surprise! I'm not as dumb as you think!

girl in my class (to other classmates): blablabla (insert name of girl I know)

me: did you say you know ___

girl: yeah

me: ah, I went on an exchange with her to Mexico

girl: oh, so you must know ____

me: yeah, I know her!

girl (lowers voice in conspiratorial tones): I heard that ___ and her roommate totally punked out and came home early from that exchange...

...and then it hit me that we were gossiping about me.

I wondered if I should tell her we were talking about me now, or should I just keep quiet and see where the conversation was going to lead.

I ended up going "ehh...yeah, that was me"

And now she won't talk to me.

Language classes are full of travel snobs. People always feel the need to clarify that the trip they went on was "definitely not a tourist destination" and they all have a favorite food that "you just can't find here".
The more countries you've visited, the better.

I've decided that even though I've been to 14 states* in Mexico over the past 6-ish years, I'm just going to keep quiet and pretend like I didn't. I like letting people think they're winning the contest, whatever it may be, and then one day, months later, being like "oh, by the way (insert surprise information here)".

I think that's one of the reasons why I decided to get a degree in the first place. So when someone judges me by my appearance and my slangy un-intelligent speech or my random capitalization when I type ... SURPRISE! I'm not as dumb as you think.

Do you ever do this? I wanna hear about it.

*Baja Sur, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Colima, Veracruz, Puebla, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Morelos, Queretera, and of course the Federal District.