Friend who is a girl
It was my last trip of the night (about 11), on a mostly empty bus. A young woman got on and sat in one of the front side-facing seats. After a bit, she leaned in to me and said “can I ask you a personal question?”
I paused for a moment.
“Have you ever had an African girlfriend?”
Suspecting the direction this conversation was headed in, I said that I actually did at the moment. I got the opposite reaction that I had expected: she was very happy to hear this, and thought it was great that I wasn’t like other white people she had met, and was actually friendly to blacks. A bit puzzled, I continued to talk to her, and after a bit I detected the slightest hint of an accent.
As it turned out, she was from Cameroon (where English is a native language), and had just moved here two months ago! Then it occured to me: in some English dialects, “girlfriend” means, literally, a friend who is a girl, not a romantic partner. I explained what asking “have you ever had an African girlfriend?” would imply to an American and she got a bit embarrassed, though I felt that I would be saving her from further embarassment if I cleared this up for her now.
As we talked further, I found that her question was completely innocent: she had merely been wondering why white people wouldn’t make eye contact with her and were generally giving her the cold shoulder. Poor girl. My liberal guilt kicked in, and in the remaining time she was on the bus, I gave her a crash course in race relations in the USA, and hopefully convinced her that not all white people hated her.
Apr 21st, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Why can’t these things happen when I’m on the bus with a camera?
Jun 4th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Or it could just be that no one in Minnesota ever wants to speak to or make eye contact with someone they don’t know. You know that whole “Minnesota Nice” thing? My sister and I have another phrase for it: Minnesota Polite. Just try talking to a stranger on the bus — you’re guaranteed to get a nasty (or at best, confused) look. That’s etiquette in this state (sadly) — avoid strangers at all costs!
Jul 18th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Yeah, Minnesota Nice is such a fraud. It makes meeting women VERY problematic.
Jun 26th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I totally agree. Although I live in Texas now, I lived in MN for ten years. People in MN are generally VERY closed off to people they don’t know. You also get the thing where someone meets you casually and treats you like a long lost friend and then the next time they see you they act as if they’ve never met you. MN nice, indeed. I’ll tell ya, Texas has been a breath of fresh air! People here seem to be very nice and approachable. Good luck, MN residents.