Most of the time, it's because I am talking about our awkward first semi-date, which he asked me on in his excited good-interview after glow (he interviewed for an internship at our company). He mentioned that he would be in Shanghai, a neighboring city, that weekend and it was too bad that I would not be there otherwise he would love to take me out for dinner. I thanked him and accepted as I pushed the elevator button for the second time. His smile froze. He stammered. He didn't know that I normally headed to Shanghai to see my family for the weekends.
We had sushi. I suggested an exploratory walk around the colonial neighborhoods afterwards. He wanted a plan and directions for my "aimless stroll". I talked about loving visits to Kenya's Masai villages but being appalled at the female circumcisions performed. In between checking GPS for our location, he told me that he was fine with that lifestyle choice. I blanched and gave him a fiery human rights speech. He was similarly horrified when he realized that he misheard me and thought I meant women choosing to have operations to prevent having babies in the future.
His cheeks flamed under the yellow street light. I did not offer to help as he fumbled around for words. He finally mumbled that going to dinner with me was exceeding his "one date a semester" quota - his usual flimsy exercise to appease matchmaking bishops. Smirking, I asked him if I made him nervous. He avoided looking at me the rest of the night.
(That's what made his later confession so much more surprising.)
Anyways, I was thinking a lot about the truth in story telling today. I absolutely love stories. Hearing them. Reading them. Making them. Telling them. There's something special about sharing common experiences through words that, when strung together beautifully, become transformative.
If I can captivate you with the story of eating snake meat Lady and the Tramp style then later realizing it was sheep penis, does it really matter if I said it was this long or that long? Or if I made your eyes go wide at my story of being bitten by a copperhead snake and not knowing it at the time (and hence revenge through snake meat quest), who cares if I mentioned all the details of the three nights in ICU?
But today, I questioned myself. I had blogged about a dear friend and her family's move across the country, filling in the descriptive blanks with my romanticized notion of her story. Except, I shockingly found out, that there was no basis for the story at all. No moving van. No family camcorder. No pouting mother.
I sat there at my office desk, deeply confused and bothered. If I didn't hear that story from her, how on earth did I pull that from the recess of my mind? For better or worse, that story had shaped my perception of her upbringing for the longest time and now I scrambled around to "fact check" against myself on what I knew about her.
And because I could "remember" the exact spot in Beijing where I thought I had heard that fantastic story, I now doubt myself. What if all the stories I have ever told are tainted with my overly active imagination? What if I have been dressing up my truth until what's left is a darn good story and I've forgotten the original? What if my mind automatically selects the interesting, shaves off the accurate and presents the sensational?
What does that say about me as a story teller? What does that say about me?
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