“I think we should leave at 5:30,” my mother said, “just so we know we’re there with plenty of time.”
My father shook his head. “That’ll put us right into rush hour. We should go later, otherwise we’ll be stuck and get there at the same time anyhow. We should leave at 6:30 or something like that.”
“But we’re supposed to be there and checked in at least an hour before the flight. 5:30 would get us there in plenty of time.”
“No it wouldn’t because traffic would slow us down so that we’d get there at the same time as is we’d left at 6:30.”
“Okay, how about we compromise and leave at 5:30?”
My father and I glanced at each other.
My lips pressed together as I tried to suppress a snicker. “That’s not a compromise.”
My father didn’t bother to hold back. “Well, maybe her kind of compromise!”
“What?” My mother watched us as we collapsed in our seats laughing. “I said we could leave at 5:30!”
“That’s exactly what you said before!”
“No it isn’t! I said 5:00!”
We left at 5:30.
So yeah. Our perspectives at home are a bit out of sync, especially when it comes to my mother. We all get along and serious arguments don’t happen often, but our methods of functioning and aesthetics are a bit different. For example, there’s this ceramic bunny that my mother adores and sets on the dining room table every spring before Easter. It has white fur, a blue ribbon around its neck, and the eyes of Satan. To make it worse, the thing is lying on its back, feet in the air, and stares at where I sit to eat every night. Each time I look up from a bite of food, I find its eyes boring into my soul. It’s saying “Sure I look cute and fluffy, but I know what you do in the dark.” I’ve been telling her for years now that the thing is disturbing. She never believes me. I tried to bring my father into the argument, but he’s a smart guy and decided to sit this one out. I think he went to a nearby fallout shelter…
Anyhow, as a last ditch attempt to validate my opinion, I sent a picture of the floppy-eared demon to six of my friends over Snapchat, asking whether they thought the thing was creepy or not.
My friend Erica texted me a few minutes later: “Okay why the hell did you just send me that creepy ass bunny? I’m scarred for life thanks a lot X-P ”
Next Brittany: “Why the hell do you have that thing in your house?”
Then James: “Get out.
Run. Just run.
Fuck.
Fucking run.”
He later added “That thing is objectively creepy.”
I showed these responses to my mother who, contrary to my father’s tacit prediction, cracked up.
“Okay!” she said once she got ahold of herself. “We can get rid of it if you want.”
“You kidding?” I said. “After these sorts of responses? We’re keeping that thing so that I can lord it over you for the next ten years!”
Perspective can be a funny thing. According to solipsists, it’s the only thing that matters because it is our only evidence that we exist as individuals. To relativity physicists, each frame of reference perceives everything else to move around in relation to it. To the average person, our perception of the world is reality. It determines our tastes and what we think is ethical, thus determining our actions. It is what makes some people think that rap is wonderful and what makes me think that most of it is offensive non-musical dog mess. Memories become skewed because of it and conversations get confusing.
It’s also what causes me to detest the stereotypical frat boy and love the weirdos, freaks, and geeks. Sure preferences create divisions and confusions, but it also gives people something to bond over. I think it’s much more fun to talk about books and The Muppets than sports and Ke$ha. That limits me from some conversation and makes swimming in glamorous social circles a bit of a trick. Then again, it also makes moving in others easier and fun. The only problem is that, as I have found at least in Massachusetts society, it’s difficult to belong to several social groups. Either you’re one of us or you’re not. You cannot be both a partier and a geek. You cannot be artsy and athletic. I’m all of the above, so where do I go? So often around here, people are forced to choose one aspect about themselves to show and claim as their identity at the expense of suppressing the others. If you want to branch out, you have to go to another end of campus and join a club where no one has ever heard of you. That can work except that, as I said last time, if you aren’t spending every free moment with someone, they tend to forget you around here or think that you have forgotten them.
It’s a very select and special group of people that can accept any blend of interests in a person. Here, an eclectic is an outcast; a misfit. There are going to be a fair number of them though. There are going to be a handful of people drifting through school society who sort of fit into one group, but don’t conform entirely and can’t quite fit. Those people find each other and, seeing the mosaics of personalities and interests in each other, bond. These are the people that I like. These are the ones who have a hodgepodge of abilities and oddities and accept the same things in others. They give me a place where I have people that I can bounce banter off of and have a good time with any time, not just when our interests align. So if I prefer to pass over Greek life and hang out with the people who will sing a chorus of “Manamana” and get askance looks in the dining hall with me, then I will be happy to stay with them. We can stare right back at those others, reveling in our oddities, and pity them for what they’re missing out on because there’s just no accounting for taste.
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