today I went to the bank (which shall remain nameless) to see a banker (who shall remain nameless) to talk to them about setting up an account for my abroad things. Forgive the quality of that sentence, but it's 90 degrees outside.
and I understand that I'm slightly--er--touchy--on the subject of being treated as an independent, intelligent young person, but I suppose it's because that feels like a right to me. I understand, too, that I do look a great deal younger than I am and perhaps to some more innocent, more able to be led into certain things, more clueless. And in a lot of ways that's true. But I don't suppose it's anyone else's business, either, that it is.
mostly, I say this only because while the nameless banker was informative and he answered the questions I had and setting up an account wasn't a problem, there's a certain--I suppose--code of conduct that I expect from a banker who is clearly much older than me and wearing a suit (ahem) and across from a desk from me in a professional situation. I expect someone out there is thinking loosen up! And perhaps I should. But this isn't a post about that, so.
it was just little things: he was friendly, conversational. I'm consistently being told by friendly and conversational people that I never "look" how I should for a certain situation, and this time, I didn't "look" excited about my trip. I will take a moment to point out a couple of reasons why this is a preposterous statement: 1) I'm at a bank encountering an entirely new situation by myself, quite aware that I appear to be twelve years old and unwilling to allow you to use that to your advantage; 2) I'm at a bank, why should I look excited about anything?; 3) it's none of your business; 4) how would you know what I look like when I'm looking forward to something?; 5) this is a specific moment in time. I cannot feel the only emotion you'd expect to see on my face at every moment until I arrive in the UK.
after a moment of thought I decided it was best to be polite and made an excuse for myself, that I was nervous about going abroad for the first time. And that's true. But the story gets better, because he was talking about how it was good that at least in England they don't speak a foreign language, so I'll understand everyone. While this is not 100 percent true, I nodded anyway, because that is one of the factors that I considered when I decided to apply to UK schools rather than ones in Spain. I made the mistake of relaying that information to this nameless banker and he asked me why I'd chosen Spain first, and I said because I can speak Spanish and had been interested in the culture because of Spanish class; and, this is all true, before I could finish this sentence he interrupts me and says "it's because you like Spanish boys, isn't it?" and I was nearly stunned out of speech because, as a private person, I'm not wont to give that kind of information out to strangers and because we are at a bank and I am here on business.
and I will admit that I might have taken care to squint at him an extra moment before replying. I said something like "I hadn't taken that into consideration," but it doesn't matter what I said, because it wasn't a real question.
anyway. The rest of the appointment passed while he talked gregariously and got business done between sentences and I sat and extracted all the information from him that I could. I was pleased to have the opportunity to confirm to him that his writing was "chicken-scratch" after he made a comment about it himself. Small pleasures.
the point of this is mainly to tell you that I've gotten an account set up and now know where to go to get my hands on British Pounds before I fly. I'd also like to add that had I had a similar encounter in a non-professional setting, I probably wouldn't have been overly pleased, but I shouldn't either have been affronted. Sometimes I think that I'm probably too sensitive about this, but it's hard looking eight years younger than your age and trying to be taken seriously. I'm not a down-with-the-man feminist but I do believe that a person is a person first, before anything else, and should be treated as such. I can't imagine nameless banker presuming to ask a twenty-year-old man if he liked Spanish men, and whether or not that was the reason for him choosing Spain as a country in which to study and spend most of his savings.
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