Personal Narrative: My Bar Experience

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Imagine walking into your favorite bar on a Saturday night and meeting eyes with a familiar, yet unfamiliar, face. Across the pool table from you (barely) stands an inebriated and slovenly girl. You met her a few months ago, but don’t know her that well. She’s stumbling from one table to the next, chattering loudly with strangers, while simultaneously looking back at you to relay the conversations she’s having with her new friends. A few days later, you bump into each other on the street. Remembering the experience you two shared at the bar, she asks to have lunch together the next day. This is unexpected, as you didn’t consider yourselves friends. To make matters worse, she arrives late to your lunch plans. She sits carelessly with her dirty …show more content…

Gabby*, my tutor before that night at the bar, sat up straight. She was on time, even when our meeting was set to 8 in the morning. She was patient and helpful. She didn’t say more than necessary, and never spoke about her private life. She was distant, but warm at the same time. On one occasion, she left our study session in the library momentarily to go upstairs to retrieve a bagel her boyfriend had bought and delivered to her. She exuded composure. She was nice, attractive, brilliant, and had time to date. She had everything figured out. And yet, she was exactly the same person who would fall asleep on a bench in a bar a few months …show more content…

79). Bourdieu discusses what he calls “habitus” as “the durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations” (pg. 78). Gabby acted professionally, not because she was consciously aware of the repercussions had she acted disorderly, but because she has learned how to behave in certain settings based on how others have behaved in front of her. When a child witnesses his parents put their dishes in the sink after a meal, he mimics that action because that is presented to him as the natural course of action. Eventually, that action is ingrained so deeply into him that he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it, nor does he know its origin. In the same way, Gabby has seen tutors before her behave accordingly and has, naturally, completely absorbed the demeanor of a tutor when she steps into the tutor setting. This is a habitus. It goes unnoticed, both by the performer and her audience. My attention had not been drawn to Gabby’s appropriate behavior, simply because it was appropriate for that setting. I never considered that she was conditioned to behave this way in this setting. The issue arises when someone seems to not obtain the habitus for their respective

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