I can get along with most anyone. I have friends from all corners of the earth. Some of my favorite people are very different from me. There is J., a white Zimbabwean woman. She is a sort-of Buddhist and a sometimes vegetarian. She is my mother’s age. She has a heart of gold, and she is hilarious. She says the funniest things and uses these vivid, humor tickling expressions that just have my sides splitting. There is G. She was one of my best friends in Oman, and now she lives not far from me. She is in her early 40’s. She is of Omani settled Bedouin origin but grew up in Kuwait. She is very lively, likes to tell funny stories, and is a great friend. I could go on and on. I have so many friends who are so different than me. I can be comfortable in my skin around people who are much older and from very diverse backgrounds. But there is a group that I can’t seem to get on with. That would be desi Aunties. When I play doe-eyed girl and act like a niece or beti or whatever, it all goes well. But when I try to talk to them like regular people and not Aunties, it doesn’t work. I seem too strange to them and we have no common ground to chat on. There are a lot of aunties in my neighborhood. Some of them have made an effort to get friendly, but I always do something weird and it scares them off. There is this Hyderbadi family down the street, and the Auntie sometimes comes over and tries to chat with me. One of her first questions when we met was “So what Indian serials do you watch?” I told her that I never watch Indian serials, I mostly watch BBC Food and the news. That killed her fun. We meet occasionally but all we talk about is the differences between Hyderbadi food and the desi food that I make (mostly my DH’s family’s U.P. type stuff, as well as Punjabi fare). I made some lasagna and sent it over to them, but they didn’t  like it (Hydro Auntie always informs me when they don’t like what I send). Anyway, the other day Hydro Auntie came over and I was cooking and had a bandanna tied over my hair to prevent my hair from picking up the food smell. She kept staring at my head in a weird way. After she left I went to the restroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was wearing a biker bandanna with skull and cross bones on it!!! I had forgotten! She must think I am a devil worshipper or something.

Anyway, I am not good at fake polite conversation with aunties. I just don’t know what to say. I am not trying to fit in with them, I am obviously a foreigner and all. I just wish I could gel better with them. They seem to appreciate homogeneity, and not like weird foreigners, from what I can tell. Another of my best friends is a real live Auntie (and she is visiting me in June, yay!) but she is different than most other aunties. She is kind of kooky and off-beat and funny. She also knows my family and knows the “real me,” with no pretensions. So we don’t go through all of the circles of formalities. But I think my problem is that I don’t know how to do these formalities.

I would like to know what kinds of things I should say to aunties so that I don’t sound like such a weirdo. I already learned a few things from the trenches: no skull and crossbones bandannas, don’t say I only watch the news. I am pretty well versed in cooking stuff, but beyond that, I get lost. What do desi aunties talk about? What can I do to move on from viewing them in a maternal auntie light, and view them more as peers?  Since I am married, aunties are my peers, right? Maybe that is my mistake, I should just keep thinking of them in a motherly way. I get invited to gatherings that I can’t avoid and I end up in a sea of aunties, so please someone give me a life raft of things that you think would be great to talk about with aunties. Otherwise I might drown in auntie sea turbulence one of these days.

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