Tripping

I know that I haven't blogged much recently. I know you're asking yourself right now, what could have motivated me to work on this? I think that I'm a nice guy. I crave approval. I allow myself to be the butt of jokes; it's all in good fun. I'd like to be the guy who likes everyone and is liked back. Well, I took a ski trip just before the weekend. Now I write to reconcile my self-perception.

I did not take this ski trip alone. No, a guest at a mutual contact's birthday party heard that I was on vacation and I was planning to visit a college roommate in Albany to ski afterwards in Vermont. All would have been fine, but this was no ordinary guest.
A few days later, I started to receive inquiries about the trip on a regular basis.
He never straight out asked me if he could come. The closest he came to that was his reply when I said I was the only one who was going to go - "alright...when do you wanna go?" This is part of the arrogance, combined with his other attributes that infuriates me. However, I did not have a good reason to deny him so I only replied, "you got the gas, right?"

The rain started to fall about the time that I left to pick my guest up. As I'm waiting for him in front of his building I hear a loud thump on the side of my car. The guy used his skis in the ski bag to ram the side door to get my attention. I wonder if this is how he treats his own things. He'd already broken the door handle to another friend's car. This is probably the bad omen that I should have read before starting off. He had a smirk (or perhaps it was a smile, I can't tell the difference with him.) as I turned around to see what hit the car.
The weather would turn into a wintry mix of hail and sleet. By the time we had reached exit 18 on the I-87, there was a good inch of ice/snow/slush on the ground. Conditions were very poor and the tires on my car do not handle well in snow at all. I had slipped on the ice a few times and this should have been warning enough for me. I had not driven in snow since last winter and I had just rotated my tires earlier in the day so I had a false sense of confidence on the road. While on the right lane (as if lanes had any meaning in this weather, everyone drove where there was any concrete to be seen at all), my front right tire hit a chunk of ice, which was enough to disrupt that tire's grip on the road. Now going 40-50 mph, only the front left tire is in contact with the road and my car makes a complete right turn while still moving forward. It's a strange sensation. I turn the steering wheel to the right while braking. We gently drift into the passing lane just as a van goes past. Miraculously, I hit the van only glancingly, just as it passes us and at a perfectly perpendicular angle. My license plate took the brunt of the force. The cars in back of us slow down without a problem, and I pull over to the side of the road. There were no flashbacks of my life during the 360. In fact, I never had the feeling that there was any danger. Maybe I just didn't have time to think about it. The only thing I had time to think about was, now would be a good time to turn on the hazard lights... There's no damage to my car and a small dent on the side of the van; a company car from Canada gone down to NYC to make a pickup. After exchanging insurance information with the driver of the van, I think it's best to get off the next exit and wait at a diner until a plow truck deals with the mess on the road.

We stop off at the diner and after we are done with our small snacks, he starts to badger me with requests to start going again. This is rude in itself. But he does this in his indirect way, which is still more infuriating because I recognize what he's doing. "When do you think we can start off again?" "It looks like it's stopped snowing." Looks at his watch and says, "It's already 11 now". I ask him after one of his comments, "Are you in a hurry?" He says, "No... you're the driver." Not five minutes later, he notes that the roads leading up to the diner have been plowed. I'm still in a state of agitation. There is no activity waiting for us in Albany; we're just going there to sleep to be able to start off early to Vermont in the morning. As small and immaterial as his self-interest is, he tried to impose his will indirectly. The car, insurance, or road conditions? Not his problem. We've got to get to Albany. I think that he cares more that he has this story in his repertoire than that we almost got into an accident.
This is a turning point for me. I'm pissed at his callousness. I have known the guest for years now. When I talk about the guest's behavior, I talk about it in the context of all his behavior since I have known him. In the past I had treated him as a social retard. He's rude in a passive-aggressive way, but that might not be his fault. He just doesn't know any better. Maybe his childhood reinforced the idea that this behavior is beneficial to him. Just as the state can't execute a mental handicap for his crime, how could I harbor a grudge for doings that he might not even recognize? In the diner though, as his comments waft towards me, I think to myself: This is self-interest; perfectly rational thought. This erases the rationalizing excuses I had made. The ones that kept me in balance inside; keeping genuine dislike at bay.

We finally arrive at our host at 2am. Once inside, I talk with the host about the 360. He has driven a stick shift compact car for longer than I have so I value the opinion. As we're talking about the speed I was going, the guest interrupts and says, no you were going 40 not 50. He loves to tell stories about himself. Here is a chance for him to tell his story. Unfortunately, it looks very egotistical to just blurt out a story about the self, so he will usually set it up with a question, usually directed to you or fact-based in nature to throw you off. For the first couple of hundred times.
"Is the easy pass only for the Northeast?" "Oh, in Dallas, when I went to the comic convention, they used a different system."
In this case though, the table has already been set up for him. If there's anything he loves more than telling stories about himself, it's to correct you. So the interruption knocked two birds with one stone for the guest. He told me right after the accident that he was napping in and out just before the 360. Not that this would affect the detail of his recollection.
As we get ready for bed, he broaches the question of the futon while I'm at the host's computer. "Are you going to take the futon or me?" I tell him that I'd like it, it has been a long drive up. He says ok. That's nice of him, except that 2 minutes later he says, "Well, you're on the computer so I'll just take the futon." This is a trip that he invited himself to and I was nice enough to take him along. He knows the host through me and other people who went to the same college (the host and I were college roommates). I had a crappy time driving up and the about-face burned me up. I went over to the futon and claimed it as soon as he said that.

