The Land Of The Phonies

There are things I like a lot about America. The business values, a mentality that encourages the entrepreneurial spirit in everyone, the never-give-up, can-do attitude that people have whether they're competing for a championship or trying to bake a pie. And hamburgers, and steak. Probably some other things too, but these are the big ones.

The list about things I don't like is much longer, but on top of that list sits the unique animal that you will find everywhere in America; The Phony. Maybe there's a reason Catcher in the Rye is one of my favourite books, Holden really knew what he was talking about. The Phony is the person who shakes your hand and smiles at you and then the moment you turn your back tells somebody else that they hate your guts.The Phony is the person who says they're on your side and is the first to leave when the going gets tough. The Phony is the person who calls himself a friend but is only ever around for the parties, never for the funerals.

The reason I wanted to write about this topic today though is because I have a couple of stories that perfectly illustrate my point, including one that's still unwinding. These are stories of the typical North American Phony.

I remember when I was dating this bimbo many years ago and we ran into a high-school buddy of mine who was also with his girlfriend. We chit-chatted a bit, the two girls exchanged a few words, and as soon as they turned away the bimbo says to me, "Wasn't she so ugly?"
In America people find it so easy to destroy somebody's self-worth solely on their appearance. I was sitting at a patio with a few people a couple of years ago, and a homeless guy was walking around asking for change. Obviously he was raggedy looking, but somebody still found it necessary to make fun of his shoes because his toes were sticking out of the holes in the front. The guy who started mocking him though was concerned about issues like gay rights and the environment. What a phony.

When I worked in travel, it sometimes felt like it was a continuation of High School and University. Most of us sales people were about the same age so we got along pretty well and often met socially after-hours. It was a nice environment, can't complain. Anyhow, you would think that that after all the the time we spent together day by day, the beers, social outings, and friendly banter, a sort of connection is made where it's not unreasonable to talk about personal things every now and then, or to do each other favours here and there.

Truthfully though, it's very unreasonable. One of the guys there had a birthday party and invited the usual suspects. Oddly enough, one of our office 'friends', a girl with an overly enthusiastic and bubbly 'I love everybody' type personalities didn't show up -didn't even call to say she couldn't make it. I wasn't surprised, but he was puzzled by it since they were close. That Monday he asked her what the deal was. She snapped at him and said that he had "no idea what I had to go through this weekend" and that's why she couldn't make his stupid party. Then for the rest of the day, she was mad at him for "making a big deal about missing his party". If I may, you big phony, how is your so-called friend supposed to know what kinda shitty weekend you're having if you don't tell him? It's because you can expect no less from a phony 'friend' who talks about anything and everything except meaningful, personal issues.

What happened in my case was different but in some ways exactly the same. Here's a girl who's known me for over three years, who was always very friendly during the time we worked together, and who's also unwilling to help out the first time I ever ask for a personal favour. All I wanted was for her to get in touch by email with one of their local contacts for a trip I want to take. I needed some information in the form of the reply that they would give her. After about a month where the only thing I got from her were a couple of Skype messages with YouTube videos, I wrote an email and asked her to copy/paste my text and send it to the relevant person. Haven't heard anything about that either. I asked her again on Skype a couple of days in a row and still nothing. As we say in Romanian, she's pretending it's raining. The thing is, if you don't want to do it, I get it (but tell me). If you can't do it (should probably be a good reason) I still get it. But to pretend that we're somehow friends and then you don't lift a finger and you ignore me when I'm asking you for something that's actually meaningful, that, I don't get.

I'm a hundred percent sure if I were to see this girl tomorrow she'd be like "Heyyyy! How are you?! We missed you here!! Blah blah blah." Over time, I noticed that the more phony somebody is, the more overly enthusiastic they are. They have to mask their complete disinterest with sparkly words and exclamations since they know this to be the formula for enthusiasm. But it's forced and it's fake. This doesn't necessarily go for every phony nor for every enthusiastic person, but to a large extent it's like that, especially in America, The Land of the Phonies.

