Communal Living and "Adventuresome" American Girls

It occurred to me today as I awkwardly complimented my housemate Hiyam on her huge new fake-leather belt, that living with people you don't know, probably would not be friends with under other circumstances, and don't connect with-- that all of that is or can be rather good actually. So, yes, there are a couple girls I don't really click with. I don't get them and they don't seem to get me. I feel rather awkward in their presence and am always trying to think of things to say. And once with Hiyam, we got in somewhat of a fight  when she made negative comments about my mopping the house--after she had skipped out of her chores for a month. But I think this is good, having to do life with all these varied girls, instead of seeking out only people I connect with. And too, you can be delightfully surprised. I didn't expect it, but one girl in particular, Haneen, and I have become good friends. She recently said to me "I never expected that I would have as a good friend, a foreign girl because I thought that her values and world-view would be far from ours, but you're not like that. And neither is the American girl that lives upstairs." And truthfully, for me too, I didn't expect to meet someone I connected with and enjoyed so much, and who in many ways really gets me.

On this note of expectations of what "foreign" girls are like, another one of my housemates, Bana, said to me a couple months after I had moved in, that she was surprised at my behavior and told me that I wasn't like most American girls. So I asked what most American girls were like and she answered well, they are adventuresome, they stay out late, and they don't have close relationships with their families. But, she said, you aren't adventuresome (by which she meant promiscuous), you go to bed early, and you talk to your family a lot.

I think this is in many ways is what it actually looks like to "build bridges" and "break stereotypes" and all those other things we talk about. I'm always watching them...seeing how they make coffee, what they cook, what they wear, what they talk about, how they act together. And I know they are watching me in all this too...and giving their quite vocal feedback! "What are you doing? Is that how you make rice?" "This is how you should be cleaning the floors" and "Ah, much better, you should always wear skinny jeans it's better than what you've been wearing." !!