Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

"So tell me about your politics." She knew that I had a degree in political science, and that was about it.

"Well, what do you want to know? My politics — like what I believe and how I vote? Or why I got a degree in political science?"

"All of it, I guess, sure." She was being polite, making small talk and trying to get to know me, which I appreciated.

"Um, well, I'm a Republican."

Shock and dismay registered on her face. "YOU'RE a REPUBLICAN?!?"

"Yes, I'm a Republican." (Why doesn't anyone believe me?) "Will you still be my friend?" I asked it with a bit of a wink, assuming that she would take the hint that this isn't something that should seriously endanger my social standing.

Smiling, she responded, "Of course I'll still be your friend," the answer I expected, but then she added something which gave me a bit of a shock, "I'll still be your friend — because I knew you before."

That dangling modifier leaves me with so many questions. Before what? What was she implying? Before I was a Republican? Before I "came out" to her and she knew any better?

Because the first option is ridiculous (you would have had to have known me in utero), she must mean the second, and that's incredibly disheartening. Does she choose not to make her acquaintance with people of different political backgrounds than her own? Was our friendship opening her mind to what Republicans really look like (as I hope), or was she merely thinking that I must be an anomaly and that she's generally better able to spot a Republican than the one she let slip through the cracks?

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