A Bit of Social Commentary on my First Couchsurfers Meetup

I’ve been craving conversations about travel lately, looking for people who share my wanderlust and don’t look at me like I should get a job already. The conversations I share on the road are more open and honest and there’s depth to it in a way that meeting someone new from my home city does not draw out until all the small talk has long gone. There’s an instant connection as travelers in a foreign place, and it’s that connection I miss.

To do something about it, I’ve been listening to podcasts and joined a couple Facebook groups to find likeminded people. But I needed real human interaction, too. So, last night I attended Couchsurfing’s weekly meet up at the Cambridge Brewing Company.

It was great. I met people from China, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil, Turkey, a couple local students and others who just moved to town. It’s interesting to note that 6 out of the 10 people were Asian, which was pointed out and I’m sure noticeable in the bar. There was a smaller group of people chatting next to us that may have been the regular attendees we expected to meet but…we didn’t ask.

At the end of the night, a white American dude came up to us to ask if we were here for the meetup. We were. We asked if the group next to us were, too. They were.

At that answer, I couldn’t help but feel unsettled about the racial divide between my group of 6 Asians, 1 black American, 1 Turkish, 2 Brazilians and the other group of tall, blonde/brunette, white young men and women.

Since moving back from China I unintentionally developed a hyperawareness of race. Last year, my family drove up to the White Mountains and on the way back stopped in a supermarket off the highway. We were the only non-white people in the store. I asked my aunt if she noticed–she didn’t. But I did.

This was my first Couchsurfing meetup so I can’t say more than what this single experience made me feel, which was, HOW TELLING IS THIS OF OUR SOCIETY? I don’t mean America. I mean the world.

Perhaps it’s a natural tendency, a comfort thing, to gravitate towards people who look like us. Or maybe the other group wasn’t here to meet new people at all and I’m ranting on about this for no reason. Whatever the explanation, this situation reminded me of another occasion at a bus station in Thailand: Asians waiting in one group, white tourists in another. My friend Sharry and I stood in between, marveling at this super duper apparent racial phenomenon, that could at once be explained by language compatibility, cultural habits, and organic racial self-segregation. It also reminds me of this book my friend received in college called, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? 

Maybe none of this is a phenomenon. Maybe it’s just history in motion, part of the progress, or digress. Maybe I’m being oversensitive. Maybe it’s time to revisit that book to find some answers.