What I’m about to write won’t make any sense unless I outline the Insights Discovery “colors” that act as identifiers of traits, so, this is generally what each color represents (on a good day):

Extraverted Thinking – “Fiery Red”: competitive, demanding, determined, strong-willed, purposeful

Extraverted Feeling – “Sunshine Yellow”: sociable, dynamic, demonstrative, enthusiastic, persuasive

Introverted Feeling – “Earth Green”: caring, encouraging, sharing, patient, relaxed

Introverted Thinking – “Cool Blue”: cautious, precise, deliberate, questioning, formal

After spending the last three full days with my group of 16 colleagues of all Insights colors and personalities, although it was both enjoyable and productive, I was looking forward to being back at a hotel room in a real bed this evening. Although I love socializing and having stimulating and thought-provoking conversation with crazy back and forth banter, after long periods of having this interaction, what I really crave is alone, quiet time to just be by myself and process all the information I’ve digested. I guess you could say that’s the slow thinking turtle in me.

Before I’d get to my much coveted hotel bed, though, I’d made plans to see my two best friends living in San Francisco for dinner in the Richmond District. I felt so mentally exhausted and even was tempted to cancel because I was a bit under the weather, but I knew I really wanted to see them.

The funny thing about being in a high-energy, constantly “on” environment like our retreat center is that because the energy is so bold and everyone is spit balling and constantly talking and wanting to be heard, it makes you look at your next social situation in a comparative light. So when I arrived at the Mexican restaurant for dinner this evening, although I’m fully conscious of the types of friends these women are, I feel a bit judgmental to say that the level and energy of the conversation was a bit disappointing for me after the last three days. Even though I thought I wanted something quieter and calmer, when I actually got it tonight, I felt dissatisfied. There wasn’t any disagreeing or back and forth banter to clarify topics or opinions tonight; there was no new, exciting information shared that shed light about one another; there wasn’t even a lot of self-awareness sadly that I could notice, and that was probably the biggest annoyance for me given that I spent the last three days working on trainings and exercises that solely focused on increasing self-awareness because it ultimately benefits everyone. I left my actual friends tonight feeling let down, and I wasn’t sure if it was really because of them or because of me.

The entire conversation, with a little button pushing from me, was just so passive. Passive was the resounding word in my head as the night wore on. I had one friend zoning out and not listening when work topics were being discussed (she isn’t currently working and hasn’t had a career-type job at all). She’d bring up superficial topics like which expensive restaurant she should choose for her boyfriend to take her for her upcoming birthday (and literally ask for that – an “expensive” restaurant instead of one that she just really wanted to try that might be pricey. I found it unfulfilling. Even when I wanted to go deeper and talk about the Osteria Francescana meal or how much I loved Bologna’s quaintness, we never quite got there… because I didn’t get the sense that my audience cared that much to hear those details that I enjoyed so much, and so the subjects changed. When I brought up the actual Insights training, my friends were shocked to hear that my subconscious qualities were strongly “green.” Green types are seen as being patient, relaxed, empathetic, the mediators, the peace makers, the ones who want to bring harmony to a group. There was this immediate “no” reaction from both of them. They think I’m on the aggressive side, so a red. And one of them, my most conflict-ignoring and avoiding friend, insisted that of us, she was the peace maker. I told her… awkwardly because she hates confrontation and being countered, that she isn’t truly a peace maker or mediator because a real peace maker mediates a problem and addresses it… she simply avoids and ignores it as long as possible. That isn’t the same as peacemaking, and it would be troubling to think that she believes that. She didn’t respond to this (which I expected given who she is) and the topic changed.

But you know what? What I really would have loved in that specific situation is if she actually did respond, if she did say, well, hey, there are examples in social situations where I did try to actively create peace, and maybe you just weren’t there to witness it. We’re not with each other 24/7. We may have known each other 20+ years, but that doesn’t mean we know every experience each other has had. So maybe what I have asserted is wrong because it’s solely based on my interactions with her. But hey, I’d be open to hearing them and changing my opinion if she’d be willing to share them. However, I’ll never know what I don’t know and what is not shared with me. That countering or rebuttal or continuing of a conversation that has a potential to change the other person’s mind – that just doesn’t happen a lot with us, and that makes me sad. And if it does happen, it’s coming from me 99% of the time.

I guess it also bothered me to think that they would never perceive me as a peace maker given all the family situations I’ve had to navigate and assist in within my extremely negative and dysfunctional family; have they heard me when I have described those situations? Do they remember or do they conveniently forget the most painful topics I bring up around family? How much do we all really listen to each other?

