Rain Sopha: The Maxim of the Misfit
As I was preparing to travel abroad to Italy for a semester, I was incredibly concerned about my ability to fit in there. I did not want to look like a tourist, especially an American one, because I knew the negative connotations held in that regard. I did a bunch of research on Italy and watched a lot of videos of what to do and how to act while over there and I took all of it to heart. I prepared a wardrobe of neutral-coloured clothes and slacks, got new cobble-stone friendly shoes that were not tennis shoes, and got my hair re-dyed to its natural colour: all under the impression that if I somehow managed to get every little thing right, then I would fit in perfectly with this brand new culture.
My first few weeks in Italy were spent learning even more about the culture and carefully observing local patterns of behavior. As a part of the program I went through, I went on multiple group tours and learned a few new things about what to do in Florence and what some of the things people ought to avoid are, such as unauthorized street vendors. Additionally, I had signed up for a beginner Italian class that I would attend every weekday for my first three weeks in Italy. I had figured knowing the language was essential for visiting any country for an extended period of time and I enjoyed learning languages anyway, so it felt like a no-brainer.
All was well and learning the basics of the language had been a breeze. I could handle any standard surface-level interaction. Still, it was not enough. With a well-spoken beginning to my conversations, people started assuming I actually spoke Italian and wanted more. They asked questions and gave comments, questions I couldn’t answer and comments I didn’t fully understand. When they realized that I was nothing more than a coherent beginner, they got upset and I was uninvited from their inner realm of thoughts. I hated seeing their disappointment, but I knew complete fluency in a brand new language was not possible to achieve in a single month and my desire to fit in began to crack.
Later on, the study abroad program took us on an excursion to Bologna and while I knew fitting in with the Italians would be difficult, I still wanted to make friends, so I was still trying to fit in with the fellow study abroad students, most of whom were from Massachusetts. Sadly, this has never been easy for me. I’ve always been something of a loner back home and I quite simply don’t know how not to be, but I was still determined to try. For the entirety of the trip, I followed around the friend group of the person I had been living with as they were the people with whom I was most familiar and most comfortable. In the process, I ended up passing by several buildings and stores that intrigued me and promising myself that when tomorrow came, I would visit them, just not today. However, when tomorrow came, it was no longer an option. Many of the local stores were closed on Sundays, including the ones I had anxiously awaited visiting. My desire for acceptance cracked further. It had ruined an opportunity that I would not have again. I was angry. How could I have let this happen? How could I have prioritized people whose interests and personalities were so far off from my own over something I had actually wanted?
From then on, I was determined to do things on my own when I could so that I would be free to follow my own whimsical desires. Only a little more than a week later, I had booked a trip to Amsterdam and my time there had gone splendidly. Despite the endless rain, I still managed to do everything I had set out to do and even to have some positive conversations along the way. The problems arose as I made my way back to Florence. While the trip started smoothly, it quickly turned into one wreck after another. At one of my connections, I got off at the wrong station with a similar name and then I managed to get back on the train in time only for the doors to break and the train to be stuck there for a few hours. After which, they got another train to take us to the correct station for my very missed connection. There, my card declined at the bathroom and I got harassed by a disheveled man, got on the next train, discovered a “drink” I bought was grenadine and–when I arrived in Munich–found out I would have to buy brand new train tickets because I missed the last train of the day. To top it all off, I couldn’t call anyone from home because my phone was on the brink of death and there wasn’t an outlet in sight. After buying my tickets, I took a tram to the next station and sat down and cried.
In that moment, my desire to fit in finally broke. After everything I had been through, I could not have hoped for anything more than to stand out, for people to recognize that I had no idea what I was doing, that I did not understand what was happening, and that at any given moment, I was essentially lost and confused and just guessing my way through everything. I was desperate for someone, anyone, to see the endless stream of tears running down my face, and tell me whether I'm doing this right or better yet, how to do life right, but I knew–as people from all over walked past with judgment in their eyes and speed in their pace–that that was all I was going to see because that’s just the thing about life, nobody actually knows what they are doing, but everyone pretends to anyway.
Thankfully, I was wrong on the first account. A wonderful woman and her husband approached, asking what had happened and if there was anything she could do to help. She didn’t really understand why I was crying when everything had already passed, but she was still kind about it anyway. She and her husband offered to take me out for a couple hours and bring me back before my next train. Hesitantly, I accepted. Seeing that I was freezing, they took me to a nearby bar and when I explained that I don’t drink, they offered to get me seltzer water instead of beer and encouraged me to dance. I did my best with the limited space we had and danced with them and many other strangers for as long as I was there. The dancing may not have been any good but the enjoyment I got from this small little excursion, which never would have happened had I continued my facade, sure was.
I still struggle sometimes between my desire for friends and my desire for fulfillment. It is not the kind of thing someone learns in a day and keeps with them, but something that must be built up, little by little.
Rain Sopha is a psychology major with minors in human services and general studio art. They studied abroad for a semester in Spring 2024 at Florence University of the Arts in Italy. They are set to graduate in May of 2025, after which they will attend a master’s program in art therapy.