I spoke with a girl I’ve only briefly met, again last night. Let’s call her, W.
As my first impression a few months back, W seemed very cool and very much my kind of person. She carries herself with class and is incredibly articulate. However, after talking to her more over dinner I realized that I missed quite a lot about W the first time around. And there were things I disagreed with her about.
For one, she was very adamant about how horrible substances were to the body. Now that in itself is fine - if not completely true. What I didn’t like, however, was how she grouped and labeled people who use and have ever used substances as ‘bad’ and 'dumb’. ..Because your intelligence and integrity completely depends on what you put into your body, right?
Um, no.
It wasn’t that W didn’t like the drugs themselves or doing drugs, but the fact that she was negatively judging people didn’t sit well with me. The fact W herself has never had experience with drugs and was passing judgement regardless, also made me lose a little bit of respect for her. I don’t think drug-use is correlated to integrity. And especially not intelligence. I also find it unfair that people are seen as losers and criminals for making personal decisions with what they put into their bodies.
We don’t have a right to tell others how to live, and we especially should refrain from judging people who make different decisions from us. I think I was really disappointed. W seemed like someone who was progressive and open to new ideas - somebody I would be able to welcome into my socialistic, San Franciscan conversations. …But she turned out to be just another Conservative from that “other” city down south.
(Everyday, I thank the universe that I grew up where I did.)