I am in Minnesota, but not of Minnesota. There are many things about native Minnesotans that drive me nuts: referring to casseroles as "hot dish;" ending sentences with "with" ("So, you going with?" "'With?'" "Yah, you going with?" "With what? With you? With the cat? With God? With an AK-47?!"); their passive-aggressiveness (if you step on their feet, native Minnesotans apologize, but when you cross a street, they speed up. Not letting anyone merge, even a 40-ton semi, is a point of passive-aggressive pride to native Minnesotans); and their obsession with all things Scandinavian (mix up Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and you are in for a lecture that you can escape only by admitting that you are Not From Around Here, and asking them how their mamas cooked Hoppin' John. Anything slightly Southern strikes confusion and fear into native Minnesotans).
That said, I have an affection for them. They really do try to be sincerely nice, and almost always have the best of intentions, even when offering lutefisk to a non-native (I once confessed that I thought lutefisk, lefse and gefilte fish were the same thing. I've never since insulted so many cultures in one sentence).
But there is one trait of native-born-and-raised Minnesotans that makes me barking mad. They are absolutely incapable of accepting a compliment.
Just today, two acquaintances who work at the airport --we'll call them L and B -- stopped into the shop where I work to say hello. With some arm twisting, I learned that L had bicycled from Florida to California. Eighteen miles a day. Just because he wanted to.
It's a miracle if I can sit on a bicycle without falling off. I can't even begin to imagine bicycling across the continental United States.
When I complimented L, he took on an expression of pained embarrassment and guilt. He looked as if he'd been caught farting or short-changing a clerk. My god, how awful it was that the man had accomplished something, and, worse, someone discovered it and thought it was cool. His eyes had a slight panic, as if he needed to run off and shower in boiling water to scour away my compliment.
B has the same allergy. The poor man suffers from handsomeness. As I've said in a previous post, I've known men who are literally film-star handsome, and 99.9% of them are shallow, vain jerks who never bothered to develop personalities because they breezed through life on looks alone. I confess when I first saw B, I immediately assumed he was an arrogant dunderhead. I only gave him the benefit of a doubt because he hung around with a transplanted New Yorker who's smart, savvy, and didn't appear to suffer fools. Over time, I observed that B is very intelligent, witty, wry, and quite interesting.
The one time I complimented B, I immediately regretted it. He looked as stricken as if I'd said he had a huge, festering zit on his nose and that he was as stupid as a sea cucumber. He scurried away into the dark labyrinth beneath the airport. I didn't see him for weeks.
This isn't modesty. It's shame. I've concluded that, in Minnesota, the doctor lifts the newborn as it takes its first breath, declares, "It's a fine, healthy girl/boy!" and then slaps it. When the baby takes its first step, a parent cries, "Come look at this! S/he's walking!" and wonks the kid. In kindergarten, when a native Minnesota child says the alphabet all the way through, correctly, for the first time, the teacher says, "What a clever child!" and beans the little one with a wiffle bat.
By the time they reach first grade, native Minnesota children have a Pavlovian dread of compliments. Minnesotans call this "Preparing children for real life." Life, they say, is full of sorrow, pain, loss, suffering, and disappointment. Joy and healthy pride will betray you. A compliment is only meant to soften you up so you'll lower your defenses so life can kick you in the groin.
When a native Minnesotan goes against this brainwashing, the backlash is horrifying. If a Minnesotan grows an ego, it goes berserk, a maddened Godzilla roaring and trampling in Jesse Ventura spandex and Keillor red sneakers. East Coast elites and West Coast Golden People wither in the laser of Minnesota snark, sarcasm and snideness. This is the Land of Mystery Science Theater 3000, after all. (Joel Hodgson called the robots "honey," and had a gentle, goofy grin. But you just know that off-camera he gave Trace swirlies and left Weight Watcher pamphlets for Frank, and cut off Special Education vans without signaling.)
There is no middle ground with native Minnesotans. They're either lowly worms or SUN GOD THE CREATOR KNEEL BEFORE ME. A few Minnesotans, such as a dear friend of mine who is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, can accept a compliment with a "thank you," a smile, and only a slight twitch. But then, I think she was actually born in one of the Dakotas.
If you want to tell a native Minnesotan that you think she or he is a keen, neato-coolly-wow person, and that you admire anything about them, don't. If you want to make native Minnesotans feel good, criticise them Minnesota style. "Oh, you'd think that dress was made for a person half your age." "Y'know, it's almost something that makes a person not seem dumb as a turd." "Well ................. that's different."
This will create in the native Minnesotans a warm glow of having known all along that they're undeserving scum. It'll be just like they're back in the bosom of their family.
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