Assumptions get in the way of intimacy

I’m one of those people who is friendly with a lot of folks and close with only a few. There’s quite a simple explanation for this phenomenon, and I experienced an example of the reason just this past week.

I was in mixed gender company—one of the women assumed that I, as a man, wouldn’t care about what her wedding dress looked like; and one of the men assumed that I, as a man, would care about football. Neither asked if I cared about wedding dresses or football. Both just assumed that I would fall into stereotypes. (By the way, I do care a lot more about what someone’s wedding dress looks like than what’s going on in American football.)

As I’ve said in previous blog entries, I don’t appreciate being put into a box. I won’t fight to stay completely outside the box. And I won’t be kept completely inside the box. I will fight to be at all times in, out, and all around the box. I will fight to be the box if I have to.

Some people, who think they know me, try to put me completely outside the box. They think I am a total weirdo, that I do nothing normal and only weird or non-stereotypical things. These people know me no better than those who have just met me.

The people I am closest to—my wife, my best friends—are those who have bothered to really get to know me and haven’t assumed that I fit into a neat little sociological picture of what “most” men or Asian-Americans or Christians or feminists or [fill-in-the-blanks] are. They also know I am not the anti-stereotype either; I am a mixed bag. After all, aren’t we all? Who is completely “typical” or completely “atypical”?

The getting-to-know-me process usually takes several years, and I am grateful to those who have made the effort and been open-minded enough to appreciate my quirks… and the ways I am also conventional. I hope my efforts to do likewise have been equally successful.