Identity, Authenticity - Do they conflict?

[Dance-with-me]

OH I did want to make one comment on the class issues at elite universities: I did a year of graduate school at Tufts (83-84) and I was completely unprepared for the class difference - at least a University of Cincinnati I was able to meet and bond with folks from a similar class background. I will never forget a meeting at the "Tufts Lawn and Garden Club" - their euphemism for the lesbian and gay club - where someone complained that the meetings need topics since all they usually did was just sit around and chat, mostly about their fear that mom and dad would cut them off if they found out they were gay. One person suggested that at the next meeting we discuss what it was like to be a gay person in the different countries where they'd traveled in the past year. I honestly thought that they were joking, until I saw the nods and heard others agree that was a good idea. I cracked up laughing and asked them if Kentucky counted as a foreign country -- because at that moment, to me, they felt as completely foreign to me as the folks in other countries felt to them. They looked at me like I'd had a psychotic break. I never went back.