Lady Gaga

A few weeks ago, around the start of the semester, I came back to my dorm room to find my roommate, Quentin, watching “A Star is Born” on our futon.

Illustrating the type of person
Quentin is, here he is in a ball
pit in our dorm room.

I came in, took off my backpack, and asked him how the movie was. Quentin looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and began explaining how Lady Gaga is one of the greatest gifts to mankind in recent memory. While he was going on about her acting and performing skills, I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. I let it out.

I told Quentin I didn’t enjoy Lady Gaga’s music.

Immediately he stopped talking, looked at me, and began to verbally question how we had been friends for two years without him ever knowing this important detail about me. We had had discussions about Lady Gaga, her vocal and performance methods, and comparisons between her and other performers before, but I had never told him I didn’t actually like her music.

He walked out of the room.

I waited a few minutes, questioning whether or not I had ruined a friendship over the fact that I had kept a secret of my true feelings. It didn’t take long, however, for Quentin to come back, and he did with a prescription. He explained I wasn’t in a good place to critique Lady Gaga because I hadn’t listened to enough of her music. As a solution, he gave me a list of songs and told me to listen to those, as well as to watch “A Star is Born.”

Since then, I’ve listened to the songs, watched “A Star is Born,” and I can say, while I still don’t love Lady Gaga as much as Quentin, my appreciation of her definitely grew because of Quentin’s prescription.

For half of a year, I didn’t want to start any conflict, especially over Lady Gaga. The disagreement between our opinions shouldn’t have kept me from telling him about my opinions, however. If I would have just been honest from the beginning, I could have learned to appreciate Lady Gaga so much earlier.

Next time you’re just nodding your head in agreement to keep from a disagreement, think about the growth you’re missing out on by not sharing your perspective.  

Stationed by the Plow, 

Kegan Zimmermann