Personal Lessons in Ethnography, Part 2.1: Examples of Assitude

Okay, so there's no way I'll actually be coherent enough to truly treat this like a pure anthropological study, but at least I'm not spittin' mad any more and thus am no longer worried my words may be sullied with excess vitriol. I won't get into the larger issues at stake here, but I figured I'd at least share some of the "examples of assitude" I alluded to in my earlier post.  To avoid confusing labels (I can't keep saying "my friend" because this involves several of my friends), let's label the cast of characters thus:

C: the friend in question who is awesome and I love
M: C's boyfriend. Considerably less awesome.
A: has been friends with C since early childhood, I've known her and C since early high school. Highly opinionated with an extremely forceful personality.
B: friend of C from the same religion, has become friends with me and A over the past year or so
I: I just mean "I" as in the word you use instead of "me", maybe I should have gone with numbers...
Okay, so now that we instituted that either totally obvious or completely paranoid rubric, let's get on to the story.

Last Saturday (11/13/10) B had a birthday gathering that included all individuals in question. Over the course of the afternoon and early evening, M occasionally made comments that were distinctly tinged with bigotry, but the real fun didn't start until we all went out to dinner. B rode in the same car as M and C and apparently he bitched about A the whole way there. Now, I can understand being overwhelmed by her and/or not up to spending a lot of time in close proximity to such a whirlwind of energy if one is not used to it, but it's unclear exactly what she did to earn such animosity (we have a few theories...but those mostly have to do with her being a strong female and therefore a threat). The strangest element here is him doing it in front of B. Did he for some reason think she wouldn't tell us?
There were a whole spate of assitudinal moments at dinner, but we all avoided seriously starting shit given that it was B's birthday dinner. Prime examples include:
-M insisting that fried foods aren't bad for you, and when questioned by one of our other friends insisted that it was proved by 'science'. I missed this (I did a lot of going to the bathroom to avoid having to spend time in his proximity...also because I have a tiny bladder), but apparently he tried to bust out some sort of nonsensical explanation, clearly unaware that the woman to whom he was talking is a Cal grad who works in the microbio industry. Fail #1
-We were debating the possibility of genetic resistance to Poison Oak and A mentioned that she had Native American ancestry. M's response: "Oh, well that must mean you have the gene for alcoholism too". Um, yeah. I think I can just stop labeling the Fails here since this covers #'s 2-437.
-In a discussion that somehow involved the downsides of a stereotypical 1950's marriage (WHY WERE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS?!) he said something along the lines of "Well, you only don't want it to be that way when it benefits you. I'm sure there are a lot of aspects you do want." I don't remember if it was me or A, but one (maybe both) of us asked for an example. I was genuinely curious because there were a whole number of interesting sociological routes he could take, so what does he go with? He pointed directly at A and said "Well, I bet you like it when your boyfriend buys you lots of expensive things."
1) A runs a half-million dollar government program. She pays her own rent, she pays/has paid for her own tuition, she pays for her car. In fact, she makes quite a bit more money than her boyfriend, and really neither of them are into getting a whole bunch of unnecessary material shit for each other.
2) One of her personal pet peeves is women who predicate their relationship on having the man buy them lots of things.
3) In short: bitch got told, even though A's response was pretty much just telling him the above, with explanation of why #2 is a pet peeve (you know, relationships being based on respect and affection, etc. instead of material wealth...ridiculous shit like that). Again, it being B's birthday dinner, she kept it cordial.
-Then there was some whole thing where he bitched about tipping and splitting the bill to some insane degree (even though he wasn't the one paying: C was). This shit started up and I could tell it was going nowhere good so I put in my money and went to the bathroom. It was still going by the time I got back.

So, overall, M didn't make the most stellar of impressions that evening. However, given that this was only my second time meeting him, I didn't want to jump to a judgment too quickly. Okay, granted, I had already judged him and decided he was a judgmental bigoted dick, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow for the possibility that this wasn't true, that somehow there was some sort of explanation for him coming off as a total dick. I decided I needed to see him again before I really made up my mind.

Coming Soon: Part 2.11, The Cakewreck Icing on M's Gâteau of Fail

Be Seeing You.