This morning I felt a cool breeze as we were waiting for our morning walk/run. It was such a nice feeling and a relief given the seemingly lingering heat this year – although I’m sure that is not the case. π
One of the events that we do every year as a bit of a kick-off of the cooling weather is Taste of Abu Dhabi.
We always have a good time with friends – drinking, eating and shooting the breeze in the cooler temps (it is still warm). It is one of my favorite events because we can sit outside, take off our shoes and enjoy each other’s company.
This year was a bit different…. First, the group was different due to friendship loss. Second, a new person was invited to join and well…that did not go well…. While we had met her just a couple of days before, she chose to show her true colors after a number of drinks.
Not knowing M very well, she asked him to not talk about our president-elect as it upset her because her husband is a minority in NYC. How the two were related was not clear. M being M pushed her on it, but nicely without his usual ‘taking the piss’ attitude. Well, she did not get it and continued to claim how he (a minority British man just coming out of the shock of Brexit) that he could not possibly understand the kind of danger she (a well-educated white American NOT currently in America) felt for her husband – the minority.
Now, earlier in her more sober conversation, we discovered that she is also adopted, which was an interesting coincidence. She also asked me where I was from – “originally”; with a later follow-up question on whether or not I was Filipino…uh…?
At some point, I had heard enough of her ranting about her poor husband and how worried she felt. She was raving at M about how he was being disrespectful to her. I was no longer willing to listen to her privileged white American (dubbed PWA) rant about how she basically did not have enough respect or belief in her husband, who has probably spent his entire life being threatened or disrespected for being a minority, to take care of himself in a city he grew up in. Her argument against discussing the president-elect had nothing to do with the greater social issues or worries for the nation as a whole, but for her poor poor husband. To this, I said she needed to get over herself. Her husband, and even her as a woman, were not the only people in the world to be free to worry. She could not claim to be superior to anyone else or try to stop someone from having a discussion – how is that any better than the way of lifeΒ he is promoting?
She told me that I was obviously NOT American or at least did notΒ love HER country just because I did not want to waste a lovely day out talking about politics – even if I might have agreed with her.
She walked away at least three times, but kept coming back to continue her argument. Each time we and others in the group told her to drop it or to let it go (I might have said “Get over it!” :P). In the end, she left and then proceeded to send our mutual friend messages continuing to rant about how terrible of people we were ridiculing her. I was “evil” for laughing at her pain – I laughed at her ridiculousness, not her pain (admittedly I did not see how she was in pain…).
In any case, the whole event made me realize that the ‘winter’ that our president-elect has touted throughout his campaign is going to come. In a way it is already here. Facebook has people posting from all extremes. People are raging on both sides. The division is coming and there is very little to be done because compassion and cool-headedness is being lost. Everyone is about being right rather than finding logical productive agreements to our differing opinions. So, it is all the more important that I avoid these conversations and, generally speaking, drunk Americans. π
So, in temperature, winter weather is here. In temperament, temperatures rise as winter draws near….
~T π
