Fire like Strawberries

As part of the continued culture adjustment, my state of mind is as unstable as a 15 year old bipolar valley girl. When someone says, "You have a dependent personality"--something that insults the utter core of my morality and self-awareness--I fall off the wagon.

Anger and a fit of somber denial followed. How could someone I thought knew me so well not understand one of my basic principles? Have I been dependent in Beijing? I realized that he doesn't grasp my basic beliefs, and also that I have been more dependent here than anywhere else because I deal with depression by becoming an extrovert. The epiphany made me a little depressed.

But, I had begun to have my doubts about this friend earlier on during the night.

This friend, TB, buys me dinner a lot. At first I tried to pay for it myself--even though I wasn't financially stable--but after a while I just accepted it as his way of being nice (or repaying me for my intepreting work). He's been a very generous friend all around. The main reason I get along with him is because of his elitist views, which is difficult to find in Beijing. The Chinese are very socialist, and the younger men are always trying escape the elitist attitudes of their country by coming to China, where every Asian thinks they're amazing.

Last night, after helping him buy a new water dispenser, we were quietly eating when the discussion turned to Linguistics.

Being a very critical and doubtful person, I try to dispell any misconceptions people have about things I know a lot about. We got into a discussion about the languages Papua New Guinea, and I was very disappointed when he started talking about things without any evidence. Then I realized that a large part of his personality rests on knowing "things." He is a very good conversationalist, who does happen to know a lot, but now I realize that some of the information may be patched together--surface knowledge.

Then "dependent personality" came up, and I thought it was time to leave.

What the hell is happening to me? Can no one figure out my personality?