Paranoid American Idiot

The aliens are coming!I consider myself to be a generally paranoid person. I worry about germs, am generously cautious and wary of strangers. I'm that person that, if they find a bruise on their body, would spend hours anxiously googling symptoms of really random diseases. However I never attributed my paranoia to me being American until I traveled to South America. Seemingly everyone in the study abroad program, upon arrival to Buenos Aires was beginning to get sick. I made a joke (only not really) about not wanting one of my classmates to sit next to me out fear that I could possibly get sick as well and my professor turned to me with a very perplexed look on his face. He asked me if I really thought I would get sick from just sitting next to someone who's sick. I told him yes, I really do. He laughed and said "You Americans are just so paranoid." He went on to quiz me about what other ways I believe I would get sick if in contact with a sick person. When I mentioned that if I share a drink and/or kiss someone who's sick, I will in fact get sick, he laughed and told me that "you guys have problems."

This wasn't the only time that my own paranoia has been attributed to being American. He said, that we're quick to think the worst, before thinking the best. While traveling Brasil I was doing a tour with madmadmad and one of our friends, when the guide came behind me and touched me on my back as a way to gesture hello. I'm not exactly sure whether or not I clammed up or if I shook his hand of my shoulder, but he walked a little bit a head of me, turned around and asked me where I was from. When I told him I was American he responded that in Brasil, everyone can tell an American by the way they react if they're touched. I'm not exactly sure why I dwelled so much on what he said and why it truly bothered me, but I began to wonder if my behavior towards strangers (and foreign strangers, if that makes any sense without sounding overwhelmingly ignorant) was hindering me from making any kind of relationship of value with other people. I don't know why, but it's almost as if I've become overly cautious since coming to Argentina, which I might divulge into a little more in my following post. There were two distinct instances in Brasil where my paranoia would get the best of me. While riding the bus, there was a girl from Brasil who overheard my friend asking for directions to a neighborhood called Santa Theresa. She decided to introduce herself and told us where to go, which was nice of her. When she offered to take us to Santa Theresa, I got a little suspicious. When she asked us to come up to her apartment so she could drop some things off, I was a little concerned. When she offered to take us to Santa Theresa, in the rain, in the dark, through sketchy streets with no lighting, I was almost in tears when madmadmad and my friend said yes. The entire trek to Santa Theresa I was convinced she had friends waiting to kill us. You could not convince me otherwise. So walking through the rain with no umbrella in the dark up very large, wet steps, trusting in some woman who we didn't know seriously was freaking me out and I could feel my heart pounding through my chest. After a lot of back and forth between me and my friends, her pleading that she's not crazy and doesn't want to hurt us, she pulls the "I know that this isn't normal in America, but you have to trust me!!" By this time I was over the whole being American=we suck and hate everyone. Boo to that. What's the problem with being cautious? So I lived that night despite seriously believing I was going to wake up with my kidneys gone and in a tub full of ice.

Two days later a woman overheard madmadmad, my friend and I speaking in English. She introduced herself, said she was living in California and was interested in going out for the night since all of her friends and family were working the next day and she was on vacation. Naturally, I was perplexed. I thought to myself, why would a young attractive woman want to be friends with a bunch of college kids who think drinking Capirinhas all day was their idea of an authentic Brasilian experience. Surprisingly I was the most talkative with her at first and very much interested in getting to know her, until she offered to buy us drinks. An alarm set off in my head and I was plotting in my head ways to avoid her. She stated that since her husband is American, she knows that Americans tend to be standoffish towards strangers and that she wasn't trying to hurt us and not to be afraid. I insisted she not buy us drinks and she responded that it is the Brasilian thing to do. I guess the American thing to do is be paranoid. I blame the movies.