You can't depend on me for anything...

Being the introvert that I am, one of the things I have the hardest time with is meeting new people. Not because I am a hermit, but just because I tend to keep to myself. Obviously when you meet new people, you can't keep to yourself... Why am I explaining this???

Anyways, because of certain factors in my line of work, I've been meeting more and more people from Pakistan or India. I know Dawn is going to freak when she reads this, but to tell you the truth, I just can't tell whether someone is from Pakistan or India. I think I can tell when someone is from the general area, but that's about it.

I must just embody the ignorant American to these poor people. It's not really by choice, but I just haven't been exposed to these cultures before. I had no idea they couldn't, or choose not to, eat meat when one guy asked me if there was meat in the pasta sauce during a training lunch recently.

guy, pointing to sauce - "excuse me, do you know what's in this?"
me, with blank look - "I dunno, it looks like tomato sauce and some spices"

guy - "do you know if there is meat in there?"
me, with blank look - "uh...."

I had no idea. Furthermore, I was baffled. Who cares if there's meat in there... it's all we got, just eat it! Luckily I was saved by someone who was a little more culturally aware of the situation, who explained to this poor guy that there was no meat in the sauce.

Please sir, stay away from the ignorant American before you hurt yourself...

What good am I? I can barely understand people with such heavy foreign accents, I sure as heck can't help them thru our mish mash of non-cultured life.

What's worse is, I don't know if I should help them out when they do or say something that would potentially offend someone here (not that you can do anything these days without offending someone...). The other day I was sitting with a designer discussing some ideas, and he said something like:

"blah blah blah, oh Jesus Christ... blah blah blah"

And then he said the same thing again... I was stunned. I'm certainly not offended by that, but I know a lot of people would be. I didn't know if I should say something to him, like, hey buddy, you may want to tone down the Jesus references, or if I should just sit there, stunned... I always find it's best to avoid a confrontation, so I just sat there... stunned...

Unfortunately, of all the stupid things they teach you in school, nothing prepares you to deal with other cultures, other than just being exposed to them as much as possible on your own. I feel bad for the foreign born people that I come into contact with in the future. I apologize in advance, I'm the dumb American you've all heard about... Please, go easy on me.

peace nick