It’s been over a decade that I’d been haunted by the image of that guy yelling that I shouldn’t be at that party. In particular, that I shouldn’t stay over and crash that late at night. I recall my friend of the time telling me the morning after that it wasn’t right to do what he did. “We have no problem with you. Whatever he said, that was not right. Just know that you were welcome,” he said. It was at It was one of those classic cases of denial, one where I could only respond to my friend by saying, “What are you talking about? I’m fine.” The truth was that I was bothered. Wasn’t I there for the same reasons? Wasn’t I there to feel safe?
My golden, crusted years of piling out at parties with a bunch of hipsters out in Brooklyn are far past me. I rarely go out these days, and if it’s out late, I make sure to take a car home, as opposed to gritting my teeth and take a train so late at night that I’d have enough of a story to complain about to a coworker. What hasn’t left me is the experience of feeling that I am being vibed out. Of course, these cognitive distortions are hardly true. To jump to a conclusion about someone you don’ t know. I would only know based on my experiences of being at a skatepark, rolling in and nodding to locals who stare at you in bemusement and return to what they were prioritizing (be it a trick or talking to another local to trade their judgements).
The vibe out is really easy to spot. It’s starts with the eyes. You make eye contact with someone, and they look at you unflinchingly. It’s like a staring contest where the first person who blinks is an indication of weakness. Then, if and only if, you start talking the exchange of kindness is a back and forth. You ask for the person’s name. Then you follow up. Then you ask what they do. Then they tell you. Then maybe they don’t ask you. Then you start to think, is this a conversation worth having? Is this a conversation they are stopping with you out of respect of boundary?
These days, I’m really trying. But I’m terrified at the feeling of knowing that with every effort you make, you cannot control how the other person will respond. Back in 2013, when I went to a party at my friend’s establishment, I remember having a conversation with this person, who I will call “J.” J approached me, surprisingly, and we began talking. Then the conversation turned into a staring contest, an awkward exchange of pleasantries, and full stop of conversation when J decided to go catch up with a few other people he knew at the party. Back then, I believed in that moment J “cool with me.” By the end of the night when I was too out of it to go home, my friend offered for me to stay at his establishment. Sitting at the other side of the room opposite of the establishment’s exit, J began yelling louder and louder. He pointed to me. My friend and his other friends held him back, eventually pushing him out of the door. J yelled out, “He doesn’t belong here!! He should be here!!!” Eventually, he was forced out. His yelling dumbed down, and I took rest on a random couch that was found on the sidewalk outside.
Looking back, I recall that event as encountering a really bitter, frustrated, and insecure person. I may not be there, but the feeling he made me feel that night comes and goes. It comes up when the front desk man mistakes me for a delivery man and not a resident of the building. It comes when the only other Asian man in a bar full of hipsters locks eyes with me, and I am unsure if I am cramping his style and am in his territory. It comes when I cross boundary with someone I don’t really know, and they have the ability to tell me to stay in my lane.
The world is filled with ghosts, and sometimes I wonder if I have the courage to exorcise that voice that told me that I didn’t belong – each and every day. Perhaps ghosts may not real to you. For me, making the life they had once lived real is enough to free them of their turmoil.
MENU 
Leave a comment