The other thing I thought about is what we discussed in our Insights training. Depending on what the other people in our group are like, our colors “adjust” or morph so that we feel fulfilled and can compensate for what may overall be lacking in the group. So in their perception, perhaps I am a red because out of the three of us, I am the strong-willed one, the aggressive one who pushes for more. I definitely feel that way when I get bored when topics are slow or boring or monotonous or when a decision cannot be made. But overall, in a diverse group of people, I rarely feel that I am the red one…. The yellow one, yes, as that’s the dominant color my evaluation says I am, but almost never red.

After my dinner with my friend last night, someone I’ve known for the last six years here in New York, I thought about the types of people I tend to attract. A number of my friends have a difficult time expressing their feelings about sensitive topics. On the surface, we touched a lot of difficult topics last night: parenthood, infertility, broken families, the political climate of our country right now, but whenever I tried to push it to the next level, my friend’s body language made it clear that he was uncomfortable and didn’t want to continue, so… the subject would change.

But he has no problem sending me articles that discuss difficult issues. It’s just that he doesn’t really want to delve into these topics in conversation. Why do you want to bring up topics and not discuss them? Is it because you are afraid we will disagree and there might be some discord? When do you get to a point in your friendship (if ever) where you can disagree, and it will be just fine and you can move on?

In the book I just finished reading called The Female Brain, the author, who is a psychiatrist, discusses how there are parts of the female brain that on average are larger than the male’s, the parts that have to do with empathy, care taking… and avoiding conflict and ultimately confrontation. Well, on average, I seem to attract both women and men who avoid conflict and confrontation at all costs, even if it means avoiding having interesting and stimulating academic debates.

There are very few parents I’d be willing to eat dinner with without my friends. It’s not that I dislike or hate any of them, but it’s more that if I am going to have dinner with someone who is not family, it better be someone who I can have decent 1:1 conversation with who won’t bore me to death.

A friend from college has parents who, during our college years, would come to visit her at least once a year during the school year. Each time they’d come, they’d generously offer to take one of her friends out, and oftentimes, that lucky friend was me. It was usually her dad coming, so he’d indulge us and provide us temporary respite from the monotony of dining hall grub. And we’d eat delicious things like Ethiopian/Eritrean, Indian, or Tibetan, and he’d happily and enthusiastically dig in with us. And we always talked about things that were interesting to me, like culture, travel, food, and more food. It was so much fun, and I loved seeing him.

Well, my friend’s parents were in town this week, and they messaged me on Facebook to let me know they were coming and would like to see me, so I guess the feeling was mutual. Tonight, I treated them to BCD Tofu Korean tofu stew, and we talked about their daughter, Arizona, politics, culture, language, art, museums, and travel. I was so happy.

And then I thought… it kind of makes me sad I can’t have the same conversations with my own parents.

After hearing about a disturbing Netflix TV series called 13 Reasons Why, I decided to try watching it. In a nutshell, the show is about a teen girl who suddenly commits suicide, leaving a package of tapes to each person who is a reason why she killed herself. She leaves instructions to each recipient of the tapes: each person who receives a package needs to completely listen to all the tapes, and then that person must pass along the package to the next person. If anyone breaks the chain, a separate set of tapes will be released to the public.

So tonight, I watched two episodes, and it’s clear how bad bullying can be with kids in real life. Everyone at some point gets bullied in school, but the extreme cases can and do result in suicide and lasting ramifications on people’s lives and psyches. I realize that this is all fiction, but I can also see how real it can be. In a lot of ways, and maybe it’s because I was confident from an earlier age than average, but I never really got bullied in middle or high school. I was always school or journalism obsessed, always studying. Going to an academic high school, I feel like I may have been shielded from a lot of the usual sex, drugs, and alcohol abuse, bullying, and popularity contests that the average American high school has. And maybe it was a good thing because I don’t know how I would handle even a fraction of what’s in this show.

Tonight after dinner with my parents, I met two of my friends for ice cream. One of my friends came with her boyfriend, who for the last two years of their relationship has pretty much been a mute. He rarely says anything. He just kind of stands or sits there and eats. He’ll occasionally look at you and seem like he’s listening to you, but you’ll probably never know because he rarely verbally communicates. My friend has expressed annoyance to him and says he needs to make an effort to talk to her friends like us (because that really needs to be stated). So tonight, he actually said one or two full sentences. And our second friend gave him credit for it afterwards.

“He was actually a bit more talkative than he normally is,” second friend remarks. “He said like two things.”

