An anecdote and a life-gleaned nonfiction fable.

I’m at a nice little apartment party Saturday night. I’m surrounded by pleasant friends, acquaintances and freshly introduced individuals. One of the newbies in my life has donned a t-shirt with a large blue, star spangled donkey. The conversation has grown stale. So I make a passing remark along the lines of “(smile) Guess we know where you stand.”

The mirthful group shares a chuckle, and another of its members, proudly toting a Baume & Mercier watch, nudges me confidently and pipes up “Exactly. Where all of us stand.”

Maybe I’m feeling feisty, or maybe I just don’t like being implicitly lumped into a group because I’m a 24-year-old girl who went to Berkeley and lives in L.A., but I answer “Not I.”

Gasp.

The group of early twenty-somethings turns to me, horrified and cries, complete with Münch Scream-like faces and palpable disgust, “Wait…you’re…a Republican?!”

“Actually no, I’m not. I’m unaffiliated.”

“But how can you be unaffiliated when the stakes are so high?”

(Read: How can you shy away from choosing sides in this so clearly, subtlety-lacking Black and White world?)

“I just don’t think I can commit to a political party. The two major options here are rife with problems. Call it…case-by-case voting.”

“Oh, um, yeah, ok…that’s fair; you’re right.”

(Urgently now) “But…who did you vote for in ‘04?”

“Truth to tell, that’s not really…any of your business.”

(Frantic…c’mon, there’s still time for us to like you. We want to, but unless we settle this now, we can never be on good terms, let alone become friends) “But was it Kerry?”

“Still none of your business.”

Donkey Girl, looking uncomfortable, finally ends this very awkward exchange with “No, that’s good, you don’t have to tell us. I respect that.”

I guess this is the point where she realizes that condoning an attack on someone who doesn’t necessarily think like she does isn’t very liberal…minded of her after all.

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Image: Zoe Strauss