#VEGASMEGABIRTHDAYWOW

I made these for my two best friends:

An old writing adage for Becky.

And a classy piece of art for Meghan.

Becky and Meghan are born two days apart and have always thrown absurd, wonderful joint birthday parties. This year, we lived it up in Las Vegas (where Becky's getting her MFA).

It was ... absurdly fun. And I know fun usually implies something vapid or forced, but I genuinely had a wonderful, memorable time. I know this is one of those memories that'll be savored, one that will acquire a hazy syrupy glow of nostalgia and fondness.

Needless to say, being with Becky and Meg was right. When you've been friends for as long as we have, being together feels like the universe coming back into focus. I also got to spend time with the inestimable Felipe and Alex! Love those fellas.

I also got to spend time with Becky's Vegas friends, and I can now pretty confidently count many of them as my friends, too.

There were shenanigans which included alcoholic milkshakes, a giant metal praying mantis that shot fireballs out of her antennae, Truth or Dare, an unexpectedly fancy whiskey attic, spontaneous indoor rock climbing, the cheesiest diner I've ever seen, and even a writing craft lecture.

It's okay - I'd be jealous, too.

Okay, confession:
I was a little anxious about the trip before I left. I have a history of being deeply and painfully socially awkward. I've mostly grown out of it, but there's still a part of me that doesn't really believe that I'm no longer the wallflower I used to be.

A lot of my middle school awkwardness stayed with me through college (instead of dissipating, as it does for most people, as I understand it) because most of my peers were excessively cool. They were these unbelievably witty, esoteric, insightful artists and writers. They practically bled that weird brand of raggedy insouciant sophistication that's so unique to privileged but-trying-so-hard-to-not-seem-privileged college kids.

All of them seemed so Together. Like, they had things Figured Out. They had opinions and knew the difference between a syrah and a merlot. They lounged around and talked in these scornful, beautiful, careless voices. Compared to them, I felt like a dorky, too-earnest, naive kid, struggling to keep up with the grown ups. I was completely in awe of them, and completely intimidated by them. I always felt that I had to prove myself, that I had to earn my way into their exclusive circle.

Someone would crack a joke that hinged on an obscure piece of literature I hadn't read, and I would hear, "Impress me - then maybe we can be friends."

Someone would disinterestedly dismiss a comment I'd made and I would kick myself for being so stupid.

And, perversely, instead of becoming disgusted by the whole thing, it just made me try even harder, scrutinize myself even more. I have a problem with confrontation - my Asian heritage shows up in the form of accommodation and acquiescence, I guess - so instead of realizing that the reason I'd never live up to their expectations was that their standards were unreasonably high, I just accepted that I wasn't good enough.

Even as an adult, I've believed that - when getting to know people - I can't let anyone know what a total and complete dorkasaurus I am. I can't get loud or enthusiastic. Just play it cool, okay? Stop bouncing around, stop trying so hard, give people some room, geez.

I was worried, before I flew out for the birthday weekend, that I'd fall back into my old awkwardness. And then, while journaling at the airport, it suddenly hit me. I'll never be as good at cool as that one kid I went to school with. I'll never be as fun as that one girl I know. But, damnit, I am the best at being Leta. There is no one who is better at it.

And I'm rad. I know it's not cool to be all braggy-self-lovey, but I don't care. I'm awesome. A dork, yes. Over-excitable? Definitely. I am absolutely an unforgivable know-it-all (who doesn't even know that much about anything in particular), and I do get awkward and shy sometimes. But I also meet people with the expectation that I'll like them - I don't need people to impress me before I'll admit them into my life. I laugh really hard at stupid things. I like board games and staying at home sometimes, and I read books over and over, and I haven't read Faulkner or much TC Boyle, and I don't like a lot of music I probably should like, and I prefer cider over liquor and plain old apple juice over cider, and I give amazing high fives and I love hugs and am a terrible dancer and I don't really know what's cool, and that's okay with me.

What the hell. I don't need cool.

