2008-01-12 - 6:39 p.m.
Three More Times I Didn't Make Friends
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"I just can't imagine how you can live like that," she tells me.
By "like that" what she is referring to is my scanty ability to communicate with my inlaws.*
And I don't know what to say to her in response.
I don't know what to say to her because I think that I know what she's up to. It's called Comparing Downwards and this exercise is, supposedly, good for your self esteem. You compare yourself with people who you feel more fortunate or otherwise successful than and it helps you to feel better about yourself. It is not, however, necessary to inform your comparees that you are performing this exercise for it to work and I'm hesitant to respond to it because I don't want her to think that I'm defending myself, which I feel utterly uninclined to do.
"Well, you know, sometimes it's just easier to perform card tricks instead," I say.
This statement is neither true, nor makes much sense, but I felt pretty proud of myself for having thought it up so quickly.
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The club we're in has become so smoky that it's making my eyes hurt, so I invite my friend Kantoku outside to drink beer on the sidewalk with me.
"Uh, he has a girlfriend you know," a girl I've never met before tells me.
"Yeah," I say. "I know. I'm friends with her."
In reality though, I'm much better friends with Kantoku than I am with his girlfriend. Ever since Kantoku's girlfriend started compared downwards with me I've found it difficult to try to like her. But I wanted a response that was as snappy as possible. Something about this girl in front of me now reeks of a Catholic upbringing and I wanted to help her to realize that it's wrong to jump to conclusions and to assume that invitations to alcohol consumption with blondes always have ulterior motives.
She apologizes immediately, then later follows us outside and apologizes again. It's actually a little embarassing how sorry she truly is. I realize that I have indeed succeeded in teaching her a life-lesson, which is what I had wanted to do, but now that the lesson has been taught I kind of wish that I had also taught her the grace to pretend that the whole thing never happened.
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I'm at the Hachinohe tourist centre helping myself to their free maps. An attendant from the centre comes over to chat me up.
Our conversation is so boring that I feel sorry for her co-workers. I'm doing my best to be pleasant while also making it clear that I'm only here for the maps.
She suggests that I come to her house to babysit her kids once a week or so. Her English is terrible, but impressed by how well she's framed this suggestion. She says that I should come to babysit her kids, not that I could come to babysit. And then she is very quick to add to this something about tea and cakes and how well-behaved her children are.
I tell her, as nicely as I possibly can, that that's a very nice offer, but I'm really not interested.
She is, however, not deterred. Only a hour or two at a time she says. My kids are great. You'll love them. Everyone does.
I tell her that I work with kids and that I therefore like to do other things with my free time.
But she still won't give up. I haven't encountered anyone so pushy in so long that I've forgotten what to do. Can I be rude yet? I'm assuming that this is not the first time that this woman has attempted to recruit foreign babysitters from her workplace. I'm looking to her co-workers for a sign, something, telling me that they secretly want me to tell her off too.
They are avoiding eye contact with me.
I don't blame them.
She gives me a card with her phone number on it, just in case I change my mind. Then she wants my phone number too, and there is absolutely no way that I'm going to be duped into giving it to her, but she just won't stop.
If she was a man, I'm thinking, it would definitely be OK for me to be rude by now. But she isn't a man... I'm confused... And losing patience...
"Thanks for the maps!" I yell as I run out the door.
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* Before my recent visit with Roy in Osaka (thanks again for having me Roy!) - where I learned that I know a lot more Japanese than I think I do - I had naively assumed that once I had a good enough understanding of standard Japanese I would be able to understand, in context, the local dialect as well. Now, however, I know better, and that if I want to understand my new grandma (I do!) I need to study Nambu-ben as well which, with the help of a delightfully retarded local radio program, I now am.
