People

If I use the term quite loosely, then meeting the other 16 or so people on MSID India trip was ok. It’s not them, it’s me. Meeting new people- the kind of new people that I will be around for an extended period of time at least- has become progressively more difficult for me. Needing to impress, sticking to socially acceptable conversation topics, trying to act friendly but not TOO friendly, showing off your best anecdotes…the whole process just doesn’t feel very genuine. Which is all well and good, but that wellspring of semi-sadistic enjoyment I used to derive from fake interactions seems to have dried up as well. Blast. During that critical first impression stage, I was unable to muster up very realistic seeming interest in everyone else’s tales of travels and constipation, and almost completely incapable of chiming in with my own canned stories. Due in large part to this self sabotage, I found everyone uninteresting and simple (which probably isn’t accurate), and probably came off as unfriendly and strange (which probably is).

For the five hour car ride to from Delhi to Jaipur, I planted myself in the supremely antisocial front-seat-next-to-driver-who-speaks-little-english location and proceeded to alternate between reading my book, peering out the window, and listening to and subsequently disregarding everything everyone said in the back seats. I started to toy with the idea of dropping the program, using some of the money to travel around India for a month or so and the rest of the money to bribe a host family to take me in and a microcredit organization to let me work for them for free. Then I discovered that one of the girls on the trip had Belle and Sebastian on her ipod.

I’ve given a lot of preachy speeches about how much I don’t understand/grudgingly accept/dislike/despise people who use music to define themselves and others. I have probably given an equal number of speeches about how I have the absence of music taste and enjoy listening to it while not feeling any deeper level. Well yeah, screw that. She Wants Me was auditory cocaine, minus the unpleasant come down. Instant gratification, a feeling of connectedness with everyone around me, excitement, happiness, life. Everything was good again. It was incredible. Whispers of those same sounds and emotions are skimming over me now as I drift to sleep.