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Saturday, September 09, 2006

some things never change

I had two best friends in high school -- two interesting and completely different relationships. In my either/or reductionist mind, friend A and I looked at the world the same way, but we looked at completely different things, and friend B and I looked at the world completely differently, but we looked at the same things.

Friend B and I would have marathon conversations about the meaning of life, and our different perspectives allowed us both to explore things that never would have occured to us. Friend A thought stuff like that was too serious -- anyway she knew where I was coming from so what was the point of exploring all that shared ground. She would rather discuss with me why, since we shared many common values, I should like a particular band she thought was dreamy.

I loved both these kids, but it's the 4-hour marathon phone conversations that I remember as being more satisfying. One of my biggest joys in life is learning something I didn't know before. Not in the sense of lists of facts, but more just getting out of my own head and getting a peek at someone else's experience. I think that's why I kept taking language classes in college -- each one gave you a feel for a different world view. History too -- so many people's stories, with different sets of values, with a different answer for "what does it all mean, anyway?"

So that's another reason I'm enjoying my current line of work. We're all working with the same goals, but the women I work with have different life experiences from me, and I think we're all having fun bouncing things off each other -- "hey, what do you think about this..." We figure out more about each other by our reactions.

But yesterday was a real high school flashback, as we generated a master list of cute guys. Two of the girls are always clipping stuff out of magazines for each other, and occasionally it might be a photo of someone they think the other will like. I said they should put up a bulletin board so they could keep all their favorites up on it, and that prompted a whole discussion of who that would be, and why, and "ugh, how could you think he's cute?"

Good thing we don't work with any actual men, we totally would have gotten busted for harassment. Especially if we had put up that bulletin board. Pinups? Completely inappropriate. We should all know better, right? (but it was fun anyway....)

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