There are 7 ETAs in Franken (remember, that's the area of Bavaria I live in. Keep up, people!). Two in Nürnberg, two in Erlangen, one in Bamberg and two in Forchheim. The 7 of us get together pretty regularly (if not all of us, at least different combinations of us). And, as you might have guessed, the two in Forchheim are Gemma and I (omg! Who saw that one coming?!). Out of the 7, we are the only two that live in the same apartment. Also, Gemma is the only British assistant. Which means she moved in about 2 weeks after the first six of us. She also (maybe unwillingly) got thrown into this group of Americans because we lived together and therefore did things together, which inevitably were also together with the other ETAs.
So since we have the same main circle of friends, everyone figured out after a while, that when they needed both of us, they only had to call one of us. Our one friend even dubbed us "Gemily" to save time when talking about us or addressing us. When I talk about us (e.g. inviting friends over to our place) I like to go with the 1st person version of our collective name: "Gemmani" (Gemma and I... get it?).
Over the past nine months, Gemmani have accepted our role as a collective. When one of us is invited out, the other is almost always automatically included. When one of us goes to the store, we both usually walk down together. When one of us emails the group to set up plans, it both approved and co-signed by the other. When we have a lesson to plan or a decision to make, we always discuss it with the other.
Why am I telling you this? Well, besides Gemma being my other half and an integral part of my Fulbright year, I realized the other day that it has now become difficult to refer to myself in the singular.
In the beginning, we always joked about responding as a collective "We think that would be fun!" "Do you want to come out with us?" "We
like that idea!" But as time progressed, it became less of a joke and more of the norm. In a weird kind of way. "Can we call you back?" "We're done with school at 1pm." "We thought it would be best to go ahead and book the flight to the US." It finally reached the point that I had to give it pause last week on the phone to one of our friends from Erlangen. She called my phone to tell me a story while Gemmani had made a brief stop on our way home from school. This is pretty much how the conversation went:
J: Hey! I have to tell you this story about something that happened today!
E: OMG, sounds exciting, but we're in Aldi [Gemma was outside] can we call you back when we got home? Or you can call us?
J: Yeah sure
E: Actually we'll probably be on skype when we get back.
I had an entire conversation that was directed at just me using only plural pronouns and Gemma wasn't even with me at the time. That's when I knew this Royal We situation was getting serious.
But I'm already dreading the de-pluralization of my pronouns. That sad day when the "we" becomes "me". The end of the Gemily era. And it's getting frighteningly closer everyday.
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