Little Cat in the Big World

This week, I had a particularly relevant Beyond Borders learning moment that I plan on sharing with you all. It’s pretty simple, and it’s not like I didn’t know it before, it just seems a little more important as that departure date comes ever closer. Here it is:

If I could be represented by one animal I’m pretty sure it would be a donkey. Yep, that’s me – super duper stubborn. I know how to dig my heels in the ground with the best of them, and sometimes I don’t even need a legitimate reason to do so; most of the time I just don’t like being told what to do because I am a fairly independent individual and I like figuring things out for myself. Stubbornness is not a particularly flattering characteristic to have, and I do my best to keep it in check most of the time, because it has landed me in some trouble in the past. But where I really tend to dig those heels in deep is when people try and help me - I do not do well when people try and help me, and especially when they start questioning why I don’t want their help. It’s not that I won’t ever ask for help/accept help. In fact, I am pretty willing to ask for/accept help when I know that I need it. But this certainty only results when I have attempted to tackle whatever problem/challenge by myself, first – multiple times usually – with minimal to no success. When people try and offer me help when I haven’t asked for it, most of the time I will say no, and more than once this has created a little bit of friction between myself and the person offering assistance. Typically when this friction does occur, it’s because I perceive the situation to involve gender-power dynamics, and I refuse to play along. For instance when a man tries to give me their seat on the bus, despite the fact that I am perfectly able bodied and I am not carrying heavy things. I get that it’s meant to be a nice gesture, but I also understand the gendered meaning behind it and regardless of how uncomfortable it makes the other person for me to turn it down, it makes me equally as uncomfortable to accept it. My intention is to not be some sort of “radical man hater” (yes, I have been called that when I have declined a seat on the bus), I just don’t feel that I should have to indulge outdated social graces for the sake of politeness or keeping the peace [see Ani's "Not A Pretty Girl" for a more poetic (perhaps cliche) explanation]. This however is not the type of scenario that I want to address – I understand that this blog is not a soap box for my poststructural musings about gender-power dynamics, and I am trying to keep it that way – besides that slight tangent of course.

The type of scenarios I am trying to address are ones similar to what happened to me on Friday while at St. John’s Kitchen. There is an expectation that you take a break and eat lunch while volunteering at St. John’s – you stand in line like all the other patrons, you eat the same food as the patrons, and you sit at the same tables as them as well. The idea is that this way there is no “othering”; everyone is a part of the same community. I quite like that sentiment, but haven’t really been able to share in that experience as I can’t really eat any of the food they serve there because of my crazy digestive system and its ever constant food-feud. My inability to eat the food there has become a source of entertainment for a few of the workers who know a bit about my dietary resitrictions. Any time they can find something I might be able to eat, they seem to get rather giddy. Because food is made for everyone and in mass quantities, they can’t exactly make something specific for me, but they will try and send me home with whole food. I tend to decline these offers though, because food doesn’t exactly give me a whole lot of enjoyment (I essentially eat because I have to), so I would rather leave it for someone who actually would get more than just a meal from it. This isn’t something I talk about with the workers/volunteers at St. John’s though. I am rather private about the whole health issue thing, and I only tend to bring it up when I am in a place where I feel prepared to answer the inevitable barrage of questions that accompany my story. I also tend to avoid taking food from St. John’s because I feel like I am already taking enough from there in other ways; again not an easy thing to explain to people without going into a fairly deep and intellectual discussion. So, on Friday when I was offered squash to take home, I politely declined. This apparently was a problem, because they kept pushing me to take them the more I said no. So, of course, in my typical stubborn fashion I refused to budge and just dug my heels in deeper, and I refused to offer a substantial explanation because I felt like my boundaries weren’t being respected. Eventually we agreed to disagree and I didn’t take anything. Before I headed on my way home that day, I was given a piece of advice by the individual who offered me the veggies. They told me that sometimes I should just accept help from others not because I need it, but because it makes the other party feel good knowing that they did something for someone else.

