I did it. I am assimilated. Je suis français. I have forsaken my country in a way that can never be forgiven. I have turned my back on the Stars and Stripes, violated Lady Liberty’s dignity. The customs officer will take one look at me and flag me as an imposter.
Here is my crime: I put mayonnaise on fries. I willingly put mayonnaise on fries, and I enjoyed it.
Call U.S. President Barack Obama now and have my passport revoked. I sincerely apologize to ketchup, be it Hunt’s or Heinz, for all of the Fourth of July barbecues I’ve now violated.
Of course, I committed condiment treason in the context of an office lunch at my new French internship. That setting is important because it reveals something about my subconscious state of mind at this point in my life.
During the first eight weeks, I was an “outsider” in many senses, some of which I chronicled right here in this column. However, I rarely felt alone in that status because I was still attending classes every day with other American students, complaining in English between exams. I was at least part of a team, a detachment of foreigners in a foreign land.
Now, that safety blanket of cultural codependence is gone, and I’m on my own. Just as I have for my whole life, I resorted to my favorite defense: the social chameleon.
“The social chameleon” is how I refer to it, at least. In elementary school, I learned every here-is-why-millenials-are-bad aphorism, including the timeless “you are a special snowflake,” but they never stuck. I’ve always fought to suppress certain habits — quickly spiraling out of rational discourse when I disagree, excessively childish giddiness, anything revealing passion deeper than a hobby-like interest. And I’d be willing to bet this is quite a common reflex.
So what I do then is sharply tailor my personality to match those around me. To a certain degree, this behavior falls under the umbrella of playing to shared interests. But I worry it is too extreme.
I’d be willing to bet my friends who enjoy soccer don’t know how much I enjoy reading poetry and thinking about my feelings. Conversely, I worried that my hooligan-level fandom during the World Cup gave off a hint of unintelligence to my more artistically minded companions.
Unfortunately, this process only slithers out more malevolently so far outside of my comfort zone. During our communal lunches for the first week, I’ve kept my head down, speaking when spoken to, trying to melt into the wooden molding as if the building, full of so many years and so much history, can impart some of its Frenchness onto me.
The fear this time is twofold: first, the same kind of general social anxiety — being “found out” for what I really am and rejected — and second, becoming nothing more than “The American.” It took only two hours on my first day for someone to make a comment to me about guns.
So no matter how delicious it was to put mayonnaise on my fries, a little subconscious part of it was because that was the status quo, the norm, what already-established “others” did. I wanted to blend in, to become French right down to my condimental preferences.
Certainly, this was nothing close to any form of suffering, but the process of trying above all else not to be noticed came rushing back with full force all the same. And if that process sounds unoriginal, it’s because it is; I can’t be the only one stuck in this pattern.
So, I propose to you all that we stop being social chameleons for our own goods.
I’ll take the first step: I’m Chris. I’m American. I like my hot dogs with brown deli mustard (not that obscene radioactive-yellow stuff) and sauerkraut, and apparently, I like my fries with mayonnaise as well as ketchup. Sometimes, I write mediocre poetry about being sad, and other times, I scream at televisions in bars when Cristiano Ronaldo inevitably scores.
This is not strictly a lesson that we are all snowflakes. That is true to a degree, but it’s also a bit too far onto the scale of Millennial Ego-Stroking. It is more that there is so much more out there to do and see and think and say and create and feel, and worrying about how you and I will be received is just counterproductive.
I spent my first few days worrying about how to fit in, not practicing my French or learning about cultural differences or thinking about where this stepping stone falls in my life. And I think now that this anxiety is a complete, utter, draining waste of time.
I should be comfortable in my office, but the best route to that is not telling myself over and over again that I matter. At this juncture in my life, it is best to realize that I only have seven more weeks in this office to learn something.
I can’t do that if I’m inside my own head the whole time worrying about how “American” I am.
