Some People.

I was in World Literature today, and we were talking about Jalaloddin Rumi, a poet who writes in mystical lyric. One poem we discussed of his is this:

[What I most want]
'What I most want,
is to spring out of that personality,
then to sit apart from that leaping.
I've lived too long where I can be reached."-Rumi

The class has 400 students, so the eacher goes around asking for thoughts and gives us a mic to talk into. This one girl says something about how she thinks it is like how she is rude and awful at home, but here in a new place with new people, she is nice. She goes on to talk about how getting away from these people has led to her taking on a new personality.

The teacher said that was "sort of" how it was and asked for more thoughts. I decided to raise my hand and speak.

I said, "I think it's different than that because Rumi is actively seeking to internally distance himself from the personality he knew, whereas you seem to be making more of an observation of your changes based off of your outside surroundings." Of course, I don't say it as well as this. I stumble through some words, but it's pretty much the same thing.

After class I go into the restroom, and when I come out this girl is standing there practically getting all in my face. She tells me how It bothered her what I said. How she was insulted that I could say such things. And there were other girls in ithe bathroom just as confused as I was, and we all were in that class.

I told her I didn't understand what she meant and that I didn't mean to offend her. I still don't even know what she was talking about. Something about how I shouldn't have assumed she hadn't changed? Or something. I have no idea. But, she told me that I really pissed her off.

I just apologized again and walked out with another girl. This other girl was like, "Sounds like you pissed someone off." We both kind of laughed, but I even asked her what I had said that was wrong, and she had no idea. It's creepy that this girl somehow found me in this sea of 400 people and followed me into the restroom with the intent of attacking me for not even saying anything wrong. I just pointed out how while she may have changed, as my teacher agreed with, calling it "putting on different faces towards different people", Rumi was actively seeking this distancing of himself from the strains of how others look at him. And, even took it one step farther to say that he wanted to sit apart even from that leaping distance he had already created. I never said anything about her inability to change or to actively seek change.

From the example she gave us, she just said she noticed she acted differently towards people here as opposed to how mean and nasty she was at home. The ironic thing is, if she thinks approaching strangers and telling them how much they piss her off is not 'mean and nasty', I'd hate to see what is...

What the heck is this girl's problem? Does she actively seek people she doesn't know to put words in their mouths and attack them? I couldn't believe that someone had the nerve to come up to me and tell me I "pissed them off" over things I didn't say or even imply. The teacher was agreeing with me- no one else seemed to think I did anything wrong. This just spoiled my already sucky day.