I thought this was a really interesting comment, and I thought about it a lot over the weekend. I think we’ve all been in situations where we have bit our tongues and accepted something from another individual, not because we particularly wanted it, but because we recognized that it would be meaningful to them. But where do we draw the line? Why is it not ok to just say no thanks, and leave it at that? I bring this up, because in Nairobi I feel there are probably going to be situations where I will be offered, say food that I can’t eat, and I am going to decline it. I realize that their offer has meaning behind it – a gesture of good will, community etc., and I will probably explain that I have dietary restrictions rather than just flat out declining, but a lot of the time people don’t take that seriously and they try and force food on me anyways. My intention isn’t to offend others by declining, and in fact I feel offended myself because they aren’t respecting my boundaries and right to say no. My intention in declining is because I want to preserve my own boundaries or values, and their intention in insisting is that they want to do something nice for someone else so they feel good. Both sides are essentially doing “selfish” things – so why do we get so offended in exchanges like this? And is the only way out of this pickle to have one side bite their tongue and give the other side what they want? I like the idea of honest and equal exchanges – where both parties can give and receive. In all honesty, had I just been offered the food, and my no accepted the first time, I would have been pleased by that exchange. It’s nice to see their kind gesture, but also nice to see my boundaries respected. And they could have felt good that they tried to do something nice for me, and that I was pleased by it.

So here is where I turn it to you the reader....where are your boundaries in these types of situations? And how do you choose between your own comfort and the comfort of others?

"Hi my name is Cathleen, or Cat is fine too." *shakes hand* "It's nice to meet you!"

It's amazing how after a 10 second interaction with a stranger, we think we have people completely figured out. Sometimes we don't even interact with that person directly, and yet still we think we've seen enough to have their story down. We all do it - I certainly am guilty of it. Try as we might to avoid it, and heed our elders' warnings to not judge a book by its cover, we all still find ourselves doing just that. And to be fair, I think these snap judgements do have a place - we need it to provide context on how we should behave and approach the world when we are in each others company. Our initial perceptions tell us which walls to keep up and which are ok to let down, and they dictate how further interactions will occur, at least until we are able to gather more pieces of the puzzle and get a better sense of what the whole picture looks like. This is why first impressions are often so important. Because depending on how you come off, not many people are willing to stick around and gather more pieces of the puzzle. We all know this, of course. I am not saying anything particularly shocking or revealing, but here's where I make the Beyond Borders connection....

I make a horrible first impression! Perhaps horrible isn't the word, but I certainly don't seem to make a consistent first impression or one that I think accurately reflects who I am. When it comes to first impressions of me, I have heard it all. I've been told that people thought I was "a dumb jock", the popular girl who has a new partner every 2 days, a flirt, a hippie, non-athletic, a radical feminist, super conservative, mean, really nice, really shy.... the list goes on. And if I am being honest, I don't think any of those things are true. I like to think of myself as a fairly self aware person...although I guess we all would like to think this. I am pretty certain that I am a fairly multi-dimensional person, and have a lot of different sides of myself that come out at different times depending on where I am or what I am doing. Some of these sides can seem complete opposite to one another, for example, I am currently enrolled in Science, Women's Studies and American Sign Language at school. There isn't a whole lot of connection with those things other than I love learning - and I can safely admit that I approach each of these programs differently. My parents always laugh and say that I am the hardest person to stereotype, but there has got to be a reason why people are thinking what they are thinking. I made it my task this week to try and figure this out. In fact, this whole post was inspired by a comment that someone made at St. John's Kitchen - one of the workers there told me that she thought I was extremely conservative. I thought this was completely bizarre, and when I headed back to the Women's Centre that afternoon, I asked around. Turns out, that almost everyone there had a seemingly different first impression of me - although they did agree that I was no conservative (phew!). When I asked what it was about me that gave them their respective first impressions of me, no one really had a solid reason; apparently that is just what I came off as. What is it that I am doing that makes me come off so completely wrong?!

I only raise this question, because I feel as though in Nairobi, first impressions are going to be a big deal. The last thing I want to do while I am there is offend or put off the members of Education for Life, or even the women that I am supposed to be working alongside and teaching. I would like things to go smoothly as possible, and I think a good first impression could at least help a little with that.

Well, I have two months (eep!) before Nairobi. That should give me some time to figure it out....hopefully....maybe?....

Cheers,
Cat