Quanti anni hai?

While here in Spain I have taken it upon myself to enroll in an Italian course. I have always wanted to learn Italian and figured this yearlong break from other studies was the perfect opportunity. Italian for me is either the beautiful, harmonious cousin of Spanish or the creepy, hairy  neighbor of Spanish. In any case, both languages are fairly similar so listening to my professor and gleaning the basic meanings is not really a problem. I am in a class full of Spaniards who come when they feel like it, leave fifteen minutes early and tend to chat when there. That being said, I sit towards the front of the class to hear better and not be distracted. I might be the only person there with a real interest in learning the language. Most days I sit by myself which at first bothered me. I thought, what kind of a freak am I that I have this entire row of five chairs to myself. Do I smell? I added extra deodorant and a spray of perfume, it wasn´t that. Do I not smile enough? I spent an entire class grinning like a fool, nope not that either. Is it because I am the only foreign person there and the professor uses me everytime she needs an example that doesn´t refer to spagnolo? That was what I started to believe, until yesterday. We had just begun to learn numbers (this class is going incredibly slow) as well as how to ask a person´s age. Fortunately I actually had a partner that day, some guy who sat down I think because he was running late. We were given a sheet to gather information about our partners. Things were going just fine: Come ti chiami? Alexandra. Di dove sei? Sono americana, di Detroit. Quanti anni hai? And without letting me respond, this guy says "trenta" and begins to write it down. Scusi?????????????? TRENTA!!!???!!! I snatched the paper out of his hand. No me jodas. Thirty? I don´t think so. I scratched out what he had written and wrote down 24. Toma. I then asked if he wore glasses, the only reason to explain why he could have thought I was thirty. Then I just realized he was an 18 year old douche with no sense of how to gauge someone´s age. Good thing he wasn´t some carney working at the guess your age game because I would have totally walked away with some fugly stuffed animal. Now I am sure the other students who are all babies also think I am not only some weird foreigner but also the weird continuing education foreigner, that older person who inevitably sits in the front of the class and asks more questions. I can relate, I used to hate that person too, the one who hadn´t been in an academic setting since they had banned smoking and probably was still wearing a scrunchie. That person who missed class sometimes because they couldn´t find a sitter. That person who demanded more of the professor´s attention with some warped sense of entitlement. But I am NOT that person. I am not old enough to be your mom son. Now, because of my reaction I will also be known as the somewhat violent, foreign, continuing education student. I am doomed forever to sit by myself. Well I have one thing to say to that: Vaffanculo!