I love random encounters.
I had a delightful and insightful conversation with a honest-to-God bible-thumping conservative Republican, my neighbor on one of my flights within the US.
Yes, he believed LBGTQ folks are devilish and all, but I understood where he was coming from. And he asked and tried to understand where I was coming from also. I think we both left with a better insight of the culture we each live in.
Typical moment:
Him: So do those gays also rub your face into it so much over there in Europe?
Me: Hmmm, well, we’ve had gay rights movement since the late ’70s early ’80s and gay marriage for over 15 years, so there isn’t that much to rub our face into. LBGTQ folks are pretty mainstream.
Him: Huh, I guess that works too…
This random encounter left me with a better understanding of this person I would have judged not worth talking to if I had followed my prejudices. He had a company in company catering and clearly cared deeply for his ±100 employees: paying them well above industry norms, arranging lots of support for them. He selected his clients on how well they would treat his employees, whether they saw his employees as a cost to the company or a benefit to their employees.
And yes he as doing lots for charity. He just wanted to be able to decide himself where to put his money towards.
In short, I met the conservative philanthrope of Ayn Rand in person.
He I hope got a bit of relaxed “we can all get along” from this lefty, and got that over in Europe we’re not taxed to death as much as Fox news makes it look.
It was a good meeting in the air,
Wouter