Pulp Fiction III

Pulp Fiction III

 This is the intellectual property of the author. Permission to reproduce in any format is granted, on the condition that you attribute it to the author and that you do not publish it for personal monetary gain.

‘Swedish people suck! Swedish people suck! Swedish people suck!’ The other boys at the table mobbed the Swedish boy with a chant joined by three or four pairs of fists banging on the table in rhythm. Thinking back to that day, the Polemicist realized that it had never occurred to him that the other 7^th graders were expressing racist sentiment. It seemed more accurate that he was being singled out as an individual, and merely insulted in the same way that people insult one’s mother—attempting to hurt someone’s feelings by verbally abusing people they care about.

            No, rather than the limited concept of racism, which is institutionalized hatred based on ethnic pride on the part of the abusers, this was xenophobia. Fear of that which is strange or unusual, foreign to the experience. Xenophobia isn’t a thing that you can put your finger on, thought the Polemicist. It’s spontaneous and rather than a predetermined organized resistance against a perceived enemy, it’s more of a knee-jerk response. It is the ostracism of someone who does not conform to your expectations. Xenophobia underlies all racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and all other prejudicial ‘isms.’ But it is technically the instinct within the individual that is what is seen manifesting in the second-and-third-order tiers of human activity as more obvious hatreds: bullying, then brawling, then rioting, then war. Racism is limited to distinctly different cultures and people groups, and sexism is limited to gender, but xenophobia covers white, American, middle-class males bullying other white, American, middle-class males. The fact of the Polemicist being Swedish was not something you could see, and it wasn’t, after all, what was seen that was rejected by the other boys. It was his personal uniqueness, his nonconformity.

            He didn’t chase tail, he didn’t care about ingesting substances, he didn’t care about sports, he didn’t dress the same, he didn’t talk the same, and he was ambivalent about gaining peer approval. For that, he was distrusted, because people naturally feel unable or unwilling to trust someone whose behavior they don’t understand. A lot of interpersonal prejudice in modern culture stems more from this instinctual, low-level xenophobic tendency than from an organized, intellectually comprehended, intentional and institutionalized bigotry against whole classes of people by other whole classes. Defining what is really xenophobia as racism does not resolve racism; instead, it conditions people with xenophobia to much more frequently make the leap from petty dislike of some individual to the justifying of vandalism or murder in the service of an imagined class war. And imagined wars, if too many people participate in the imagining of them, become real wars.

            The Polemicist had been the victim of xenophobia in his life, but he was not omniscient, so he could not know if racist or sexist prejudice against him had ever caused him harm. But he was content not knowing. He did not have to know if people treated him despitefully because of his white skin or his genital anatomy. He did not have to hate those people back, so he was content to let it go and think the best of people until it was proved that he should do otherwise. And he slept restfully at night, knowing that God had said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ Keeping no list of wrongs gave him nothing to remind himself to be angry with, and he was consequently much happier than most people he ever spoke to. How he wished that they knew what he knew!

~ Rak Chazak

All the Nice Girls I Meet Are "Older Women" in Relationships Already

Today I met Caitlin. I have a feeling I've spoken to her before, but I can't remember the conversation. That's typical of me because of the way in which I meet people--namely, spontaneously. I'll walk by somebody and decide to start talking to them. Yes, complete strangers. Because why not? It's nice to talk to people I already know, but you don't meet new people until you talk to someone you don't. I therefore make many many acquaintances as I go about my daily life in public.

The reason I'm so outgoing, despite being an introvert, is worthy to be another story in itself. But suffice it to say, I traveled out of the country at a formative period, when I had just hit puberty, and so I had the opportunity to "practice" talking to strangers -- girls, mainly, but not exclusively -- with the freedom of conscience of knowing that if I embarrassed myself, none of it would follow me home, because I'd never see those people again when I returned to the States. As a result, I figured out how to flirt with girls and I found out that starting conversations with complete strangers was not only easy but enjoyable. And that's what I've been doing ever since.

