Cultural Differences

This week is a not very busy for Rex and I. He has no exams, and I have a short week due to parent teacher conferences. I also have no homework in my masters classes this week. Hooray! We decided to take advantage of this relaxation time and celebrate being halfway done with the semester. Obviously the best way to do that is with a pizza/pajama party.

We set our plans for "Old School Pajama Party Night" for Monday. I got done with conferences at 7, and we immediately went to Little Caesars to pick up our Hot N Ready. We deliberated over getting crazy bread. We were that annoying couple that says, "Do you want crazy bread?" "I don't know, do YOU want crazy bread?" "I don't care." "I don't either...". Finally the Little Caesars worker chimed in with, "Well, I think you should get the crazy bread." So we did. I think we both secretly wanted it anyway.

With our delicious meal in tow, we headed back to the apartment. We changed into our warmest pajamas and set up the pizza dinner on our bed (obviously pizza at a pajama party needs to be eaten in bed). We talked about our semesters so far and had an awesome time kicking off our pajama party.

Once dinner was over, things started to get complicated. I said, "Okay! Pizza was great - time to do other old school sleepover activities!" and Rex said, "Cool - what movie should we watch?" I explained that no, that is not what people do at sleepovers. His choices for activities were any combination of makeovers, telling secrets, and pillow fights. He told me that no, sleepover activities only consisted of combinations of video games and movies.

What we have here is a matter of cultural differences. Rex only ever went to boy sleepovers, and I only ever went to girl sleepovers. This whole boy/girl sleepover thing was not working out very well because we both had preconceived notions of what a sleepover should be. I asked Rex how boys could ever bond if all they did was play video games and watch movies, and he informed me that boys don't need to discuss their feelings in order to "bond." As a matter of fact, it is actually somewhere in guy code that discussing feelings at a sleepover (or really any other time) is off-limits. He asked me what is the point of doing make-up at sleepovers, because the sleepover attendees are just going to have to wash off the make-up anyway. I tried to explain that getting your beauty on is always fun even if you aren't going out, but I don't think he was understanding.

We came to a standoff. Neither one of us wanted to budge on our old school sleepover activities. Finally we came up with a brilliant compromise. Rex could pick a movie of his choice, and while we watched the movie I would give him a makeover. That is exactly what we did. He chose that we would watch Psych (which was really funny), and I did his make-up. He looked beautiful. I would post a picture here, but he wouldn't let me take any. :-( Let me tell you, though - Rex with sparkly smoky eyes looks GOOD.

It was a very successful sleepover party. The lesson here is about embracing cultural differences and understanding each other's backgrounds. Well, maybe I am stretching that lesson a bit. But the pizza/pajama party was really fun. :-)