Here's a heads-up. If you're Romanian, East European or any sort of immigrant and you move there, have fun. They'll all smile at you but as soon as you leave the room there are telling looks being exchanged and giggles at your accent and the way you dress and what kind of food you eat. If you happen to be in a position where Phonies are subordinate to you, they'll hate you even more. I've seen this kind of treatment first hand and more than once. You know what sucks the most though, some of the phoniness got to me. I feel like I really need to make a conscious effort to say what I think instead of some anti-confrontational placating bullshit that doesn't upset everyone. It's not a good way to live, but I've escaped.

Comments

10 Reasons Why Romania is Better Than America

Really? Yes, really. Let me count the ways. In America you can get everything you've ever dreamed of: GameBoy, Sega Genesis, plants that look like faces , and more. Maybe if you work really hard long hours at the job you hate (but that you tell everybody you love lest you appear to be a miserable person), you can even get a flat panel home theater TV that takes up half your basement (on credit, of course). Awesomeness!! In America you can always be sure to be on top of the latest fad, such as devil sticks or Tamagochi and you will be first to read bestsellers like The DaVinci Code and Fifty Shades of Crap literature. Basically there are thousands of ways of feeling accomplished -or pretending that you are - you just need to be there to catch all these wonderful trends on time! I know what you're thinking, how can Romania possibly top all that considering America is also the land of Root beer floats and Antoine Dodson? Everything's been done in America, that's ...

Is Cluj The Best City On Earth?

It's a question I ask myself at times. Let's put it this way; I've been around. Maybe not all around the world, but halway-ish maybe. Sailed the canals of Amsterdam, biked from one end of Paris to the other, took the train from Budapest to Berlin, drove the 405 in LA, and yeah, I even rode a hay cart back in the day. But other than enjoying all these forms of transportation, I got to enjoy the places I visited. I don't know about you, but when I visit a place I always ask myself, 'would I live here?' While the answer is often 'yes, why not', the only place I moved to was Cluj. Cluj, how do I love thee, let me count the ways: 1. I love your smell. It's like earth, and air, and city. I will never forget my first day here, when I walked out of the arrivals building at the airport and breathed in your smell. Spring. You're the city of eternal Spring. On a balmy day, it's what you smell like, even if it's December, or August. 2. I l...

Are Romanian Women The Most Beautiful In The World?

More than once, I was asked to write about the beauty of Romanian women, but... I have no words. Besides, I may be biased, but clearly it's a rhetorical question. However, there is no shortage of Facebook pages dedicated to the subject. Image: A typical Romanian woman, Madalina Ghenea.

10 More Reasons Romania is Better Than America

I get it. The US is special. I hate to say it, especially as a Canadian, but it is. But it's mostly special because of the America that it used to be. The idea of America is special. There was, once, an American Dream within the reach of any hard working man. It was a country that offered unprecedented freedoms and opportunities unmatched by any other. The great melting pot was about inclusion towards one common goal, it was not divisive, individualistic and driven by a Bergeron-esque vision of 'equality'. Assets were not based on decades-long lines of credit, and salaries kept up with cost of living increases. I could go on about 'the way things used to be' but you can look it all up if you're interested. If you live there, you should be. The reality in America is different now. Sure, it's still the land of plenty. But the plenty is not all good. Plenty of debt, plenty of poverty, plenty of obesity, plenty of civil unrest coupled with plenty of he...

10 Things Romania Does (A Bit) Differently - Part 1

A few days ago, after walking into a grocery store, I couldn't help noticing I was in a state of trepidation. The reason? I'd walked in with my gym bag, purposely avoiding the security guy at the entrance. I felt his eyes must be following me and that a loud, "Hey, you!" would ring out the moment I turned into an aisle. It turns out that the longer you live somewhere, the more you get used to it. A truism, of course. What is not immediately apparent is that this isn't necessarily a good thing, especially when you find that you've become used to something you may have found, at some point in the past, in another place, entirely unacceptable. This is why, now that I've crossed over the honeymoon period of my move to Romania, I find my enthusiasm for life here wanes when, for the 286th time, I am forced to walk into a supermarket through the designated entrance point, even if an empty checkout is much closer and no less accessible. Then, upon entry, a gr...

