BBFF: Blog Best Friend Forever

I know...I'll tell you!!!
I wanted to tell someone [other than my mom, whom I called at 5:30 am about this] about how I feel. I don't think anyone is home who would empathize, and my boyfriend is being mock-happy and sarcastic right now, so I have a blog!
Last night was the best night ever. After three classes (skipped one) and work, my assistant manager came in to relieve me at 9:00 pm so I could go to the Russian club meeting. I went home, quickly changed, made it on time, and took a seat. There must have been about 30-40 people there! I was nervous and a little shy at first, and after introductions, everyone was welcome to Russian refreshments. I meekly placed a couple of treats on my plate and sat down. After sitting along for about 2 minutes like a dumbass (who goes to a club to meet people and sits alone?) I went to go chat with Etel. Another officer chimed in, Sasha, and we struck up a conversation about our mutual suffering in engineering. This conversation dominated and led back to the desks (after we realized we were the only ones standing) and continued on to what classes he would have had cancelled the next day, Differential Equations, and zodiac signs, including whether or not we believe. He's a Scorpio, too, October birthday close to mine. Anyway, the meeting continued with a rousing(?) game of Mafia, a suspicion game based on accusations and murder (yay!). Some people (with a sense of humor and fun attitudes) enjoyed it more than others (who have trouble understanding the concept of suspense and why not anonymity is crucial to the game). I was a cop and they killed me off for trying to help them pin a mafioso. Damn it I'm a cop it's my job (literally, in the game, only we know for sure) to know. Afterward, we broke up into small groups to play/learn to play a card game called Durak, with relatively complicated rules. It was still so welcome and so strange to hear and understand Russian conversations behind me in the classroom. Sasha was advising us newbies on the strategic methods best to use in Durak, and after clean up, I bummed a ride home. Upon arriving to Mayank's place (where I got dropped off) he seemed okay enough, though perhaps a bit bummed at not being able to see me to hang out. However, not five minutes after I got there, Etel called me back and invited me to their apartment to hang out with her, her roommates, and the rest of the club officers. This time, Oleg swung by to pick me up with the others in tow, and we stopped at 7-Eleven for fruit punch before heading to join Sasha at the ladies' Busch apartment. Upon arrival, I popped open a beer (Natural Ice...because even piss is tolerable cold) with the guys and relaxed on the couch before Nastya made the jungle juice and we began a round of Kings. The slightly different rules were fun, though, and the game lasted an extremely long time. Of course, only Russians would make rules like, "Every time you drink, you drink twice." and "Drinker picks a buddy" and "Drinker's buddy picks a buddy." Around the third rule (Drink every time you say "like"), everyone began to get understandably fucked up. This mission was further accomplished by the guys' desire to finish off that crappy 30-pack of Natural Ice, which triumphantly ended in a shirt off, with drunken dancing, ghetto strobe lights, and awesome Russian techno music mixed in with our usual favorites. After several rounds of creative Truth or Dare (nothing inappropriate, actually--what do you think we are--Americans? lol)
...Aaaaaand what a great idea it would be to go have a snowball fight! When we first got to the apartment, we saw scantily clad (for February blizzards, that is) black guys completely fucking each other up in the snow. We decided to be with each other in the snow, completely fucked up. The others lit up a cigarette and then came the horseplay. Idiots that we were, the booze made us feel warmer than we thought, so Etel insisted on preventing my hypothermia with the generosity of the warm contents of her closet. On our slippery, wobbly journey to the door, Sasha sabotages our desire for not-pneumonia by pulling us away, inevitably ending in rolling around in snow, throwing snowballs, and uncontrollable laughter paused only for excited shouts in Russian. Though being shirtless with just a light windbreaker open over his torso was enough for him, Etel and I successfully returned warmer and dressed more heavily in preparation for going on the swings. "Teeeshe, teeshe, ve zhe znayeti shto shas Indeeskaya zhenshena budyet kryechat na nas?" she warned, "Etel, yazhheee smaguuu po Hindiiskii na neyoo nakreechattt!! Shto tie volnuyeshsya!?" I warned, barely clinging in an awkward position to being carried across the yard. On the swings, we discovered that it is difficult for someone to sit on your lap while swinging. We next discovered a snowman, which was promptly destroyed by the gentlemen after a valiant effort by Etel to thwart their snow pillaging. We rebuilt it, crooked, many times, with sticks in the wrong places and lumpy middles insulting human design, but stumbled away successfully to go aid some guy who drove his Mustang into a drift. Shouting proudly about the RUSSIAN COMRADES TO DE RESCUE, we huffed and puffed his 8-cylinder out and started for the apartment. While Sasha was insisting on drifting his Kia, completely wasted, in the parking lot, I tried to convince him instead to give me the keys. When that didn't work, we convinced him we'll go after we warm up inside. On the way back home, I saw it. A shopping cart. I screamed, "A SHOPPING CART!!!!!!!!!1" and climbed in, proclaiming what a great idea this was! They drifted the cart with me in tow in the wet, sticky snow and after falling several times, we went back to the apartment. For more drinking. And more dancing. And more Truth or Dare, before Colya finally drove me home in his BMW, which, by the way, BEASTED the snow. At 6 am, groggy and gushing with joy, I went to sleep with a cranky Mayank.

