The night I was a Latino reject

Years ago I went to an event hosted by some Latino friends. I was expecting to receive a warm welcome from the hosts but it was understandable that they were quite busy and couldn’t devote much time to introducing me around. That’s fair and I do not begrudge them this.

That’s okay, I can fend for myself, I’m friendly and sociable. Besides, these are my people right? Latinos! So I started to move about and chat, hoping to feel the warm embrace of my fellow Latinos at this wonderful event. However, that was not the case. Instead of warmth, I encountered a disturbing chill.

With each passing moment, I felt more and more uncomfortable around this group of people. I tried in vain to join in a few different group conversations. In some of the groups there were some “friends” who I thought would be more inviting but also some “strangers” I never met before.

In all of the instances I felt like they were shutting me out and I felt extremely unwelcome by these people. You know when people are closing you out of a conversation, the body language, the standing angles and in some cases, abruptly walking away to go “get a drink.” I don’t know why as I didn’t say or do anything wrong, but they weren’t friendly at all. I have my suspicions as to why that was, but I won’t go into that as I don’t know this for a fact.

The irony of it all is that some of them are the biggest preachers of love, acceptance and all that crap. Yet these “love proponents” are the very same ones who made me feel shut out this way. In any case, it really didn’t take too long for me to decide that it was time to remove myself from this uncomfortable situation.

I’m up for a challenge and winning people over, but I’m not going to remain in a place where the people shun me. This is my life and my personal time, why would I pass it like that? Sure, I’d love to be friends, but I don’t need you and I’m certainly not going to beg or work any harder than I already to be in your good graces. It’s simply just not worth the effort to me. Why are you so important to know? Besides, if you are treating me this way, why would I want to be friends with someone like you? I don’t treat people that way and I don’t want to be friends with people who do.

I did commute out there but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay around a group of people who for whatever reason don’t seem to let me in. I was physically there but I wasn’t let in by the attendee cliques and the hosts were nowhere to be found.

The hosts were nice to invite me, but I felt kind of abandoned by them so my sense of responsibility to remain at least a while longer disappeared just as quickly as they did. So I just quietly walked out and left the event. But I never forgot that day, it kind of hurt to be treated that way by some of these people. I was very surprised and every time I see one these people post their messages about “loving all people” I cringe at their fake bull crap and bite my tongue. I don’t want drama in my life so I stay quiet about who hey were, but I see you damn hypocrites.