Ethnocentricity

Freshman year, I was really focused on trying to fit in, having came from a small school and knowing nobody. I was so focused on societal standards and conformity, that when I was sitting at lunch one day, and a new kid sat down, I judged him immediately. He had a bit of an Israeli accent, and he was loud and different. Something about him was just unusual, and I couldn't place it. He was very forward about his thoughts and opinions and his sense of humor was so unfitting at our table, and I began to dislike him without even getting to know him. I grew frustrated when he would try to make a joke, because it just didn't make sense and was nothing like anything I was used to. I categorized him as "cocky" and began giving him attitude. I didn't know at the time how extreme my cultural relativism was, but I realize now that I wanted him to understand that his jokes and actions weren't funny to us. But what I did to show that was to give him attitude, whereas he directly told me his thoughts and feelings. Somehow it developed into a fight, and by the end of the fight, he apologized to me. I couldn't believe he did that, because it was my fault that any of this had even started. Just because I was being ethnocentric, and judging him because he was different, I started to pick fights with him, yet he apologized to me! And it hit me that he was an incredibly nice person, and one of the most real and genuine people I had ever met. We became friends and by sophomore year, he was my best friend. I learned so much from meeting him; the scariest was that sometimes judgement comes subconsciously and that I need to be really careful to be sociologically mindful of others.