And I had a fucking blast in Vegas with everyone! There were probably people who don't think much of me, who think I'm a boring so-what with boring so-what thoughts. But I like most everyone I met, and I don't care if they know that I like them. I don't care if they know what a spaz I can be, or how nerdy I can get, or how earnest and eager and - sure - naive I am about some things. I don't care if they know how much I loved it. There seems to be this weird taboo against talking about or showing or admitting how much you really like something, and I've decided that this is foolish.

I loved it. The whole trip. Everything.

I loved meeting everyone and getting to know people and making friends. I loved being myself with my two best friends in the world. I loved seeing how much everyone loves Becky. I loved being wholehearted and holding nothing back. I loved that there were people who have only known me like this - trying to be no one else but myself.

It's a shift that's been coming on for a long time. I don't need to be cool and superior. I can afford to expose my own ignorance, because how else do you remedy it? I can afford to not hold back, even if I end up going too far, because what's the use of anything you do by halves?

I know I had a point with this post, but I've forgotten what it was I was trying to say.

This just turned into an indulgent, self-congratulatory pep talk for me. But I couldn't write this post without going into all the personal revelations that accompanied the trip.

I don't have a good way to end this, so I'll just wrap up by saying that I can't wait to go back.

Glib

A friend of mine from college recently reposted this picture to her facebook.

Seems reasonable, right? Right?

I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling combative, but this bothered me so much.

Firstly, let me just state that, broadly, yes, I agree with the statement. I think we all need to be decent to one another. I think our conversations need to be respectful and empathetic and honest and authentic. I do like the idea behind this, but I also think it's overly simplistic and even dangerously broad and vague.

Most people, face to face, are decent to one another. Most of us don't go around picking fights with strangers and acquaintances. Most of us aren't all that selfish, and most of us don't hurt the people around us intentionally. Mostly we're all just trying to get on with life. Decency is pretty ubiquitous. As often as someone cuts me off on the road, someone else will let me merge into the lane. People are decent.

But here's where this statement falls apart:
It really does matter what you believe, because your worldview dictates how you vote, the kind of education you approve of and fight for, and your opinions of/actions regarding many other large-scale topics which have distinct and demonstrable effects on broad segments of the population. Being decent in daily life is good, but it's not enough if you don't also support legislation that is decent (for as many people as possible) and doesn't curb basic human rights.

This statement is not saying "be decent to each other" - don't be fooled.

It's actually saying that heated discussion is mean. It's implying, "Look, when someone gets uncomfortable, drop the subject." And this is the opposite of the decent thing to do! Yes, when having debates, you should be respectful and listen and try to understand a subject from the other person's point of view. But that is a far cry from not saying anything that might make someone feel bad. Listen, it feels bad when you are forced to confront the holes in your reasoning, when you have to face inconsistencies and and admit fallacies in your dearly cherished beliefs. It does. It's not a fun experience. But being asked to confront those things is not a cruel or mean act, and allowing someone to hold onto a flawed or ignorant viewpoint is not being kind.

If someone is uncomfortable discussing their viewpoints and dislikes hearing others, it's still ultimately a disservice to him to halt the conversation. Feeling bad is not a valid reason to stop thinking critically.

Also, this is nitpicking, but the text should read "It doesn't matter whether you're an atheist or a theist," or perhaps "nonbeliever or believer" (which is obviously the less precise of the two). Keep the syntax parallel.

I realize all this makes me sound like a jerk, and not decent. But glib statements like these ("it doesn't matter, just play nice") make it too easy to dismiss honest debate and discussion. It provides an easy shut-off-valve. "You gotta stop talking about this because it's making me feel bad, and that means you're a bad person!" Nobody likes to think of themselves as a bad person, so it works. We stop talking. We stop sharing ideas and thoughts and beliefs. We divide and subdivide into little groups where we never experience discomfort. It's damaging to us as individuals, damaging to us as a species.

We're better off - even if someone ends up feeling a little offended or put upon - having the hard conversations than we would be if we all just gave up whenever someone felt uncomfortable for having their viewpoints challenged. I don't mean we should hound people if they disagree with us. Various viewpoints are beneficial. But it's not indecent to challenge ourselves.