Conversation for him is a competition. Who is right? Who knows more? I think when he listens to what we say, it is only for the purpose of where he can insert x comment about himself. He will ask me a question about something and then follow up with, "yeah, that's what I thought" regularly. He listened to the host and I talk about cars and then made comments about it. "You just have to move the two good front tires back and put on snow tires on the front." He emits the need to project an aura of expertise on all subjects. I especially enjoy his forays into the subject of cars. The host and I have both been driving since college and the guest does not own his own car. He asked me later how to fill up a tank of gas. "Oh, this is the first time that I've really done this." But this does not stop him from making comments about cars. On the topic of cars, the guest asked the host on the way to Stratton, as he asked me and no doubt countless of others, should he take pay $50 to someone to teach him how to learn stick. The host asks him what he would do if he learned how, and the guest responds, "Well, in case I ever need to drive Wootz's car." Sorry guest, but I think in that case the resulting Armagedeon would destroy everything, including my car. If you question him on any subject he gave his opinion on later on, he will amend his answer. But he is not wrong and he will not say that you are correct. Or even that he agrees with you.
This competitive spirit extends to physical activity too. It was not a good first day of the season for the guest as he had a few big crashes and lost his Stratton card on the first run. He comments later in car about pain in his knee but that he doesn't think that it was because he fell a lot. He notes that he had three big crashes on the first run but did ok after that. He forgets that we went with him on the start of the second run and we had to wait 15 minutes for him because he lost his skis 100 yards uphill. It’s after this incident that we decide that we'll just go at our own pace and meet up at the end of the day since it's already well into the afternoon and skiing ends at 4pm. He did not look good. While stopped, he could not control his balance and started to slide into me as we’re telling him where to meet at the end. It was important however for him to tell me later in the car, indirectly, that his skiing is fine.
He also makes comments about the bump on his head that he sustained when a ski fell off and hit him on the noggin. I believe that this also ties into his system of competitive conversation. I don't think either the host or I would have harped on the bump. I wouldn't have said anything at all in sympathy. But I think his system tells him to head off this threat with a self-depreciating comment so that we can't attack him on it. Another example is his comments that he is going to drive co-workers to ski in his sister's van. Later, in the car, he amends his statement. "I might not be driving. One of my co-workers is trying to hire a bus." Just covering his flank, making sure that I can't probe him about his driving later. Conversation is war.

I think politeness in society is a game of feedback. When we constantly interact with a person, we can learn to expect certain behavior. If we are nice, we expect the other person to be nice to us as well. This is ingrained in us. Here the guest is an anomaly. He has tapped into the cordiality most people will show him when first introduced. I think that as Asians, we are culturally more accustomed to show more deference and display excessive politeness. Perhaps he was conditioned to believe that aggressive behavior is beneficial for more than the short-term as the youngest in his family. I can’t remember a point where I’ve thought that the guest did something genuinely nice and not for self-interest.
Another gem hidden in his questions are the insults and derogatory jokes. "Have you showered today? Do you wash your hair all the time?" "Are you sure you're checking the weather to Stratton and not Albany?" For me, he would constantly bring up sleeping on a park bench and always getting lost. I don't get the vibe that this is for a collective chuckle. It just fits in with his way of conversation.
I bring up the cultural difference (or it could just be more a personality difference) because the guest has more of a normal conversation with the host. None of the snide jokes though he does try to get his stories in. I think it is because the host would rip him a new one if he tried to play that game. He probably feels he can get away with more with me. This reinforces the idea that he is aware of what he is doing.

All conversation with him is egocentric in addition to being competitive. While watching basketball highlights on ESPN, I asked the guest, "Who's leading in the fantasy league?" "Well, I'm third". Because that's what I really should know, never mind what I should have asked in the first place. The waitress in the diner asked about my phone and he kept letting her know that he too has a PDA phone. When she asked about the price of mine, I told her that she could get a reasonable deal if she signed a 2 year contract. Guest noted he only paid $xxx for his.

As we are packing up at the host's place, he makes specific mention of his upcoming vacation days. "I've got x days left in December". He goes on to enumerate exactly how he got those days and what combination of sick and vacation days he will carry over to January. He lets me know that this is for the purpose of skiing, of course. "Oh, the bad thing about all these days is that I won't get overtime."
On the trip back, he asked about group rates for other mountains and also about Stratton Mt. I'll have to say that his questions and comments are very much on target. They are his pawn moves, setting up the board to broach the topic of his choosing. They convey absolutely succinctly what the situation is about. It's designed to make you think about the subject at hand, which may be too delicate even for him to lay out bluntly. But in question form, the power is handed to questioned. His request is handed to you, forward in intent but packaged to soften the impact. He's got a personal stake in returning to Stratton. He's bought the X2 card, which he's taking a loss on right now. He even laid it out for the host and I - one more trip and he's almost even. 2 more trips and it'll be worth it. "So, when are you going back to Stratton?" Ah, déjà vu.

In the past, I tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling. In the beginning, it seemed to me that he was a little arrogant. Some people are. He was a little strange. Some people are. But he's a case of Chinese water torture. These things that he does are small. I thought to myself, how could I hate someone for this? But people are cursed with memory and the aggregate of all his small deeds has left a huge net negative in his balance with me.

Appropriately, he left his trash in the car. Of course, it should be necessary that I throw that last vestige of his presence on the trip away on my way back home.
Maybe this is the just the post-accident stress talking but I think I can live with not being as nice as I thought I was or wanted to be.