Horse Meat Sandwich

I think I'm the most gullible person I know. To be completely honest, seconds after I added the period to that sentence, I complied to a sophomore's request to read her paper for freshman English. To make the humiliation worse, when she revealed it was a prank, I laughed and face-palmed, knocking my water bottle right into my upper lip.

It's times like these when I have no idea why they let me come to Uni. Even if I managed to sneak by the admissions committee with a flowery essay or some fancy extracurriculars, I don't really know why they let me stay for this long, nor really even how I've been existing on Earth without too much trouble. I am so gullible that people have learned to trick me in the halls on a regular basis. One person knows that he can offer me a high five and I always accept, only to regret it when he inevitably smacks my hand with all the force in his body. Just earlier today, someone at school hit me with a "Guess what?" "What?" "Chicken butt" exchange, which was demoralizing and very surprising because he has used the chicken butt charade on me so many times that I should know better. I just never learn.

The only way to illustrate to you the scale of this issue is to describe the absolute worst time I've ever been fooled. My boyfriend and his friends went to the county fair's rodeo to watch the horse races. I had been snapchatting him about it, and he told me that his friend didn't like horses. I asked why not? He told me his friend had been kicked by a horse as a kid. Not too hard to believe, right? But I should have stopped him in his tracks when he told me that his friend had eaten horse meat at Crane Alley.

I admit that I've never been to Crane Alley, but my impressions of it have been that it's classy. This particular friend was also well-traveled and tasteful, so I wouldn't have been too surprised if he had had horse before, and if so, he probably would have had a kick butt story about it. Still, my boyfriend was known for being a trickster, so I wanted to find out for myself. I sent his friend a snapchat along the lines of:

"Hey, John said you ate horse meat at Crane Alley. Is that true?"

He said, "I have. They serve it with a nice mustard sauce and mushrooms."

I was enchanted. This friend was the real deal, so cultured. I had to know more. He told me, "It's not on the menu, but if you go, you should order a Clip Clop on Rye."

Wow, I thought. It was pretty cool that Crane Alley served horse.

And then it hit me. Clip Clop on Rye. How could I have fallen for that? I had never felt more stupid in my entire life. When I finally realized he was messing with me, I messaged him that I'd been totally fooled. He thought that when I said I would try it that I was messing with him.

The most baffling part about this story is that I know intellectually that horse meat is very rare in this town, yet I chose to believe what my boyfriend, a seasoned joker, and his friend were telling me. It's similar to how I continue to give chances to people who trick me with the same thing over and over again in the halls. Although it's a problem, it might be sort of a superpower too.

My best explanation for that behavior is that when I talk to people I know, it doesn't even cross my mind that they could be trying to trick me. My brain focuses entirely on the person, and how to connect with them, rather than evaluating, or even processing, what they're saying at first. If you walked up to me in the hallway and said, "Xanthe, guess what?" my brain would say, "It's great to see your face! Please, please tell me what's up with you!" and then I would feel like an idiot when you flashed the chicken butt card in my face again. But should I really be ashamed for being too interested in you to sniff out the joke?

Even though I hate that I can be so easily manipulated, I love that being gullible shows me just how much I see in others and how many possibilities there are. I got to live in a world where Crane Alley serves a horse meat sandwich, if just for a split second, and it was awesome! I got to live in a world where my high fives were sought after, and my literary criticism on freshman English papers was valuable. You might think that being gullible means that I endure constant condescension and cold slaps from reality (sometimes literally). While that's true, it's not how I think about it. I don't encounter any more actual bizarre realities than any other person. I just get to taste some more of them than the realist does.

Writing this post isn't going to change anything about how gullible I am. As the sophomore proved today, even when being tricked is in the forefront of my mind, I lose all inhibitions when I see a human face talking to me, but I don't want to go through life paranoid. I see the best in people.