New Friends: Hi, I Love You

I get this greeting a lot (for lots of men, it’s the only English phrase they know), but usually I pretend not to hear, keep walking, or decide to be a nationality that doesn’t speak English for the time being.  One morning, however, I arrived early at our neighborhood meeting spot before the walk to school.  A man came up to me and said the now familiar phrase, “hello, I love you”.  But I responded in French, “no you don’t.”  He seemed confused, and asked me why not, so I explained that he didn’t know me, so he obviously doesn’t love me.  The debate continued in French, him asking me “well, how can I love you?” and “don’t you want a Senegalese husband?”  I replied no, and oh darn, I have a husband in America.  This did not seem to bother him one bit, some of his other arguments included, “but it is very important for an American girl to have a Senegalese boyfriend, otherwise you won’t get to know anybody,” “I need to go to America with a new wife, and I love you,” “Our children will be so beautiful, since I am African and you are American” “It is teranga [Senegalese hospitality, taken very seriously] for me to be your husband, my duty as a Senegalese man to welcome you here,” and many others.  It took a lot of will power for me to not burst out laughing at some of these.  Finally, I was getting tired of him, so I told him I had to go to school, goodbye.  He asked me for my phone number, which saying no to is ineffective, so I have begun telling people I simply don’t have a phone.  This worked, but he decided to give me his phone number.  I was happy to take his number, and discard it as soon as he was out of sight, as long as he stopped bugging me.  After handing me the paper with his number, however, he asked me if I would meet him in the same spot that night.  Uhhhh, no.  I told him I wouldn’t be able to, but on the spot couldn’t come up with a good excuse why.  Then he started to insist that I meet him there, so I said ok, thinking he doesn’t know where I live or go to school, and he has no way to contact me, I just won’t show up and that will be the end of it.  I was wrong (sort of).  His parting words to me were, “I will see you tonight, but if you don’t come I will hit you tomorrow morning, I know you meet here every day to go to school.”  Creepy.  Men here should really find better pick-up lines.  In the end, I threw out his number, didn’t go to meet him, took a different route to school (with a friend) for a few days, and haven’t seen him since.