You know the bar is set so low that it’s nearly below ground when you’re complimenting someone for speaking two sentences over the course of an hour.

Despite it being her wedding day today, my friend decided to organize an out-of-town friends brunch at 10am. Although I felt that the idea would be very ambitious given that her wedding would be at 5pm, I selfishly hoped she’d follow through with it. It would give me more time to catch up with her, and also more time to get to know her friends from all over the place. Aside from me and our friendship from college, she had a friend and her boyfriend also travel from New York City, who she’d met in Beijing while working at a magazine after college; her high school best friend and his husband come from Minneapolis; and her middle school camp friend and her husband attend from Indianapolis. “You have someone representing each part of your life at this table!” her friend exclaimed.

My wariness over how well we’d get along immediately ended when her high school friend and I hugged and greeted each other, and we already knew who each other was because we’d heard so many stories from our mutual friend about each other. “I feel like I already knew you, but I just hadn’t met you yet!” he exclaimed. It’s like that Michael Buble song “Haven’t Met You Yet.” The entire group got along really well. Her friends were what I imagined — a varied bunch of intelligent, ambitious, witty, and very opinionated people from different parts of her life. We were all loud and laughed insanely, and we all had very strong opinions about Trump Nation, the current state of the union, and how racist and intolerant society was becoming because of this new leadership. We discussed cultural differences across the country and the nuances even in the same metro areas. We even discussed sex and cheating. That’s how much ground we covered over the course of brunch and then the wedding evening. It was a day of very intellectually stimulating and varied conversation. Meeting friends of friends doesn’t have to feel forced or be fake after all. I genuinely loved the entire day.

I set up time today to meet with a friend at a nearby coffee shop to the hotel where Chris and I are staying at in downtown San Francisco, but after some thought, I realized… why am I asking her to meet me at a crowded coffee shop with terrible acoustics when I could just invite her to the hotel lounge during prime afternoon tea time hour, where she could have access to whatever food and drink she wanted? I called her and asked to meet at the hotel instead, and as soon as she walked into the lounge… I wish I recorded her facial expressions changing. Like me, my friend is very expressive, and she shows all her emotions on her face. I’m sure Chris might have likened it to my face when I first walked into the British Airways International Lounge at JFK airport, when I’d never been into a single airport lounge in my life other than the terrible and bare-bones United lounge in LAX. She was blown away by the food setup, the access to drinks, the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, and the overall decor.

“Is this the life you are used to?” my friend marveled, as she sat down to enjoy her just-made latte and crustless mini egg salad sandwiches. “So la-dee-da, aren’t you? I could get used to being you! Can I just stay here even after you leave?”

We ended up staying in the lounge for about three hours, and Chris was even able to join us and meet this friend for the very first time. Chris made the fancy hotel and lounge seem like no big deal, like this was what he was used to given his hectic work travel schedule, and my friend marveled even more. She was not used to this type of travel. And for the longest time, neither was I.

As I thought more about it as we sat down together for that time, I started feeling like somewhat of a disappointment, like a Stepford bride who relies on her husband for all the money and luxuries and pleasures she enjoyed. I don’t get this type of experience or treatment on my own or through my own work; I get these privileges because of the work and accomplishments of my husband. And what’s worse is that he’s had it way harder than me as someone who isn’t even a U.S. citizen and had to prove himself as a foreigner; I’m natively born here and I’m nowhere as accomplished as he is. He’s set in his career and enjoys every minute of it; I’m still wandering around, figuring out what the hell I’m really supposed to be doing and what my purpose is.

These are the first world conflicts of someone who is privileged, or “la dee da” as my friend said.

When you have been friends with your friends for over two decades, it’s easy either to note the evolution in their characters and beliefs…. or not. Sometimes, we turn a blind eye to our friends’ changes because we want to see them how we always saw them — as the great people we originally loved and became attached to. But for me, I think what’s been a very strange change is seeing one of my closest friends, who I’ve always considered a deep thinker who has shared her feelings, stop doing that and stop probing to find out more about why I think the way I think. Before in high school, she used to always challenge my behavior or voiced opinions. She always cared about the family drama I had to deal with at home. She always seemed to want to understand. Now, she seems to zone out when our third friends asks questions to find out more about anything about me that may be sensitive or personal. It’s like a lesser desired level of understanding. Or maybe she just wants to remove herself from understanding because it takes too much effort, is too tiring because a lot of the facts are negative, or just wants to have more superficial relationships now. I’ll never quite get it.