Shock and awe

A few nights ago my husband and I met some distant acquaintances for dinner, the wife is a woman that I sort of know, but have never met, and I didn't know the husband at all.

With in minutes of introductions, and what-do-you-do? sort of chit-chat, he more or less came right out with some very nonchalant statements about his political leanings, to the right.

I was oddly taken aback. I lean to the right myself, but in academia, nobody would ever admit to such a thing, certainly not on a "first date". But he was so casual about it, AS IF IT WERE TOTALLY NORMAL.

So I am forced to admit that my perspective is skewed. If I had ever really thought about it, I could have come to this conclusion, but before this evening I never really thought about it. There have been a lot of discussions on my campus and others recently (and certainly before recently) about the general political leanings of college faculty, but I didn't realize how much I had assimilated this microcosmic attitude as reality everywhere.

And.

I'm a little disappointed in myself that this took me by surprise. Fffft.