Judas

I am afraid of people from the Midwest. Terrified! The perpetual niceness! The pleasing accent! The penchant for bringing mysterious things called “bars” to covered dish picnics!***

Until now (my area is rife with Midwesterners to the point where I wonder if the region is completely devoid of all residents in peak season), I’ve lived almost my entire life surrounded by east coasters. I grew up next to New Jersey. I went to school in New York. I settled in Massachusetts, home to the meanest, most unpredictable drivers in the universe. Midwesterners were a rarity, and the few I encountered had already been completely ruined by our dead-to-me culture that is the east coast. We are not a polite bunch, we east coasters, and we are relatively unapologetic about it. It’s terrible, but I am somewhat comfortable with it – it’s familiar.

I grew up not far from a city that beats the pants off of all of the other rude cities -yes, even New York. Philadelphia: the city of brotherly hatred. People in Philly don’t even bother to say hello to you unless they are forced to at some sort of gunpoint, and the accent makes every interaction about a frillion times worse. The dirtyfishydish Delaware/Lehigh Valley inflection is the foulest, trashiest of accents – we say things like “FOWWWWN” instead of “phone” and “wooter” instead of “water” and please, let’s not forget “crick.” And oh by the way, forget eye contact. If eye contact is made, it is more likely that you have something on your face that they can’t look away from – a large zit, perhaps. Or maybe they’re angry and are trying to will your head to explode with their heavy mind vibes.

And while it sucks, it’s what I’m used to: familiarity breeds contentment, no matter how dysfunctional. But the lack of pleasantries rarely belies the human within: it’s simply a cultural difference in how we greet people, I suppose.

I know it’s not right to feel this way. I’m learning after living down here, where almost everyone is from the Midwest. Everyone is so nice! NICE! Every time I meet someone from the Midwest, goddammit, they are so NICE! The neverending niceness that terrifies me to my very dark soul! “Hi!” they holler in a happy accent, waving brightly to make sure I see them. “So nice to meet you! How ARE you?” They genuinely want to know, and it confounds me. And the answer is: Not good. Not good at all. You’re scaring me with the niceness. People in the Northeast aren’t like this! You’re too nice! Do you WANT something? I am suspicious for a moment.

There is great irony in this: I am actually very nice and exceedingly polite when I meet people. I am nice to everyone I meet, in a Midwestern sort of way. I genuinely like most people I meet, or at least I try very hard to make an informed decision before I launch off and call them a sycophantic douchebag. I embody the very problem I am bitching about! I AM THE SYSTEM I AM AFRAID TO FACE.

We would be much better as a society if we put more of an emphasis on how we treat one another, but because of where I grew up – and the inherent rudeness within – I am always suspicious of inherent cultural kindness, if that makes sense. It’s wrong! So wrong! of us to be so rude here, and yet: it feels comfortable, so we go with it. How sad. And I know that 99% of Midwesterners ARE genuine, (hello, Carol!) and I have a cold, cold suspicious heart.

The sad truth is that I am more comfortable with rudeness. I’m sure it reveals some sort of deep-seated** problem, likely that I wasn’t held enough as an infant or that my parents are cold-hearted snakes (they’re not), but I always rationalize it like this: if someone is rude, at least I know where they stand. When things are hidden under a veneer of too-polite comfort, I am caught off guard, completely lost. I ramble, unsure of what they really think, and I find myself swinging the pendulum back and forth unpredicably, from X-Treme People Pleasing Mode 2000 to I Am Afraid You’re Being Nice to Me Because You Want Something and with no good reason other than I am unnerved by the niceness. Because, again, if you missed it the first time: dysfunctional, suspicious soul right here who is unaccustomed to nice people.

I am aware this is my problem and I mean no ill will towards my Midwestern friends, of which they are now a legion. Forgive me. I have a very good friend from Michigan (who I will be seeing this weekend at the wedding and OH MY GOD, I can’t wait to see her!), and I’ve always considered that while she’s Midwestern, she has an edge. Sort of. A blunt, soft edge, I guess. A light and fluffy edge? A clay edge? Oh, sod it, there is no edge at all.

And then there are my friends from Wisconsin, who are darling and also a little edgy. And Ohio! I have friends from Ohio! MINNESOTA. ILLINOIS. Dear God, they’re all going to hate me for this, but it’s *my* problem! MINE! The Northeast breeds sad, rude people!

One last Rockstar note (yes! I’m still talking about it!): Dilana’s songwriting tonight, dear sweet Jesus oh my God. During a painful reality recap!, Gilby Clarke voice overs that he’s unsure of her lyric-writing abilities, noting: “She’s too…literal, I guess.” He grasps at straws, trying to figure out how to politely say to the universe that she is very, very stupid. We are treated to a display of this unimaginable ineptitude as she explains how her original song is all about “her fans on the Internet” and then sings in a happy singsong little voice to Gilby: “Ooh ooh – what about this: (singsong voice): ‘CON-TROL ALT DELETE?’” Gilby sits there, unmoved, in stony stunned silence. As did I, folks. As did I.

Because nothing says “rock song” like the lyrics “control alt delete.” She might as well go on and sing, “JAVA! JAVA APPLETS! I LOVE U! JAVA! PHP! BLAWWWWGS! ”

Control Alt Delete, man.

*Depeche Mode

** I feel oddly compelled to explain that this is the correct spelling of this term. I’ve seen it used incorrectly so many times in the last week, I’ve wanted to scream: It is not deep-seeded, deep-ceded or even deep-ceeded. So help me. Deep-seated: as in, deeply seated in the area of one’s breast, I think is the etymology. No, no I do not know why, that’s just the way it is.

***Because many people have asked, Carol explains bars below: they are DELICIOUS, and I’ve eaten them at pot luck dinners down here. My friend from Wisconsin always says, “I’m bringing bars!” and for the first five times, I just stared at her blankly: bars? But damn, they are good.

21 comments September 5th, 2006