Peach or Coconut

A week ago I went on a trip and sat on a train with one stranger and one potential friend who I was beginning to get to know. The train seats were grey and blue with a slight leather bend. My potential friend sat beside me, with our stranger just across.  After about an hour of talking, the stranger held up her hands and said, “There are two types of… let’s say, people. The peach and the coconut.”

My potential friend and I both started laughing; the conversation had begun as an existential take on being an introvert or an extrovert.

“Think of it like this: a peach is welcoming right away and everything clicks. You suddenly make plans after meeting five minutes ago, you both like the color blue, you understand the same weird references. But weeks later—not that they’re not nice and wonderful—you just suddenly don’t hang out as often. You become acquaintances. Lovely acquaintances, but still acquaintances.

“Versus the coconut. These people do not reveal themselves to you in five minutes, quite the opposite. You smile, they nod. You ask personal questions, they give vague answers. Weeks, months later, suddenly something switches. Suddenly this person is your ride-or-die. It took a minute or two to crack that armor, but once cracked they’re permanent, forever!” The stranger nodded as she continued, but was interrupted by my potential friend.

“I feel like we need a coco-each.”
I raised my eyebrows in agreement, nodding happily.
“You know, like—not hard and then gentle, or gentle then fading. But an in-between.”
The girl across from us thought for a moment and smiled.

“To be fair, it’s a very broad idea. It’s just my perspective after adapting to a new country. I always ask myself: is this a peach country or a coconut country? It helps.”

A peach country or a coconut country…
“And?” I asked. “What’s Italy?”
“Oh, definitely peach.”
“Spain?”
“Depending on the region.”
“Mongolia?”
“Coconut.”
“America?”
“Depends on the area.”

The woman beside us leaned in; she had grown up partially in America but had been living in Italy for three years.
“I find that Italy is a bit of both as well,” she said. We all turned to her. “Yes, everyone was wonderfully nice, but real locals take time to warm to you.”

I found it comforting to listen to the ways people try to adjust in new places. Whenever I enter a new country I have to do one of two things: either go see theatre or find some connection to art. It makes me relax instead of tightening up with anxiety.

Before I leave to travel, everything builds up: I worry about my suitcases, the flight, how I’ll get from one place to another. I’ve overthought things enough times to know that I go a little crazy over every single detail. But once I’m there, the anxiety doesn’t disappear—it simply waits under the surface like a steady drum vibrating beneath my skin. It feels like my body is waiting for fight-or-flight. Because if I don’t relax, that drum gets louder and louder, and then all I do is miss home.

Sitting on that train, it felt like all of us had slipped into a crack in reality. No one was playing pretend anymore. We all get a little homesick, we all get a little lonely, and this is how we cope. Sometimes you need little things to feel human—from a conversation with a stranger to standing in front of a piece of art. When you’re so far from home, it’s hard to remember what a steady sense of comfort in your own body feels like. Especially in a completely different country, you have to learn how to center that unsteadiness for yourself.
I still think about that conversation, adding it to my list of new ways to feel steady in an unknown place. I end up asking myself: is this person a coconut, a peach, or the in-between?