- In many ways appears to me to think similarly to my ESE friend, particularly in the doing aspects of things, like practicality
- He and the ESE almost immediately started joking together at my expense. Apparently I'm amusing. I got teased about lack of practicality, inability to care for myself, weird ways I might try to handle things, things that could physically happen to me, my various reactions to things... They both think my "confused face" is fun/cute.
- I feel really... incompetent around him and the ESE. I'm not sure what it is, but I found myself feeling extra superfluous, and even mildly in the way. I felt like every idea I had got initial interest, but then ended up getting shot down as ridiculously impractical. So I would often just try to stay out the way and look at interesting things by myself, like taking pictures of lettuce.
- Then again, I feel like without me interjecting ideas and time-related thoughts the two of them may have stagnated. I'm starting to think I should just focus my suggestions on pure ideas or goals and then leave the implementation to them. I guess I'm just used to figuring out ways to get where/what I want done, even if the path there isn't the most efficient or cost-effective. And now I have these two who feed off of each other's senses of how to best accomplish things, multiplying any efficiency they would have had on their own, which makes me feel silly about what I usually try on my own.
- Apparently our local Saturday market was too "alternative" for him... Sure, there's usually a bunch of normal to weird-quirky people running around, but in my opinion it's pretty tame. It's mostly just cute stuff, like kilted unicyclists playing accordions every so often, at worst. Also, at one point we walked by a place that seemed to attract gothy hipsterish-looking people, and that was "very alternative." He's from Europe (and my impression is that Europeans tend to be more open about a lot of behavior), but it still was too weird for him I guess. I can't help but wonder if me, a sheltered prudish American, is more open to different people than him, a sophisticated experienced European.