This week my former roommate, Ashley, paid a visit to those of our social group (including myself) who are still "fortunate" enough to be college students. I love it when she's here. I have never met another person who thinks and responds the same way I do to, and about, everything...which may be a bad thing because you know, I can be pretty screwed up sometimes (not to insult her, and she would agree). Anyway, this afternoon, I drove Ashley and another friend (who was along for the ride) to the airport. In the car we had the following conversation (some background-the convo. was based on a theory by Bill and Pam Farrel, that men are like waffles-read: compartmentalized, contained emotions, and women are like spaghetti-read: non-linear thought process, emotionally uncontained):
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Ash: I wish I were able to compartmentalize better.
Me: Why?
Ash: Because my life would be easier and I could put off thinking about things until I had time to really think about them instead of letting thinking about them ruin my day.
Me: Oh ok. Yeah, I wish I were better at that too. You know, that theory: men are like waffles, women are like spaghetti. I heard those people speak once, it was different. I wish I were more of a waffle thinker.
Ash: Yes, I want to be a waffle thinker too. I don't want to be spaghetti. It's just so floppy and tangled.
Me: And it doesn't taste good.
Ash: No. It doesn't. And you can't eat it cold because it's so gross. And when you reheat it, you have to add water...*pause* and water just makes it soggier and when spaghetti gets soggy it just falls apart. Waffles have more resistance to sogginess.
Friend in backseat (who has no idea what we're talking about at this point): Spaghetti is very good cold, and cold waffles are nasty.
Me: See, if we were like waffles, we would be the kind of women we want to be (both of us wish we were better at saying what we think, rather than not saying what we really feel because we're afraid of hurting other peoples' feelings and then having to deal with the fall out), because you know, we could be like, 'I might offend you and you may not like me, but you only know one compartment, you don't know the whole thing.' So we would feel like people were only rejecting one part and not us as whole individuals; which would make us more outgoing and less sensitive.
Ash: And then we'd be happier, and people would know where we stood on things, and we wouldn't feel so drained all the time or avoid people as much.
Me: But maybe that's disrespectful because sometimes, if you're a waffle thinker, you have to be rude. And it's selfish to think about yourself all the time.
Ash: But it's ok to be rude sometimes if you're doing it for the right reasons.
Me: I think being like spaghetti can be good too. Like, spaghetti is all tangled up, but that helps you process things in a round about way and gives you insight because you're processing indirectly and your mind can be more spontaneous in how it responds.
Ash: Maybe we need to be a mix of waffle and spaghetti.
Friend in Backseat: Maybe you are uncooked spaghetti. You know, how it's brittle and breaks. I'm a waffle thinker.
Ash (to friend): You mean you never feel like Spaghetti?
Friend: No. Well, maybe sometimes.
Ash: See, I think we're a mix of both. I think everyone is a mix with one or the other being predominate.
Me: Agreed. But I think some people are ALL one or the other.
Ash: I wonder what we are-well I know we're spaghetti, but I think we're kind of waffles too because over time, you become what you want to be.
Friend in backseat: I'm a waffle.
(Ash and I look at each other and smile because we both fully understand that this particular friend is definitely not a waffle)
Me: I think we're waffles on the outside and spaghetti on the inside because neither of us is very outwardly emotive, but we have spaghetti tendencies.
Ash: Yes! Round on the outside, with twisted minds. (laughter)
Friend in Backseat: I'm definitely a waffle.
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And that is how the conversation went down. It was followed by a very similar conversation about cars, but I will spare you the play-by-play. Clearly, we are still very much spaghetti thinkers.
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