While I've encountered problems living in China these are NOT among them. This is the first of a couple posts I hope to dedicate to the things I fear the most when going back to the US. Boredom will be the first post, beating out my fears of not finding jobs, driving on a highway again, legal firearms, painfully bland foodand seasonal affective disorder.
I'm not saying I don't have dear friends back home. I'm also not saying there are no interesting people to meet. I think there are just so many dear and interesting people that we have the luxury of choosing those who are exactly like us. Having been homeschooled up until Jr. High, it wasn't until my first 7th grade lunch period when the girls started dragging desks around our homeroom to create separate tables that I realized I had to pick a "group." In college it got even harder when I ended up being in both the Honors program and on the volleyball team. The volleyball team tanned and partied with the basketball boys. The Honors students clustered in the student lounge, studying and telling jokes about Descartes walking into a bar. And I holed up in my dorm room and felt incredibly lonely, because you have to pick one, and those lunch tables just won't mix.
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| This is the cool table...what makes you think you can sit here? |
And I never stopped feeling like I had to choose. Whenever I met new people, I felt like I was getting sized up. Political views, theology, what I read, what I listen to, how much I make, what I'm wearing and whether or not my kids are gluten free. It's like we're shifting the desks and dividing up all over again. I'm just as guilty of it as anyone, having made my share of snide comments about everything from someone's taste in literature to what they ate for breakfast. I even remember criticizing someone's favorite Thai restaurant. At length. Like there aren't bigger differences in the world that we need to worry about. What I didn't realize is that if you stick with your lunch table group forever, you start running out of things to talk about. You all shop at the same stores, read the same books and pretty much have the same philosophies about everything. Maybe someone could take you out to a new restaurant except, oh yeah, you wrote that person off because they didn't know anything about authentic Thai food. Mostly you just sit around agreeing with each other and slamming everyone who doesn't think like you. How so-and-so must have spent a fortune on her dress ("sooo materialistic!") and so-and-so read Twilight ("soooo immature!") and so-and-so gave her kid a pop-tart for breakfast ("DOES SHE WANT HER KID TO DIE!?!? THE HUMANITY!!"). You have so much in common, in fact, there's no need to talk about much else. When you can pick from 300 things to say that are going to be accepted by the group, why say the 1 thing that pops into your head that might cause a stir?
Why mention that you're lonely? That you don't feel like there's anyone you can talk to about your real life. That your unsure about your parenting. That your unsure about your life in general. That you wish God was more real to you. That you really don't want to talk about all the benefits of breastfeeding. Again. That you gave your kid a pop-tart once and now you're afraid if anyone finds out, you won't have a lunch table anymore.
I have three really good friends here. One was a platoon leader that got a full scholarship to West Point and served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. She's knows what she thinks and she's going to say it-lunch table etiquette be damned. Around her, I don't feel like I have to pretend. Another friend is from a hardscrabble neighborhood in Brooklyn where you couldn't pick a group that wasn't doing something or other illegal, so she's used to going against the current. She doesn't spend a minute being insecure about her own choices and consequently doesn't waste a second judging others. I feel no need to explain or justify anything. Then there's my friend who went to Harvard and has a law degree and makes me explain or justify everything I say...because she honestly values my opinions and the reasoning that got me there. She can't wait to talk to someone who thinks differently than she does because she knows it will help her to learn and explore and clarify. It's the first time I've had to articulate everything I think so clearly and it's the first of many times I've had to recognize I hadn't thought through something or was just flat out wrong. I actually have to think. And be honest. And be vulnerable. I have to take ownership of my ideas and choices and feelings because they're actually mine now...not just "the group's." Chances are that everyone won't agree with me. And that's ok. Because it gives us so much more to talk about.
Which is why I really fear going back to the lunchroom. Because I don't want to have to choose a group and I don't want to forever resign myself to an endless loop of breastfeeding and gluten conversations. Because there are a lot of interesting people in the world with a lot of interesting things to say if it was a little more acceptable to just pick up your stupid lunch tray and sit down next to them.
