A conversation regarding graduate school, poorly paraphrased:

Me: "What if I'm the one who sucks the most?"

My Jew: "Signe, I promise that you won't be the one who sucks the most."

Me: "Says you. It's definitely possible that I'll be the one who sucks the most; somebody has to fill the role."

My Jew: "No, it'll be a boy. It's always a boy. Trust me."

Me: "What?"

My Jew: "It's true, I promise. That's even true here. I have a theory on this. It's because their mothers treat them differently. With girls, it's always 'don't do this' and 'be careful of that' and 'you can't sit that way.' But with boys, everything is either funny or perfect. Boys are always told that they're the best at everything, and they don't have as many restrictions. I'm going to try very hard not to be that way with my son. Anyway, boys always think that they're great, no matter what they do. They don't work as hard as girls, and when their stuff sucks, they blame it on everyone else. That's why you won't be the sucky one."

Me: "But--"

My Jew: "No. You will not be the one who sucks the most. Your gender prohibits it. (pause) The funny thing is, the boy who sucks the most won't even realize it. He'll just think that he's misunderstood, and that his peers are too stupid to catch on to his brilliance. That even happens here. I had a student in the other day who was upset that the entire class missed the Steppenwolf references in his story. I was thinking, 'Forget that! The story sucked!'"

Me: "Huh."

My Jew: "Don't worry so much!"




You know, I think she's on to something. Now that I'm thinking about my creative writing workshops, the crappy-yet-arrogant writer has always been male. After a bad workshop, the girls are ready to either throw themselves off a cliff or never write again...but they tend not to blame their failure on everyone else. Huh.