Playing Bridge Online the Other Day,

My partner was a young Italian man of "Intermediate" skill. We successfully bid and made several contracts, losing a couple of hands by just a single trick or two. I was encouraging my partner and "chatting" with him in Italian. Things were going great. Till one hand--he indicated that he had more than opening points, and I had nearly enough to have opened two no-trump myself. We had begun the bidding in no-trump, so I bid 4 Clubs (Gerber), asking for aces. Alas, my partner was unfamiliar with that bidding convention, and responded with a wildly disinformative bid, causing me to set our contract far above our means of fulfilling it--and our opponents pitilessly doubled us. We went down big-time, 1,600 or 1,800 points. Came then the mortified chat-message from my partner, "Mi dispiace. Ho sbagliato. Buona notte." It was like I could see the tears in his eyes. Hastily, I typed, "C'era solamente un malinteso di Gerber. Va bene. Non ti preoccupare."

For a long minute, there was nothing in the chat-box--then: "Sei una persona meravigliosa."

I've been walking on air ever since.