'What's the frequency, Kenneth?'

Today’s title comes from a song on the 1994 album “Monster,” by one of my all-time favorite American alternative rock bands, R.E.M. (The bizarre utterance is also reportedly what Dan Rather’s attacker said before assaulting the TV newsman in New York City, 1986.) 

Lead singer Michael Stipe said about the song: “ I wrote that protagonist as a guy who is desperately trying to understand the younger generation, who has gone to great lengths to try to figure them out, and at the end of the song, it’s completely f***ing bogus.  He got nowhere.”

With apologies to R.E.M. and Dan Rather, I am borrowing and stretching the message further here, to refer to how difficult it is to find another person — not only someone from a younger generation but from another gender, another culture, another country, another religion — who is on the “same frequency” as you. It’s akin to rocket science. If it is commonplace to feel sometimes that your own family is outside your “frequency,” what more strangers? 

If a stranger, on the very first instance, already strikes you as being totally “off” or “alien” in terms of sensibilities, someone you simply do not “get” or connect with, chances are, no matter how hard you labor, you never will in the future.

Recently, my 25-year-old half German nephew, Mike, who was raised in Korea, England and Manila but is now based in Geneva, was shopping with me in the States. After the first hour or so of walking in and out of shops, he came charging toward me, ecstatic, one fist raised in the air, the other clutching a brand new long board, saying, “I love America!”

I asked why.

“Because when I chat up the female sales people in stores and they ask me where I’m from because of my accent and I say Geneva, they go nuts! They start coming on strong. It’s crazy! I love Americaaaa! They love Europeans here! I should have a shirt made that says, ‘I am from Geneva, Switzerland; not Geneva, Michigan,’ and watch the girls go crazy!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Hay naku,” I said, “You got suckered and it cost you the price of a brand new skateboard.”

“I was really in the market for one, Tita. Come, come. I’ll show you.  They’re cute, those girls in the skateboard shop. There are two of them: blonde and blond-er.”

I thought to myself: This phenomenon is what literary theorist Edward Said has written about at length: locals exoticizing anyone or anything foreign, taking them completely out of context. 

I asked him, “Doesn’t it ever occur to you that maybe it’s because you’re nice that this happens, not simply because you’re from Geneva?”  It is not hard to like Michael. He is six foot one with the physique of a football linebacker and flawless skin. He has chinky eyes set on an angular face with that typical strong German jaw. He speaks in the Queen’s English and has old English gentleman manners.

“Thanks Tita, but I know it’s because I’m from Geneva; they like foreigners — we’re hot.”

Really? Do these girls not know how difficult it is to get along even with someone from your own race, your own generation, your own country?  Heck, make that your own city or even your own street in your own village — what more with someone from the other side of the world.

We’ve all heard this cliché a million times: opposites attract. There’s no bigger load of hokum than this in the history of the universe. How might one ever get along with someone who is wired differently, who has different tastes in everything: food, music, film, literature, clothes; someone who has different values; different socioeconomic, religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds; someone who is one’s very antithesis?  No amount of love and romance can conquer these great divides.  Money? Maybe — for a short while — because it’s not hard to assume a different personality if coming into lots of dough is the motivation. But for sustained periods? Nah! Those true colors come out sooner or later.

At a party with friends last night here in Vancouver, Susan said that her 21-year-old daughter, Katherine, has a new boyfriend — her second.  “Oh, he’s better than the first one, you know. He’s Filipino, he’s courteous, and he’s personable. Magaan dalhin.” She made it known that it doesn’t matter that her children had grown up abroad, she still wishes for them to end up with Filipino partners. “It’s just easier that way. But of course, ultimately, it’s their choice. But how I wish…” she said.

One of the grandmothers present added that interracial marriages are inevitable for immigrants. “But I still find it better that Filipino women marry foreign men rather than the other way around. If a Filipino man marries a foreign woman, it’s a disaster because Filipino men are used to being taken care of — they’re spoiled. Foreign women are not maalaga; the man will suffer. I have a friend whose son married a foreigner. They live in Texas and when he gets home tired from work at night he still has to cook his own dinner. Poor man.”

Another guest, whose marriage has been unraveling over the past year, become so candid courtesy of several glasses of red wine that she said she and her soon-to-be ex husband are polar opposites in everything.  “Of course it was the come-on in the beginning — our being very different. There was so much to talk about, so much to explore, to discover. We were trying out each other’s favorite restaurants, favorite activities. But in the long run we hated every minute of having to spend time away from doing what we each loved most. The conflicts just kept coming. Two kids, three marriage counselors, four near-separations, and 11 years too late, we realized that the ‘You complete me’ line from the movie McGuire is a big load of crap. Beli-eve me, we’ve tried to fix things one too  many times. The effort wears off after two or three months. We both revert back to what our nature is, which is really the opposite of the other. We both figured it’s time to move on rather than force the issue and grow old bitter and resentful.”

Like Michael Stipe of R.E.M. said, this couple went to great lengths to figure each other out — all of 11 years — but eventually got nowhere. 

One of the gentlemen present, in an effort to cut the drama, said, “Oh, come on, you just happened to fall in love with your mailman.”

The lady came back with, “If this supposed mailman’s character is very much like mine — as close as humanly possible to mine — I’d date him in an instant, as soon as the divorce is final. Wait, forget that; I’d do it tomorrow after I’ve shaken off the alcohol.”

There is a lot of wisdom there. How hard is it to fall and stay in love, get along and live with someone exactly like yourself?

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me cecilelilles@yahoo.com.