I've been going to the gym about 5 times a week. Running and lifting. Feels really good to push myself physically and get tired out. Helps with getting emotions out. The first few times I went were frustrating as people stared and the gym guys obsessed about my knowing how to use the machines, but now they know who I am and mostly leave me alone. Someone has mentioned before how the other SALTer here doesn't talk to many people when he's at the gym. They seemed to think that he was being anti-social, and I've gotten the same comments said about myself when I am biking somewhere with my head phones on, for example. I explained that when we go to the gym, we don't go to talk to people. We go to be alone and exercise and that we really don't want to converse with anyone. It's not the purpose of going to the gym. In America, most people have their headphones in and it would be extremely rude to stop them in their run to ask for a photo, or to distract them while they are lifting weights. It's just not done.
I know people don't understand. Why would we not want to stop what we're doing and talk to them for 20 minutes?! Why would we want to be cut off from others and so alone when we are doing things? It's the American way, I guess. There is social time, and there is alone time. Socializing is done on dates that you usually schedule ahead of time, usually during meal time over food and in the evening. Other than with family, social time in the US is usually at events. You meet up with people. Alone time is for the in-between, and to be alone is perfectly alright and does not indicate that a person does not have friends or no one wants to be them. When I tell someone I'm doing something or when I first get to an event, the first question I am always asked is "Sama siapa?" ("With whom?") and it sounds strange to them when we say "Sendiri" (Alone). Sometimes I'm told I'm brave. Sometimes I'm just looked at with an "Oh! Poor thing..." expression. It's the same with romantic relationships. All the time I am asked who I am dating. When I explain that I have dated before but broke up with my boyfriends, it confuses them. Why would you not want to be dating someone? Why would you purposefully be alone?
And yet...
I often, often eat alone.And my evenings are sometimes spent alone, even though I know plenty of Indo people. The eating thing especially confuses me. Everyone will be at home, but my host parents will take their food into their room and I will eat at the table alone and it will be completely normal to them. Evenings are spent in front of the tv, not in a coffee shop talking with friends, or playing cards and talking with your family.
And yet they are constantly texting people, constantly on facebook.
I don't understand it, really. A very social society. You do everything with people. And yet you don't often have intentionally social times and times that would be convenient to be social, in the evenings when everyone is home, or at meal times, are not taken advantage of for socializing. There is no time purposeful for socialization, not many friend dates that from what I see in the society. That makes me sad. Yet people are trying to talk to me all the time, and people think I'm snobbish for not answering their calls and their yells as I'm walking somewhere or doing something.
This is just a cultural observation that my limited experiences have given me, but it's a phenomena I haven't quite figured out yet. What's the underlying pattern, or cultural value that I'm missing? Is it not so much a difference in socializing as it is an independence thing? Confusing...
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