Pure Conventional

For some reason I was thinking about another student intern I worked with at my first internship. He lived in the same city where I went to school (and also attended that same school). The office was about 20 minutes away so we drove together, had a lot of conversations.

One, I recall, about a woman he had been dating. He told me they had broken up. He found out her dad was gay. This was not acceptable to him for his partner. He could not agree with her family lifestyle. I couldn't even explain how baffling I found this. It is not like SHE was gay even. I could understand that. I can't date you, because you are gay. That makes sense to me. But her father? Not like she can change who or what her dad is. He was just very, very conservative.

Another time, more toward the end of the summer. I was talking about how I was going to miss everyone, asked him if he thought it would be more appropriate to give everyone hugs or shake their hand to say goodbye. "Well," he said. "That depends how you would like to be remembered. Do you want to be remembered in a professional manner or more like a little kid?" That also baffled me somewhat. Is the world really so black and white? I remember thinking. Ultimately I ended up staying on to work part time during the fall semester, so it wasn't even an issue, but still. A glaring contrast in perspective, I suppose.

Somehow, even though you wouldn't think he would be any fun at all, he got quite into things like survey of the week which we (okay let's be serious here: I) would post on the little counter by our intern workstations. Which is your favorite Muppet? What is the most food you have ever eaten at one time? Red Sox or Yankees? Or, the time we snuck into a polo match which was supposed to be some sort of posh business development thing, but I guess we had misunderstood that part of it. We ate the fancy exotic horderves too with wild rice and capers and chit-chatted with ladies and gents.

So I guess it goes to show, nobody is pure conventional or pure fun. I wonder if he would still be opposed to a gay dad now...?