Social Faux Paux of the Week
I suck at making small talk-I am totally one of those "how 'bout this weather type of people?" It is very rare that I strike up conversations with people other than the ones I am related to and the people I work with. Even then, it can be stilted. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't know what I am doing.
But I work with this cool guy name Lyndon. We talk about movies, football, and sometimes, Hampton Roads, VA. Lyndon went to Hampton U and I spent the majority of my life in that area-albeit in the more suburban, mainly white middle-class area of York County. Yet I am familiar with Hampton, as my husband is from the Phoebus area, and Lyndon and I often joke about the "ghetto" there.
Of course it isn't really a ghetto-but it isn't a pretty place either. Hampton Roads is a retail-based economy, full of chain stores, strip malls, and very little real opportunity.
So we had this new employee start with us who, of all places, grew up in Hampton Roads. She is this gorgeous, extremely sweet young girl who just moved to Northern Virginia for the exact reasons I mention above. I started chatting with her about areas we were both familiar with and in doing so, tried to describe where I lived when I was there:
Me: Well, first I lived in a trailer park behind the Cracker Barrel off of Jefferson.
Her: Oh, I know that place-didn't they tear those trailers down?
Me: I'm not sure. And then I lived behind The Love Shack (think Adult Toys) in Newport News. You know, in the ghetto. (I said this thinking I was being witty and that she would soon share in with me and Lyndon's continuing discussion of Hampton Roads).
Her: Oh no. That's not the ghetto. I was born in the ghetto. Wait-you said The Love Shack? My friend was shot in the Food Lion across the street from there. No, that's not the ghetto.
Damn. This is why I don't strike up conversations-what do you say to something like that? I;m sorry? There I was, totally schooled on the fact that as a middle-class white girl, I had no right talking about the ghetto.
Erp.
But I work with this cool guy name Lyndon. We talk about movies, football, and sometimes, Hampton Roads, VA. Lyndon went to Hampton U and I spent the majority of my life in that area-albeit in the more suburban, mainly white middle-class area of York County. Yet I am familiar with Hampton, as my husband is from the Phoebus area, and Lyndon and I often joke about the "ghetto" there.
Of course it isn't really a ghetto-but it isn't a pretty place either. Hampton Roads is a retail-based economy, full of chain stores, strip malls, and very little real opportunity.
So we had this new employee start with us who, of all places, grew up in Hampton Roads. She is this gorgeous, extremely sweet young girl who just moved to Northern Virginia for the exact reasons I mention above. I started chatting with her about areas we were both familiar with and in doing so, tried to describe where I lived when I was there:
Me: Well, first I lived in a trailer park behind the Cracker Barrel off of Jefferson.
Her: Oh, I know that place-didn't they tear those trailers down?
Me: I'm not sure. And then I lived behind The Love Shack (think Adult Toys) in Newport News. You know, in the ghetto. (I said this thinking I was being witty and that she would soon share in with me and Lyndon's continuing discussion of Hampton Roads).
Her: Oh no. That's not the ghetto. I was born in the ghetto. Wait-you said The Love Shack? My friend was shot in the Food Lion across the street from there. No, that's not the ghetto.
Damn. This is why I don't strike up conversations-what do you say to something like that? I;m sorry? There I was, totally schooled on the fact that as a middle-class white girl, I had no right talking about the ghetto.
Erp.
posted by waltzingmathilda @ 5:52 PM
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