Turks are like one big family. They don’t greet the each other on the street, even though they could easily do so, like family members who see each other so often during the day that they don’t feel the need to signal their presence with words every time. Here my peculiarity shows in my face. I am not Turkish, I am treated differently.
July 2014
I have suddenly found myself in a class struggle with you, even though our backgrounds and habits are quite similar. When I dine at expensive restaurants or spend big, I do so with an understanding that on other days I will have to skip eating out altogether, or save for weeks or months on end, living off the essentials.
You seem to have fully given up any illusions and constantly insist that you know your place. You have let me eat alone at least three times – on İstiklal, in Ortaköy, and in Sultanahmet –, cutting yourself out of these situations completely. More than that, you extend your condition almost to the entire nation, making – as I said – your country poorer, more reactionary, and more different from the West than it really is.
You seem to think that the gap between us is insurmountable, and you are ready to… or rather, you have already given up! This is what your Facebook post yesterday – ‘I need to know people more and better’ – probably meant. By giving me an ultimatum to either come home with you or never see you again, you thought you were offering me the last chance to accept and approve your world.
This kind of thoughtless taking and leaving has prevented me from seeking reconciliation with you. I am suddenly disturbed by your nasal pronunciation of the English words with the -ion ending, your poor English that makes you summarise my arguments with trivialities, your endless laughter at things that are not funny…
August 2014
Our problem is that we pretend that there is no problem. Everything is always fine. Your problem is that you see a problem where there is none. You put yourselves in an inferior position and wait for an opportunity to accuse us of humiliating you.
August 2014