Read the stories below and say how young people in Britain start a relationship. Say how they begin to feel towards each other. Pay attention to the words in bold.

A. Ann was a very romantic girl who often dreamed of love and marriage. She was especially attracted to a young man called Michael, who worked in the same office as she did, and he was very keen on her too. They became friendly and one day Michael asked her to go out with him. Their first date was a visit to the cinema, and they both enjoyed the evening so much that they decided to go out together regularly. Michael was a bit untidy and rather young, and Ann’s parents didn’t approve of him at first, but Anna was a sensible, mature girl and had confidence in her. For a year or so everything went well, but then somehow they slowly began to drift apart, until finally they decided to break off their relationship.

B. One evening, although he was nervous, Joe decided to propose to his girlfriend, Linda. She accepted his proposal, they became engaged and he gave her a ring. After a year they had saved enough money to get married (they both were over 18, so they did not need their parents’ consent). Some people have a religious ceremony with a priest, but Joe and Linda decided on a civil ceremony in a registry office. On the day of the wedding, Linda, the bride, was very calm, but Joe, the bridegroom, was nervous. Afterwards, at the reception, speeches were made and the guests drank a toast to the happy couple, who finally left for a honeymoon in Spain.

C. I remember I was about 19. I went to a dance at the village hall. I went with my best friend, Marjorie. Marjorie was very pretty and all the boys liked her. They all wanted to dance with her. I didn’t enjoy dances much. I was always very shy.

I sat at a table in the corner of the dance hall. No one asked me to dance. After about an hour, Marjorie came up and said, “Go and ask one of the boys to dance! You can’t just sit there! It was awful. I hated every minute of it. In the end, she told one of her boyfriends to go and ask me for a dance. I was so embarrassed! Anyway, the boy came up and we danced. His name was Mick and he was very nice. He asked me to go to the cinema with him the next day. That was the start of it. I went out with him for a year, and then he asked me to marry him. My parents were a bit surprised. They liked him, but they said we were too young. They told us to wait. We waited nine months and then, on my 21^st birthday, we got married. We now have three children and we’re very happy. I still see Marjorie quite often. She always says, ‘You mustn’t sit and wait for things to happen. You must go out and make them happen.” I think she is right.

D. The first time Mike saw Helen, he fell in love with her. It was love at first sight. The problem was how to win her love for him. First, he tried to impress her. He asked her to fly to Cannes with him for the Film Festival. She refused. Then he asked her to come to Rome with him. But she said no. “Perhaps she likes the simple life, “he thought. So he asked her to spend a weekend with him in the country. She refused that too. “Food. I’ll try food,” he thought and asked her to eat out with him at Mason’s, one of the best restaurants in London.

“No, thank you,” she said and lowered her lovely blue eyes. “She’s so beautiful,” he thought. “I will try one last question.” And he asked her to marry him.

“Yes, she said. I will. Mason’s, Rome, Cannes, the country – what an exciting life we will have!”

E. I quite likedTom when we first met. However, although lots of my friends said they found him attractive, I didn’t fancy him at all. He invited me out and I must admit that I was more tempted by his sports car than by him at first. However, I really enjoyed spending time with him. He fascinated me with his stories of his travels around the world and something mysterious about his past also attracted me. Moreover, we were both very keen on sailing. Soon I realised I had fallen in love with him. His sense of humour really appealed to me and I was also captivated by his gift for poetry. Now, three years later I absolutely adore him and cannot understand why I didn’t fall for him the moment we first set eyes on each other. He is a very caring person, fond of animals and small children. He is always affectionate and loving towards me and passionate about the causes he believes in and the people he cares for. I hope we shall always worship each other as much as be as devoted to our life together as we are now.

F. “We first met at a club in town. The moment I saw her I started chatting her up. She was beautiful. Then I offered to buy her a drink,” said Richard.

“I turned him down at first. I don’t usually accept drinks form strangers,” continued Emma. “But we talked for a while longer and I decided he was rather nice. Then he asked me out at the end of the evening and I agreed.”

“We went to a French restaurant on our first date and had a great time. We got on with each other really well, “said Richard.

“Yes,” agreed Emma, “we really liked each other. After that we saw each other two or three times a week.”

“We had been going out together for a couple of months when Emma’s old boyfriend Andrew wrote her a letter – he wanted to see her. He said he was finding it hard to get over her. Then he started phoning.”

“It was difficult, “said Emma. “ We tried to put up with the situation but it was awful. We nearly split up with each other, didn’t we?”

Richard smiled and took her hand. “We are still together, though.”

G. A lot of girls I knew had five or six fellas before they had the right one. I was lucky in that I got the right one straight away. We went out together every night for four years and never went any further than a snog. People are amazed that I was able to resist him for four years but that’s just what one did.

Jimmy was living in digs and he would come to our house for his supper every night. He was always asking me when I was going to marry him. I would tell he was the man I was going to marry but that there was no hurry. About a seven-minute walk away from our house was a place called Wood Hill. We would go up there to snog and one day I told him that when he built me a house on that hill, I would marry him. I knew I was safe because we had no money.

Five weeks later we went there and a foundation had been dug out with a “Sold” sign on it. I said: “We can’t live there now because somebody else has bought it.” He just said very quietly: “Did you ever think you would have to get married?” I was furious because I thought he was suggesting something quite improper. I very nearly hit him as I had every intention of getting married in white. But then he put his arm around me and said I would have to marry him because he had bought the plot of land for £ 495. So we had a house built, called Prompt Corner, which had a lovely meadow next to it.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16