We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarassingly, A True Story

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2014

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 17

Chapters 18-30

Chapter 31-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Prosthetic Leg

Sundquist’s explains that his prosthetic leg is a symbol of his attempts to look and move like a person without a disability. With an amputation at hip-disarticulation level, Sundquist can only wear a cumbersomely heavy prosthetic leg with three artificial joints: hip, knee, and ankle. He is much “faster and more agile without the leg”; however, his self-consciousness and reliance on his hands with the crutches means that he initially opts to use the leg for nonathletic activities (14). While Sundquist thinks he has a system which allows him to hide his disability most of the time, his need to plan when he must use his prothesis becomes problematic at his church group’s retreat, when he annoys his youth pastor, Joe Slater, by continually asking him what the group is going to do next. Sundquist feels isolated in his inability to be spontaneous and with the sensation that “not knowing the activity schedule was like living in an environment where the weather could fluctuate by one hundred degrees at any moment” (13).

The prosthesis as a stand-in for his amputated leg also backfires on his golfing date with Francesca, when its cumbersomeness cannot sustain his enthusiasm at having a good shot and he falls flat and the foot on his artificial leg turns backwards. Far from assisting him in his attempts to fit in, the prosthesis’ contortion does just the opposite and makes him embarrassed. For Sundquist, this is the moment where he sees “my dreams vanishing, my nightmares coming true: My disability was going to ruin my chances with Francesca” (112). Sundquist’s prediction proves to be correct, but only because he is the one who disqualifies himself from dating because of his disability.

In college, Sundquist begins to phase out his prosthesis because the campus is large, and he cannot bear its weight. His acceptance of the comfort and relative agility of his body coincide with a sense of pride in his Paralympic achievements. He does not feel that he must disguise who he really is to find social acceptance. This is the first step to acknowledging that he is worthy of a relationship just the way he is.

Dancing

If the prosthesis is a symbol of disguise, dancing—another repeated motif in the memoir—symbolizes personal exposure and self-expression. Dances, and the accompanying pretext of being close to pretty girls, are one of the reasons that Sundquist wants to attend public high school. However, when he finally gets his wish and ends up going to high school dances, he finds that his titanium leg makes him too stiff to be able to “dance with abandon, to have fun and be fun, to break out of my shell and break it down on my prosthesis” (165). He feels isolated from his peers, longing for inclusion and for them to view him as fun. His vulnerability on the dance floor makes him self-conscious. Still, his naturally extrovert nature provokes him to use his prosthesis with “its ability to extend far beyond the range of a normal human hip” to do a standing-up split, as a party trick at prom (198). Here, Sundquist owns his differences and uses them for self-expression; he may not have scored with Evelyn, but at the same time, he refuses to be invisible.

By the time he meets Sasha, Sundquist assumes that he has given up on dancing. In fact, he and Sasha bond over not dancing, at a time when Sundquist is concentrating on “becoming as cool as I possibly could” and therefore not forcing either relationships or talents that are not natural (277). He has therefore given up on activities that could potentially expose and humiliate him. However, when his final reckoning with bodily acceptance arrives after the investigation, he finds himself on the dance floor again “dancing/jumping/flailing with my crew” and his moves are so distinctive, that he attracts the notice of two girls, one of whom will become his future girlfriend (321). His dancing in front of and with Ashley indicates that he has reached a point where he feels that his body and its manner of moving are worthy of attraction.

The Gaffes Made by People Without Disabilities

A recurrent motif throughout the memoir are the gaffes made by non-disabled people when encountering people with disabilities. As an amputee, Sundquist often feels awkward because those without an amputation project their feelings of discomfort with disability onto him.

Sundquist, who realizes early on that his disability makes those around him feel awkward, does everything in his power to not mention it and put those around him in a tricky position. However, given his disability and need to adjust his attire according to the activity, he must compensate by continually asking beforehand what activities will take place. Thus, at the talent show of his Church group retreat, his pastor taunts him with the superlative “Most likely to ask, ‘What are we going to do next?”’ (22). Sundquist, who has consciously resorted to this behavior to accommodate his disability feels initially betrayed, as though “Joe had revealed a secret I’d confided in him” (22). However, he eventually feels that he has merited the taunt because he did not confide in Joe the reason why he must always ask. The situation is a bitter one, as Sundquist must choose between pointing out the needs of his disability or other people mocking him for the behavior he has used to disguise those needs.

Later, when Sundquist visits Liza Taylor Smith’s Young Life group, Miller, the pastor who nominates Sundquist for the pumpkin race, is deeply embarrassed when he learns that Sundquist’s disability precludes him from participating. Sundquist notices that Miller’s mortification looks like a “not so much sympathetic sorry as what-have-I-done horrified sorry” (80). This latter state cause Sundquist to feel awkward, as though it is his fault that Miller is in an awkward position. Miller then overcompensates for his former misjudgment by asking Sundquist whether he can eat pumpkin pie filling through pantyhose. Sundquist feels offended and notes that “this was why I didn’t like for people to know I had a fake leg. Once they did, they assumed I wasn’t able to do much of anything” (81). Miller’s unwittingly patronizing attitude towards disability causes Sundquist to feel belittled and contributes to his sense that he does not stand a chance of attracting Liza Taylor Smith.

As Sundquist becomes an adult, he finds that “for some reason my disability gives many individuals permission in their own minds to say whatever they want despite our being total strangers” (296). It is as though these individuals have a different concept of personal boundaries for those they see with a disability. One such person is the man who approaches Sundquist in the men’s room to tell him that he is doing “pretty well” navigating life on one leg and even breaks “the number one rule of social interaction at urinals, making direct eye contact,” to give Sundquist encouragement (296; 297). While Sundquist accepts that such encounters are an inevitable part of his life and learns to make fun of them, he knows that they will be an obstacle for whatever woman is in his life. When such an incident happens with Ashley—a stranger offers to buy Sundquist a drink as compensation for his disability—Sundquist is grateful to find that she briefly makes light of the situation but does not dwell on it. Ashley’s response makes Sundquist feel fully accepted; neither he nor his partner need to feel troubled by other people’s awkwardness around disability.