.

I became a high school German teacher, and undoubtedly I am here in Hungary at this very moment, because a 23-year-old teacher fell in love (again, we draw no distinctions here between love and lust should it be necessary in this, or any, instance) with a 17-year-old student. Five big years of separation, and the firm statutes of legal and professional limitations.

So I was a little surprised, maybe even uncomfortable, the first time I was encouraged to enjoy the company of the students in that whole "hey, what do you think about this girl or that girl?" with a wink and a nod sort of way.

Here I must admit that I am a young man of no noteworthy moral superiority and no immunity to the thoughts natural to my age and gender. I've had to work hard to suppress the thought that the children under my tutelage are anything more than students. But here comes Hungary, bursting through the door of that mindset, shouting "I'm freakin' crazy in regards to love!"

Colleague Peter is one of the instigators. Then, one day, I found out why. His finance is a ripe ten years younger than he is. I'd always thought the was in his upper 20s, but that must not be the case.

Felicia is one of my 11A German speakers, although she doesn't boast much proficiency in the subject. We took to talking in class one day on how the 17-year-old would spend her weekend. Out popped the answer: she would spend the majority of it with her 27-year-old boyfriend. Attila.

One of my other German students, a rather uninterested-in-paying-attention-to-me type of boy, was sitting next to the most beautiful woman at a Heves bar one night. Curiosity besting my shyness, I went up to him, to them, and asked in German what he was doing sitting next to the most beautiful woman at the bar. I smiled at the answer: older sister.

I thought things were looking up for Jeremy when she bought me a beer in hopes that "du musst meinem Bruder einen Funf geben!" I said that I would gladly give her brother a 5, the best grade possible, if he spoke as wonderful German as she did.

She smiled and our conversation continued on, in German, to the point of me smiling, too. Not that that's hard to do. It's not every day you find a beautiful 20-year-old German-speaking girl who studies at a first-class Budapest university in Heves. I suppose that's because they're away studying at that first-class Budapest university. (And I'll admit to desperation here. That long-demanded English-speaking standard has slipped to "English? German? No problem.")

Finally, she turned to the man at the far end of the table. A rough translation of the German dialogue would look like: "And that is my 28-year-old boyfriend," but my heart translated the sentence as a dagger to the heart:

"I'm a normal crazy Hungarian girl who can only tempt you with my beauty because I would prefer to date an older Hungarian man who may or may not have a high school diploma, may or may not have a shitty job fixing things, and who, most certainly, has really, really bad teeth."

But I guess there's nothing I can do other than observe and laugh. Kat, Harpswell and I are holding out much hope for Greece. Or until then, I could always fall into the trap of the "Hungarian normalcy."

I subbed for a teacher, I think it was Peter, last week. A group of 11th-graders I hadn't met before. They cheered when I walked in the door.

They went around the room introducing themselves to me. Conversational English is an easy career the first few lessons with a group. They're curious. After they finished, I let them ask me questions. As always, the first question was age. They smiled when I said 25, although I'm not convinced the answer has any practical application in Hungary. The second question, invariably, "have you got a girlfriend?" As usually, I blush slightly and say that I don't. My hair's at the length at the moment where I have to brush it out from over my eyes and tuck it behind an ear as I say that.

They smiled and giggled, like usual, but then a new phenomenon happened. Instead of questions, they started to formulate sentences.

A boy in the back shot his hand up. He pointed to a girl in the front, a girl with blond hair who had spent most of the class smiling at me, and who I'd often seen in the halls.

"Klaudia is a nice girl," he said, with the confidence of a used-car salesman offering up the finest car on the lot. But the sentence was right-on in grammatical nature and content, both. What was I to do?

I laughed. "Yes, she is." Then she and I smiled at each other.

Another girl raised her hand. She pointed to the girl next to her.

"Barbie is a nice girl, too!"

The auction of class 11E to Teacher Jeremy, apparently, had begun. Just an everyday, normal happening in Hungary...