Monday, August 16, 2004
This weekend turned out to be rather rough. On Saturday night, I got a call from Panna, who needed someone to talk to after breaking up with David. I listened to her ramble about various aspects of their relationship in her characteristically ADD sort of way, and after an hour or so of release, she cheerfully thanked me for listening and hung up.
Immediately afterwards I got a call from Emily, for the first time in months, who had (ironically enough) just broken up with her boyfriend. Two in one night... I must be turning into a real sponge. Emily began by declaring her hatred for all the male race, and told me she needed somebody to talk to. I quietly pointed out that I too, am male, and asked her why she wanted to talk to me. There was an embarrassed silence from Emily. Apparently she had forgotten that I am male. I quickly changed the subject to Nick, and rest of the conversation flowed smoothly.
Of course I don't mind lending a listening ear to those that would like it. I have an instinctive desire to take care of those who are hurting, and that is why I trained to be an EMT, trained to be a peer-counselor, and taught at math camp those two summers. But it would be nice if these friends that I talk to showed a little more respect, or consideration, for me. It doesn't quite seem right that the story of Panna and Emily sums up in a concise way the entirety of my relationship with white women.
So much for Saturday night. I spent the rest of the weekend working on my powerpoint presentation, and trying to get some reading done while sitting around the dorm. Since it is the last weekend of our summer program, it seemed that many of my housemates were being visited by their girlfriends. Of course, my summer program is full of a bunch of white male physics majors. You know that ugly, geeky, mildly annoying white physics major with bad skin and worse social skills? The one that you feel sorry for, because you wonder who could ever love him. I assume that every college classroom has one or two of those asking smartass questions to the professor. Yeah. By his junior year, he's dating an Asian American girl. It's actually sort of annoying how consistent this is true: he's too unattractive to get the thin blonde, so he settles for the easy ones, the one that's desperate for his skin color. And it's more annoying when several of these types spend their weekend parading their AA girls around the dorm, lewdly touching her in public, and I don't mean holding her hand. It's annoying when they come into my room, while I'm lying in bed reading a book about American Imperialism, and they put on the same display in my room.
For the past 9 weeks at Princeton, I've kept a running count of the Asian woman-Asian man couples I've seen in public. I've only managed to keep an accurate count, because such sightings have been sufficiently rare. I've counted 5 this summer. On the other hand, every time I take a walk down Nassau Street, I notice around half a dozen Asian women clinging onto a white American man while they leisurely take an evening stroll. And since I walk down Nassau Street just about every day, I guess I have seen 9 x 7 x 6 = 378 of these couples.
The predictability is getting tiresome.
So I've spent the past few days fighting off what seems like a two-pronged assault on my sanity, from two distinct groups of women. Panna calls regularly, and I try and help her sort through her own tangled thoughts. After all, she didn't choose her ADD any more than David chose his alcoholism, though she sees the two as completely different. And I go running and avoid my housemates and their less than perfect mannerisms.
Immediately afterwards I got a call from Emily, for the first time in months, who had (ironically enough) just broken up with her boyfriend. Two in one night... I must be turning into a real sponge. Emily began by declaring her hatred for all the male race, and told me she needed somebody to talk to. I quietly pointed out that I too, am male, and asked her why she wanted to talk to me. There was an embarrassed silence from Emily. Apparently she had forgotten that I am male. I quickly changed the subject to Nick, and rest of the conversation flowed smoothly.
Of course I don't mind lending a listening ear to those that would like it. I have an instinctive desire to take care of those who are hurting, and that is why I trained to be an EMT, trained to be a peer-counselor, and taught at math camp those two summers. But it would be nice if these friends that I talk to showed a little more respect, or consideration, for me. It doesn't quite seem right that the story of Panna and Emily sums up in a concise way the entirety of my relationship with white women.
So much for Saturday night. I spent the rest of the weekend working on my powerpoint presentation, and trying to get some reading done while sitting around the dorm. Since it is the last weekend of our summer program, it seemed that many of my housemates were being visited by their girlfriends. Of course, my summer program is full of a bunch of white male physics majors. You know that ugly, geeky, mildly annoying white physics major with bad skin and worse social skills? The one that you feel sorry for, because you wonder who could ever love him. I assume that every college classroom has one or two of those asking smartass questions to the professor. Yeah. By his junior year, he's dating an Asian American girl. It's actually sort of annoying how consistent this is true: he's too unattractive to get the thin blonde, so he settles for the easy ones, the one that's desperate for his skin color. And it's more annoying when several of these types spend their weekend parading their AA girls around the dorm, lewdly touching her in public, and I don't mean holding her hand. It's annoying when they come into my room, while I'm lying in bed reading a book about American Imperialism, and they put on the same display in my room.
For the past 9 weeks at Princeton, I've kept a running count of the Asian woman-Asian man couples I've seen in public. I've only managed to keep an accurate count, because such sightings have been sufficiently rare. I've counted 5 this summer. On the other hand, every time I take a walk down Nassau Street, I notice around half a dozen Asian women clinging onto a white American man while they leisurely take an evening stroll. And since I walk down Nassau Street just about every day, I guess I have seen 9 x 7 x 6 = 378 of these couples.
The predictability is getting tiresome.
So I've spent the past few days fighting off what seems like a two-pronged assault on my sanity, from two distinct groups of women. Panna calls regularly, and I try and help her sort through her own tangled thoughts. After all, she didn't choose her ADD any more than David chose his alcoholism, though she sees the two as completely different. And I go running and avoid my housemates and their less than perfect mannerisms.
