Men are from Turkey, Women are from Abroad

Here's one thing I really don't understand. Call me culturally insensitive, but Turkish men have a severe staring problem. I bear witness to this problem in a plethora of situations from swanky restaurants to seedy street corners. Although I would like to attribute it to my smashing good looks and supermodel body(clarification: sardonic humor, not narcissism) I am quite certain my physical appearance plays only a small part in the national pandemic I've coined staringitis.

This country is full of men. Sometimes it seems there are men and primarily only men - riding on the metro, loitering in the parks, working at the bakkals, walking down the street, scooting around on motorbikes. Yet for the hordes of men out there, there seems to be a massive divide. They are totally inaccessible and unapproachable, and often this gap is bridged by the palpable stare.

Although the stare is sometimes completely unsolicited, it generally starts if I inadvertently catch a man's eye. Sure, a misplaced glance could easily be misinterpreted as a come on in the proper context, say, a bar or a brothel. But when walking down a quiet street on a weekday afternoon? When glancing down the metro platform to see if the train is coming? On a crowded bus? Must my eyes have no resting place besides the searing gaze of a stranger?

Then, they stare. Not just a quick up-down-up-look away 'I'm checking you out glance,'but a full-on stare. No, not just a stare. A Prodigal Stare. Excessive. Visually indulgent. Prolonged. Persistent. Without blinking.

Then we play this silly game: I glanced at you accidentally or because I felt you staring at me, but because I caught your eye now you think I'm staring at you. Now you think I want you. Now you are staring more intensely. Now I look at you again to see if you are still staring. Surprise, surprise, you still are. Now its confirmed. I must be staring at you. The vicious cycle continues.

(begin internal monologue)
WHAT? Do I have a bugger hanging from my nose? Am I wearing a scarlet A or something? Okay I may be a little cute but come on. What is the purpose of such prolonged visual violation? I mean, really. What do these men think they are going to achieve with a passive stare? I'll approach them and say, "hey, I noticed you boring holes into my chest with your eyes. Wanna grab a kebab and make out"? Or am I expected to take a more subtle approach? Write my number on a cloth napkin and pass it along from table to table Junior High style?

Perhaps we Americans divert our eyes because we find such interactions too revealing, to real, too human. Perhaps deep down we are starers too and our true curiosity and shameless voyeurism is submerged under a false sense of sophistication and nonchalance. Is it more annoying to deal with the guy who tries to mask his desire to stare with furtive glances from behind a newspaper, or the one who makes no attempt (nor sees any reason to) hide his actions? Does it do any harm besides making me uncomfortable and excessively self-conscious?

Here's the thing. I like to survey my environment. I hate feeling that I have to keep my eyes glued to the floor just so I can avoid a potentially awkward interaction. I just don't get it, but maybe there is nothing to get at all. Maybe its just because they can.

Misanthropic Musings

In fourth grade each member of my class had a hermit crab. Mine and only mine managed to climb to the top of the Popsicle stick that had my name on it. Still in its shell, it traveled as far as it could possibly go. Is this an allegorical reference? Perhaps.

I gotta tell ya. This (the way I function day in and day out in everyday life) is not my normal modus operandus. Deep down I am still the same girl afraid to ask for permission to use the bathroom. Still, I am determined. To do what, I’m not quite sure. This weekend, I scoured Craigslist for something. Anything. I found a language exchange group, and decided to hit it up.

Let me reiterate: not my typical M.O. I am generally hesitant to meet people off the Internet. I mean, really. Its not that I think a freak awaits me at the other end of my wireless connection, but rather the awkwardness inherent in meeting people without context (besides a website). The Internet is a massive chasm that sucks individuality into its deepest crevices and reshapes it – via youtube, facebook, and my personal favorite, the white-out commentary on PerezHilton. Personalities are shed like dead skin, and with the freedom to put our thoughts out into the ether, there is no need to cower under the protective shield our “character.” The Internet has totally lost it edge. Its no longer seedy or desperate to meet people this way, especially for a wholesome intercambio/tandem/language exchange.

Not to say I am not cynical. What is a “casual conversation exchange in a relaxed atmosphere” could be a ploy for picking up naive foreign chicks. Or a scam to join a sales pyramid or something of that nature. Or, even if the other internet rovers are on the bright side of sanity, there are the just plan annoying individuals I’d rather not get to know: The socially inept. The emotionally vapid. The self-absorbed chatterboxes. Can’t forget those with intense body odor. To be stuck for two hours making small talk in a foreign language could be a wonderful learning opportunity.Or downright painful. Strangers are potential landmines. Don’t you wish you could dig a hole and crawl right in?

But...it was fine. Really. It took awhile to get a rapor going. To develop that witty banter. To know which jokes will hit home and which will hang in the air.

My anxiety and neuroses was the most interesting part of this story.

Title Untitled

I’m not quite sure what to make of any of it anymore.

Hillary and Obama’s faces are morphed on the cover of Time, a la Michael Jackson’s Black or White music video. Caitlin visited me and nearly got tear gassed on May Day. The day invokes fists in the air and si se puede and MELT (Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky – but I can’t take credit for the sassy acronym) and something profound about our right to a living wage, but since 30-odd people were killed in a demonstration in Taksim Square in the 70s, it has become the day when droves of protestors sporting pride and anger are met by droves of police sporting plastic shields and night sticks. And, apparently, tear gas. I am twenty pages into a novel, and I think I will always be twenty pages into a novel. Caitlin and I spent two days in Antalya on the Med coast, and now I’m not sure if I am a budget hotel sans hot water and a swampy green swimming pool growing pond scum girl or a five star resort with a private beach and choloates on the pillow lady. Suprise, suprise its the latter. My apartment is being fumagated for cockroaches. I am contemplating getting a motor scooter, specifically in hot pink or lipstick red. With taxes and parking I could take a taxi wherever I please for the same price, so the image of me speeding down the coast road with hair blowing in the wind will only be visible in the back of my mind. I’d probably end up in traction anyway. I can’t seem to find a decent kuafor (Turkish phonetic spelling) who I’d trust could conjure up a dramatic new look. Its confirmed – I can’t find a decent loaf of bread either. This week I’m cutting out sugar and alcohol. I’m still not sure where I misplaced Heart of Darkness, and for some reason I need it because I am surrounded by broken hearts.

A friend said something like this: the past gets closer the further away it gets. I don’t know why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with the buffer of experience that allows one thing (moment, event, person, image) to develop the magical nimbus of perspective. Perhaps only after the dust of a lifetime (and already there have been many) settles and he/she/it is still standing, we can fully acknolwedge the significance. Time is the proof that yes, it was important, and no, it will not fade. Its newly discoverd permanency extracts it from the past and plops in back in the present.
That’s why I hate to apply sweeping statments and grandiose conclusions to the stories of our lives. For example:
Question: How was it?
Answers: “A transformative experiece.” “An amazing adventure.” “The time of my life.”
Verdict: Wrong, incorrect, and wrong again.

We are all experts at applying headlines to the stories of our lives. That way, we can glance at the table of contents in another person’s eyes and go right to the part that interests us. I’m not even required to teach about subtext. No one bothers to read between the lines anymore. Nobody even bothers to read to the end, much less put the conclusion at the end. No wonder I am in a perpetual state of moral vertigo.

I know. Such summations, be it “it was great” or “it sucked” are necessary for the sake of conversation. Not every response can be a blog entry. But I worry. That if we unlearn how to respond, we unlearn how to empathize, we learn to no longer care, and we end up surrounded by our own broken heart.