So what of this evening? I cannot even begin to describe the feelings of belonging that this awakened in me. After so many years of wondering what it was that was making me feel just slightly out of place, I was welcomed into a group of friends and hospitable hosts that carried on in traditionally influenced fun. How can I explain what makes it so different? How can I adequately describe the relief of being able to speak Russian to people my own age, with similar stories, attitudes, and beliefs about fun and good times? I never ever felt so comfortable, and the atmosphere never felt so genuinely dripping with goodwill as I felt last night in the company of Russian/Belorussian/Ukrainian Americans. I never quite fit in with Russians, and I never quite perfectly fit with Americans, but Russian Americans are exactly my breed of understanding! No one here is faking kindness, or grinning an awkward smile to be polite. No one is trying to get laid. No one is getting fucked up to see how much they can chug. No one is waiting for someone to pass out to draw on them (they were conscious for that part). No one is lazy, on the couch, talking about how fucked up they are. We all got together for a relaxing fun time around friends to enjoy their company and feel a sense of togetherness from the unique brand of party that comes from our blended cultural backgrounds. I felt a sense of trust, kinship, friendliness, honesty, innocence, and goodwill that can often only be achieved around people you've known your whole life. Yet, with Russians, this feeling happens after an hour or two of knowing them. That's what makes our social life and behavior different. I finally belonged somewhere. I finally had an identity, found it, sharing its skeletal contours with many wonderful people who inherently understood and shared my sentiments.

Did I mention the hospitality?

P.S. WARNING: BREAKS TONE OF BLOG ENTRY. I wake up to a Mayank angry about what time I came home, sarcastically urging me to sleep and insisting that I need it. Seriously? What happened to a boyfriend being there to listen to their partner and being supportive of their emotions? What happened to the listening---the understanding? How can I tell him the deep satisfaction of the connection I made? Isn't he supposed to be the first one I gush to--and he's worried about what time his prized posession comes home and how proper or improper it is, and how to leash the pet he's parenting? I'm 21, not 45. At 45, I'll only stay out to 4 am. I just hate the piss-poor level of understanding and the finger wagging and the silent anger, burning caustically in the phrases dripping with sarcasm. What happened to being each other's best friends? Does that stop? I just left. I left, finally, without trying to start an argument. He doesn't realize how he made himself appear the other day when he ignored me and coldheartedly, cruelly cast me aside as some animal. He doesn't realize that I no longer trust him enough to tell him my deep emotions from last night, and that is the most costly loss I can think of. This is a different kind of trust. This is the trust you have when you believe people will listen, when people will care, when people will understand. I don't trust him to listen to me--to see me as a human being with feelings and deeper emotions. I can't confide in him. What is that? Who will see me as a person? I'm tired of being a posession, when the only thing that matters in the stead of my happiness is what time I come home and do as is wanted or expected of me. I thought I moved out of my house, and even my parents never ever lost my trust in that regard. (I called my mom at 5:30 am to tell her about this and she understood so perfectly.)