The decent thing to do is to refuse to back away from things that make us uncomfortable, that cause a little cognitive dissonance. The decent thing to do is for everyone to pile in! just get right in there! and share and communicate and have to think critically about what we believe.

Also: If someone really thinks that what she believes doesn't matter and has no weight in determining whether or not her actions are decent, then they must be such insignificant beliefs! They must be worthless! What viewpoint has no bearing on your behavior? What behavior has no bearing on interactions with others, on decency?

Embrace mental discomfort! It points us in better directions. Friends don't let friends wrap themselves in comfortable viewpoints that have no foundations in conscious, critical thought! If your viewpoints are important to you, examine why they're important. Find out the flaws. Figure out the weak points. And then - attack those spots with everything you've got. Rip it apart. Start refining. Challenge yourself! Build better foundations! It's how we figure out what's worth believing.

tl;dr

Yes.

This.

The friends that eat each other stay together. For eternity.

So this is obviously a thing that happens between good friends.

Totally normal. Nothing strange or unusual about this friendship.

"No, but where are you from?"

I've been sitting on this post for a while now. I've hesitated in posting it, partly because I'm still working out my thoughts about it, and partly because it feels like pointless complaining. It probably is, but ... awareness is the first step leading to prevention, right?

Just recently, I was at the grocery store, picking up stuff to make slow-cooker chicken and rice ("Leta's favorite hot dish" as it's known in my family, similar to my brothers' eponymous fave mom-cooked meals: "Ryan's favorite hot dish" and "Evan's lentil chili"). It is about as Midwestern as you can get, except for maybe Tater Tot Casserole.

As I was looking at almost-stale loaves of bread and dented tins of soup in the day-old clearance section, a rotund, Caucasian, white-whiskered, middle-aged man came up behind me and said without preamble, "Konichiwa!" He then proceeded to speak about four or five more sentences of what I assume was proper Japanese. I planned on just ignoring him, but my damned politeness kicked in after a few seconds of silence, and I burst out, "I don't speak Japanese" in as robustly a native-English-speaker-accent as I could manage.

He promptly switched to Chinese, which I only recognized because he included "xiexie," a phrase meaning "thank you" that my best friend has added to her daily vocabulary since her semester studying abroad in China a few years back.

I wanted to walk away, but I also wanted to be able to browse the day-old shelves in peace. All I wanted was to stand there and debate with myself over the pros and cons of buying discounted cookies.

Instead, I was being sucked into a conversation (yet another conversation) about my race / heritage / background / culture.

"No, I don't speak Chinese, either," I said shortly, hoping my terse tone and lack of eye contact and generally stiff body language would deter this man from his current efforts to ... whatever he was trying to do. Show off his language skills? Make a friend (by making assumptions - presumptions - about her history)? Connect with a stranger (in a vaguely intrusive and mildly offensive manner)? The thing is, I'm sure this man's intentions were kind and friendly. I'm sure he thought he was being inclusive and interesting.

But the fact remains that he, seeing an Asian woman, assumed that she A) spoke a different language and B) wanted to stop and have a conversation with a complete stranger in the midst of grocery shopping.

I wouldn't have been upset if he'd treated other people who were browsing the day-old bakery aisle the same way, like if he'd gone up to the woman next to me who had dark wavy hair and a strong nose and started speaking to her in Italian or something. It would have been the same casual stereotyping, but at least I would know it was universal for this man.

Listen. I'm not saying I don't like talking with strangers. Sometimes, I really enjoy it. Some of the most interesting conversations I've had have been on airplanes or public transit, striking up impromptu chats with the people around me. I once spent a good four hours having an astonishingly fascinating conversation with a guy as we sat on a train from Illinois to Iowa. I think I shared more with him and learned more about him than I shared with or know about some of the people I went to college with.

