Bengfort.com

I ran into a young woman from my public policy class on the metro today on my way to work, and we got to talking. She mentioned that she was from Kyrgzstan, and I, realizing that I knew absolutely nothing about that particular part of the world, was very curious. She moved here four years ago and had a lot to say on the subject, so it turned into a pleasant and very enlightening conversation.

On that note, I’d like to mention something on the topic of age, a very popular topic for us Bengfort bloggers these days. The girl’s age seems so utterly ambiguous to me that I could not possibly for the life of me figure out how old she is. She looks to me like she could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-five; she has no lines or wrinkles, but her face appears a bit older to me, and her mannerisms as well, though that could come from her personality and her cultural background rather than her age. Even the fact that she’s a student and an intern means nothing- there are plenty of elderly- I’m sorry, older- students, and as she only recently moved here an internship is probably the best way to start out a job. My only small clue was that she told me her supervisor was “her age” rather than “our age,” but this could have been only to emphasize her point that it was strange having a supervisor just as old as she was.

This makes it a little more difficult for me, communication wise, as I have no idea where our relationship stands. Am I speaking to her as a student to a student, though we are no longer in the classroom? A peer to a peer? If she were obviously quite a bit older than me, I would treat her in some manner more respectfully as my superior, regardless of the situation I were in. If she and I were the same age, I’d be more casual in conversation, though equally as friendly and polite. Also, how do our cultural differences affect the way we communicate? In conversation with a young American, I would certainly be more apt to use sarcastic humor than with an older American or a young person of a different culture.

I suppose in each situation you must adapt to mirror the behavior of your counterpart. In this case, she was doing most of the talking, so I kept my mannerisms polite and curious, which worked well for the situation, but inhibited any real “bonding” between us, I suppose.

I was faced with another dilemma writing this blog, in that I had no idea how to refer to her. Is she a “girl”? Is she a “woman?” I still consider myself a girl, 18 years old, and I’m sure most people would refer to me as “the girl with brown curly hair…etc” rather than “the woman with brown curly hair.” At what point to you change from a girl to a woman? There’s always the intermediary- young woman- but used casually it sounds a bit corny, and still a little ambiguous. Is a 25 year old with two children a girl, a young woman or a woman? How about a single, attractive 32 year old? How about Jaci? Or Devi? I think we can all agree that Mom’s a woman and I’m a girl, but where is the line drawn?

And in that case, what about man and boy? Is it more insulting for a male to be called a “boy” when he reaches a certain age? It certainly has more of a stigma attached to it than does the word girl. Is it more okay for older men to call younger men boys, than for peers to do so? And is it this touchy transition from “boyhood” to “manhood” the reason that there’s a better, or should I say more common, male neutral- “guy”- than there is for women?