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What Am I?

A week ago I was invited to dinner by an Australian New Yorker. There were to be four of us. Me and my friend Sandra and two other women - who I've never met.

It was a pleasant dinner, and but for one thing it might have joined my memories of hundreds of other dinners, here and in Australia, where the evening is pleasant but nothing out of the ordinary happens.

What was different about this particular dinner was that it lead me to question my very identity.

We were sitting there chatting, me, my friend Sandra, and her American friend Tina. The fourth person, Michelle was running late. Neither Sandra nor myself knew Tina's friend Michelle.

After about twenty minutes, during which time we all downed our first wine for the night, the running-late-Michelle literally ran in. Michelle IS a runner - not a professional one, but running is her favourite pass time.

She had that healthy look that fanatical joggers have. She was dressed to run and I sort of ruled her out as my type of person. I am of course, the most unhealthy person I know, at least in terms of preferred lifestyles.

Now, I've always been of the opinion that American women are hard to really get to know. Certainly the ones I've met in New York have been friendly enough on a superficial level, but have not become the type of close friends I am used to having in Australia.

Plus ALL Americans I've met tend to eat and leave; they certainly do not sit around in restaurants for three hours or more. And they certainly never drink more than two glasses of wine, at most.

As I ate and talked with my companions I became relaxed and the effects of good food, good wine and interesting conversation took hold. I saw the world as a friendly and easy place. I must have drunk too much, the wiser part of me intoned.

I turned my head to catch the waiter's eye and as I turned back, I caught Michelle-the-Healthy sneaking my full glass of shiraz and swapping it with her own empty one.

"Hey!" I yelled, "you are taking MY wine!" She just laughed and poured half an inch into her, now my, glass.

"I can't believe an America did that!" I told her. "I'm thirsty", she replied.

My preconceptions about healthy joggers, Americans, American women, were dashed. 'Americans are generally polite'. 'Americans don't drink too much'. 'American women are relatively reserved with strangers'.

Oh well, so much for those images of Americans and healthy people that I managed to acquire in the last eleven years. Or have they changed? The Americans, I mean.

Or is it ME who has changed? Have I BECOME American and am I relating differently?

I guess I'll never know. And does it matter? It was a pleasant dinner and next time I see Michelle-the-Healthy, I'll keep a closer eye on my wine ...


Kate Juliff
New York
October 2005