You Can't Plan a Romania Road Trip, But You Should Anyway

I started writing this post in September 2014, not long after coming back from vacation. I dropped it because I got sick of going through the hundreds of pictures we took just to pick the perfect ones for this post. But, like a seed once planted, it needs some water and the right conditions to flourish. In my case: an email from a reader, asking me about road-tripping through Romania, and the chance to lift this weight off my back. So here it is, a summary of one Romania road trip, from Cluj and back. The Itinerary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2,656 Kilometers. 188 Liters of gas. 2,919 RON. That's more or less the tally for the Romania road trip I took with my roomie/wife Roxana. We could have booked an all-inclusive vacation to Greece, Turkey, or Bulgaria at about the same cost, but how could we resist a road trip? A unique waterfall , the ' tunnel of love ', the best dri...

What I Learned About Driving In Romania

I get it now. I understand Romanian drivers and their follies. It's something I thought would never happen. All it took to shape me into a Romanian road rage machine was one month of driving around Cluj and a 400 km round trip. I'm kidding about the rage part. The idea of driving in Cluj was intimidating. Last time I'd driven manual shift was almost ten years ago when a co-worker asked me to drive her and her newly purchased, Pontiac Firefly home because she had no idea how to do it. So of course I stalled that little bastard all over the place. Little surprise that the idea of driving along busy and narrow European streets was unappealing - especially after years of driving automatic on wide, North American roads. But I managed. Stalled an average of once per trip during the first week, and then a couple of times in the second week, and now, a little over a month later, I sometimes stall at stoplights when I forget I'm driving stick and leave it in gear when I rel...

Why Romanians Don't Like Romanians

To my knowledge, this national self-loathing is a uniquely Romanian experience. Maybe we share it with some of our neighbours, but I doubt it. I've never seen a people dislike their own as much as the Romanians. This is going to be highly generalized, but as with most things I write here it's rooted in personal experience and observations. Don't hate the player, hate the game. 1. Romanians like the exotic, to be Romanian is the antithesis of what it means to be exotic. 2 . Romanians are often prejudiced. The thought process goes something like this: If you're Romanian you're probably bereft of interesting experiences and financially limited. You're from 'the-worst-country-on-earth', after all. If you're well off, then you're just a rich asshole (probably a thief, too). Either way, your Romanian-ness ensures you're seen as a person with limited horizons who likely can't offer anything new or different. If you're Western Europe...

10 Things Romania Does (A Bit) Differently - Part 2

Most lists don't begin at number 6, so if you want to start at the beginning, head over to Part 1 . 6. The Clothes Dryer The mighty clothes dryer, a staple appliance in just about every North American home, is essentially non-existent in Romania. While it isn't suspiciously regarded as a harbinger of death, as is the A/C unit, it takes up a lot of space and consumes plenty of energy, both of which come in short supply relative to Romanian preferences. Besides, if everyone had a dryer, then balconies, clothes lines, and drying racks would take up space for no good reason, and doing the laundry would be an all too efficient endeavour (generally considered bad taste in our neck of the woods). Of course dryers do exist, usually on a steam-drying system, sometimes in a 2-in-1 washer/dryer combination (which requires no external vent or filters), but it's nonetheless a long-forgotten luxury for many a nostalgic expat. 7. Sidewalk Parking I could write several blog post...

Here Is Why Romania's Future Is Bright

The festival is only in its second edition, but following last year's inaugural event, Electric Castle has stirred up enough buzz to attract visitors from beyond Romania's borders. Walking around the festival grounds I had the impression that every other group was comprised of foreigners speaking Hungarian, English, German, or French. And judging by the license plates in the parking lots, every county in Romania was well represented. While there's plenty to be said about the artists and the music, there's something else I want to discuss in this post. When you think "music festival", the image that comes to mind is that of overly excited youth on a drug and alcohol infused rampage, laying waste to everything in their path. Maybe it has something to do with the way festivals like to promote themselves; these are basically the images that stand out on most 'Official Aftermovie' videos from major music festivals. But obviously the experience is defined...

Expat In Romania

Search This Blog