Identity and Groups | The Green Meetup

Your favorite color is green. You truly love the way green looks, but more than that you love the way it makes you feel. A green wall, green trees in the forest, or even green pillows on your bed, seeing green makes you feel great. But your friends think you are crazy.

Half of your friends like blue. Half of your friends like red. When you all are together, they argue about it. No one ever changes their mind. But the arguments go on. Red is too angry. Blue is too dull. The only thing your friends can agree on is that green is just a dumb favorite color.

You wish you could find people who get you. People with a rational view of colors. People who like green.

So you go to a green meetup.

A group of green lovers altogether in one place. You’ve finally found a group of people who will get you. At least that’s what you think going in.

When you get to the green meetup, you find something different. A room in the corner of a bar. A big table surrounded by chairs, all filled with people passionately arguing. As you get closer and start to overhear conversations, you decipher that everyone is arguing about green. What is better, lime green, evergreen, John Deere green?

The host of the meetup sees you walking into the room and stops the conversation so that you can introduce yourself. Who are you, where are you from, and what is your favorite shade of green?

You say evergreen.

Everyone sneers.

No one likes evergreen.

A few people like lime green, a few people like John Deere green, but no one likes evergreen.

You finally found your group of people. Your group of people who agree on your color. But when you get together everyone argues about shades. Instead of appreciating the commonalities the conversation is passionately arguing about your few differences.

You leave dejected, thinking to yourself “I need to start an evergreen meetup.”

But I wonder if that will work out any better for you.

Maybe it isn’t that you need to find more people who share things in common with you. But maybe you need to find and appreciate more of what you share in common with the people around you.