Rambling post

I've noticed something interesting since I've had RM to talk and blog about: the range of people's appraisals of him is not unlike the range of appraisals of my mother.

On one end, you have the 'shrug's: eh, he's just friendly; eh, he's just a guy, and guys talk a lot, and eh, she's a Jewish mother; eh, you're an only child-- it's understandable that she obsesses.

On the other end, you have the clinical: could it be that he has Asperger's? and I think your mom is insane and/or emotionally abusive.

The in-between has been more defined for him than for her: he's an extrovert; he has a different personality, a different style. Mom, too, has a different personality/style that explains much of her behavior without dismissing it as perfectly normal or condemning it as pathological.

I've defended mom against accusations of insanity and abusiveness, but I can't deny that her behavior, toward me and otherwise, is by no stretch of the imagination healthy. Acknowledging that it can be straight-up abusive and dysfunctional is constructive, and not because it helps me manage her (I don't think it does); it's because it's important for me to acknowledge that I wasn't raised with the best role model of how to interact with other people, and it's understandable that breaking that cycle and learning my own way is not automatic. It's going to take more work for me than for someone whose parents did model appropriate social behavior.

Which is why I disagree with what Margo said the other night (in the nicest possible way-- I am not criticizing her). I mean, I may agree that it's silly to keep RM around as a teaching tool, but since I keep him around for rent anyway, I may as well use him as a foil for self-improvement. I think it's beneficial for me to work on not hating him. Which is not to say I'm going to try to like him. Rather, I'm going to continue to catch myself in unnecessarily hateful thoughts. This is an extension of something I'm working on with other people as well--thinking about why I give them the power to make me angry. Marcela, years ago when we lived together, would ask, when anyone reacted at anyone else with undue ire, "what does my reaction say about me?" In the case of a couple of friends and their snide comments--that can only stem from their own insecurities-- I've been working to consciously remember that their antics can only be a reflection of themselves, not of me.

We--people in general, I suppose--can often define ourselves in contrast to others, and that often entails demonizing other people into caricatures of what we don't want to be. It's one thing for me to be annoyed that my roommate still has trouble remembering to recycle; it's another to mold him into the epitome of everything that's wrong with the world. I'm exaggerating, but I hope you see my point.

I started thinking about this when I read this review of "Bruno", which said, "derision is not insight." The review questions what "look at those stupid rednecks," as the premise of a film, says about those of us doing the looking. And it's kind of unhealthy.

There are many things that separate each of us from other people, and we tend to self-congregate into circles of people who are just like us. I think that in a way, that's why it irks us so much when those closer to us in whatever way exhibit signs of a different value system-- we'd like to think everyone we let into our lives agrees with us about certain fundamental things. It doesn't take much for me to brush off someone obnoxious in the supermarket or out on the street; my mom, not so much-- it's an affront to her that such an obnoxious person exists, period. I don't aspire to remake humanity in my own image--in fact, I shudder at the thought--but I do take comfort in a semi-conscious presumption that when I get together with friends (or get home from work), I'm around people who, at least to some extent, think the same way.

RM's shattered that presumption: here's someone who has entirely different rules of interaction with other people. It's okay for me to bristle when he tries to impose those rules on me. However, it's not healthy for me to make myself feel better about myself because I'm so much that he isn't. And sometimes it's tempting. But I don't like smug people, and I don't want to become smug. I've blogged about his processed food habits and how unattractive to me--and like quinoa, I believed in real food before it was trendy, but my whole point has been, the way I cook and eat is not for everyone. Would it be better for the planet if it were? Of course, and that's not nothing, but I don't think I'm a better person because I make whole wheat flatbread and he buys frozen waffles, and I don't want to start thinking that I am.

On a similar note, I have to admit that his personality does bring out my insecurities. It makes me wonder why I bother being considerate and not in people's faces all the time, when he does it and gets away with it. Not that I want to be in people's faces all the time, but that's just it: part of me wonders whether I'd get more done in life if I were.

But I've observed people turn nasty over their insecurities, and that's something I care to avoid. I have a friend from grad school who was so easily and constantly threatened that she would recoil when she read on e-vites that people couldn't come to a party because they were, for example, in Kathmandu. It ate at her that they were, and she wasn't, and it was as if they were saying that just to remind her. In fact, whenever she would talk about someone living well, there would be an overtone of jealousy and resentment.

I guess part of me *is* envious that I struggle over my food choices, make sacrifices, spend more money, etc. to eat more sustainably, and then in moves this dufus that doesn't give it a second thought. But resenting him for it doesn't help me or the planet. It's the easiest emotion, but also the least constructive.

I guess what I'm saying is, the guy's here for another four months, so those months may as well be 'teachable.'