The consequences of conditional friendship

Perhaps I was just a naive, idealistic girl, or perhaps I simply tried to see the best in everyone, but I used to think that intercultural friendships were easy and they were the height of a post-segregationist world, in which everyone could get along, if only they learnt to respect each other's cultural differences and faith (or lack thereof) backgrounds.

This seemed like the reasonable, logical thing to do, after all. 

However, I was gravely mistaken. As my connections with the outside world grew, my connection with my Jewish identity faded, resulting in me neglecting core parts of my personal values, just for the sake of being accepted by my non-Jewish peers.

And so, I commenced my journey on the trail of conditional friendships. Conditional in the sense that unless I assimilated and acculturated myself in such a way that I could still identify as Jewish and be tokenised in that way, I would still be a tolerable sort of Jewish friend. But, if I were to step one foot out of line, have an incorrect opinion, be too culturally invested or involved in my own heritage, then this would be a major problem – as I would later discover. 

It was here too that I discovered the difference between tolerance and acceptance. I, personally, was a model acceptor. Perhaps it was just the people-pleaser in me, or perhaps I am just very good at following the arbitrary rules, but I would accept anyone and everyone, even if it felt instinctively wrong.