But the thing is, those conversations started from a shared experience: waiting for a bus to arrive, flying to the same location, getting caught in the same unexpected rainstorm. They started with eye contact, shared looks of impatience, resigned shrugs, sheepish grins. The basic formalities of invitation were made, and conversations grew up naturally, springing up suddenly like dandelions.

The conversation the man in the grocery store was different. It started with an intrusion, a voice speaking to the back of my head. It started with a minimization of my autonomy and uniqueness as an individual. Someone looked at me, saw dark hair and almond eyes, and boiled me down into "speaks an Asian language" or "is not an American" or "would be really pleased / surprised / impressed that I can speak her language."

Also, the general blindness of the differences between the residents of Asian countries is tricky. As someone not raised in Asia, I'm just as ignorant. But - I also wouldn't just pick a language and start speaking, hoping it's the right one. Because I understand that that would be rude, or potentially even offensive.

A big part of me was tempted to just start speaking in German to the man. Nothing about him really screamed "German" but it's definitely likely that, as a white American, at least some of his ancestors were German, right? So it would make total sense to spit a bunch of friendly, well-meaning mothertongue at him. And if that failed, I could just switch to French! And then maybe Polish, or Italian, right? It's gotta be one of those!

But instead I just smiled thinly and walked away.




About a month ago, I was waiting at a bus stop and was reading a book to pass the time. A woman and her boyfriend were noisily gossiping together. I focused harder on my book, in part to not appear to be eavesdropping (not that I think the couple would care), and in part to divorce myself from the environment (since I don't really like listening to gossip). But suddenly I found it impossible to ignore the couple, because the woman was leaning over and almost-shouting a question in my direction.

"Where are you from?"

"Here," I said, knowing if I stayed silent it would just prompt more questions and possibly hostility from this boisterous woman.

"Oh." She was quiet for a moment. I thought maybe she'd reflect on the fact that barging in on a stranger's reading and demanding personal information from her might be a weird thing to do. Unfortunately, she seemed to just be taking a minute to figure out how best to get the information she wanted out of this apparently-dimwitted Asian.

"So, like, what is your nationality?" she asked, obviously pleased at the specificity of her question. Now she'd get the answer she wanted!

"I'm American."

"But, I mean, your ancestors. Where are you from?" she clarified, drawing out the from in almost exactly the same way the guy in the above video does. "Frommm?"

I turned back to my book, tired of being polite. "Korea."

The woman laughed delightedly. An answer! "I knew it!" she said, unknowingly mimicking the video again. I couldn't believe it. "I knew you had to be Korean! You have such pretty eyes."

Perversely, the compliment just made me furious. She liked my eyes? Because they're uniquely pretty eyes, or because they happen to be almond shaped? Would  my eyes stand out from any other Korean woman's eyes? It felt like a comment like "Your people have such a rich oral history" or "You're all such hard workers" - meant to be praise but feeling so alienating. And not terribly complimentary, because I have no control over how my eyes are shaped.

(not my eye, btw)

If someone compliments my clothing or my hairstyle, I'm okay with that. They're conscious efforts I make - my style is a personal expression I'm actively sharing with the world. I actively enjoy when someone notices my glasses or tells me they liked something I wrote. I don't even care when someone compliments my skin (it's happened) - part of its clearness and evenness is genetic, but it's also partly due to my beauty regimen (i.e. I don't wear makeup because I think it ruins skin), so I'm gratified when someone notices.

But my eye shape has literally nothing to do with me as a thinking being. It's not an accomplishment to look Asian when I was born Asian. Compliment my hair because I woke up and styled it. Compliment my handwriting because I had some say over how it looks. Compliment my ideas when they're praiseworthy. But waiting to tell me I have pretty eyes until you clearly establish my race (thereby implying that it's my ethnic background alone which makes them pretty) is ... not a compliment. Or, at least, it doesn't feel like one.

Again, it was this unthinking removal of my individuality.





I don't have any real conclusions to draw. I think I'll continue these thoughts in another post, or maybe a few others. Mostly I just needed to say it, to work out what I think about these things. It's both fascinating and infuriating.

More complaints/introspection to come.