Caitlin was unsuspecting, sitting outside my class as I left it this morning; amazingly, she found the hard-backed bench in the hallway comfortable. I can almost never find a comfortable public-access chair, couch or bench, and I suspect I'm just an unfortunate height. Or too picky, I suppose. At any rate, I asked if she was waiting for the class after mine, she said no, and then I commented on her "snake-bite" lip piercings. And that was the lead-in. Then the conversation was begun, and we talked about all sorts of things, like exercise and posture, introversion and shyness/outgoing-'itude?' (what's the accusative noun for "outgoing?"--to "have the quality of being" outgoing..? Oh well...), and then we talked about relationships, maturity, what body types are attractive, aging, gender roles and marriage. 

Wow!, right? She wouldn't have spoken to me if I hadn't started the conversation. So the fact that I took the initiative led to an enjoyable dialogue. I ended up giving her my Facebook and hope to have more conversations like that in the future. I had to leave at some point, because I have a tendency to absorb people into multiple-hour conversations, and she had a class she was reading a paper for. Something about Gandhi, the background behind the famous statements he's made.

One of the things I took away from the conversation was that here was yet another nice young woman whom I happen to connect with on a 'maturity-level' basis. Yet, as I've often found, though I admit it could just be my perception, I seem to be more intellectually attracted toward such women than those a year or more younger than I, and even a large chunk of those who are my age. As it happens, she was "almost 30," she told me, and her mentioning that caused me to recall the time when I was visiting the mall to see a movie in my Freshman year. I would have been 18, and as I stood in line waiting to order at Subway, I came across a lovely young lady who was not only stunningly attractive, but had a great personality. She, to my dismay, was 27. We're simply worlds apart. Different life experiences, different immediate goals, that sort of thing. It made me think, "I can't wait until I'm 27, because that's where the 27-year olds are." It might sound silly, but the main idea is this: the independence and maturity level of girls several years older than me is highly attractive to me, and, not to promote myself, I find that I have much more in common with them. So for me to be able to find a potential love interest, I essentially have to play the waiting game. This is all fine and dandy with me, since I recognize that I'm not financially stable and independent, such that I can put time, effort and money (being broke) into pursuing someone. If an opportunity were to come by at this point, I'd miss it. So for the time being, I'm content with being single, despite the occasional pangs of loneliness.

Now, I didn't yearn to be in a romantic relationship with Caitlin, however. Instead, since I found out early in the conversation that she was in a long-term relationship with a young man, I became interested in what I could learn from her about that. To my surprise, she told me that her boyfriend "did not believe in marriage." What?? I immediately responded, "he needs to grow up/man up." She laughed affirmatively. I can sympathize with the frustration of young women who want to get married but who can't seem to find a guy who has his act together/priorities in order who can give them that. Now, I don't believe that they're in a bad relationship. I know nothing else beyond that, which is all she mentioned before we diverted the topic. But I think the boy she's been dating has a little bit of growing he needs to do. Guys who don't want to marry, ultimately, are not being responsible. They don't want to commit, in one way or another, to loving a woman full-time and not merely enjoying the benefits of a casual relationship without having to work hard  and sacrifice their fleeting desires for the benefit of someone else. That's what marriage ultimately is, a mutual self-sacrifice of your wants for their needs, and comfort. There's nothing better, in my mind, as far as human relationships go. Any guy who doesn't want to get married is just in need of getting his perspective altered. 

I let the cat out of the bag at that point, and asked if she thought her boyfriend would be willing to check out a motivational video if it happened to be a Christian sermon. She herself was definitely interested; I hope they both watch it. I gave her the link to Mark Driscoll's "Marriage and Men" sermon and when I get home to Facebook, I plan to give her the link to this one (which I couldn't remember the name of when we were talking):

Title: Adolescence: Boys Who Can Shave. 23 minutes in length.

This together with the "Marriage and Men" sermon have been the single two most foundational videos I've seen, with regard to forming my own understanding of my responsibility as a man and about what marriage is.

Yeah, most of the girls my age seem to not know what they want, yet. The secret that no one ever tells you in school is that girls don't actually mature faster than guys, that's only true for middle school and until the guys catch up. I've met girls in college whose immaturity would outpace even the immaturity of the worst-behaved class clown from my public school days. I seem to be more drawn to the "older women." Ladies, lest you think otherwise: maturity is sexiest. There's nothing quite as attractive as a woman with integrity. And if I can grow to be a responsible, independent young man with integrity, then that's the sort of woman I hope to meet.

Patiently waiting, 


~ Rak Chazak