Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.

One quick announcement before we get started today.

We make this show for and because of you. And in order to keep making

it better, we would like to know a little more about you. So we put together a listener survey.

I would love for you to fill it out. Everyone who completes the survey will get a discount

code for out there merchandise and will be entered into a drawing for some sweet

gear. We've got a pair of Smith sunglasses to give away, plus a hydroflask tumbler, and a special

Out There care package. To take the survey, just head over to our website, Out Therepodcast.com.

Thank you so much in advance. I don't know that I remember the very first time that I spoke with him, but I have a first time in my

memory, in the hallways, where they had these posters of all the previous productions from student

theater groups on the walls. So I think we were vaguely aware of each other, but we ran into

each other, and I remember, I just remember something like

him realizing that I was Turkish, which terrified me because I knew that he was Armenian

and I didn't really have any Armenian friends at that point. I think he said something like,

oh, Arsin, you're Turkish. I was like,

uh, yeah. And then he's like, you know I'm Armenian, right? And I was like, oh, where is this going to go?

And I had been told by more hard-lined Armenians that Turks are bad, they deny the genocide. When I met Erson, and I learned he

was Turkish, I felt a level of discomfort, but we hadn't had any sort of concrete discussion

about history or anything like that. So eventually, at some point, it came up and, you know, we quickly established that at that

point, what he said was he did not believe that there was an Armenian genocide, and we kept our

distance.

Today, we have a story about our beliefs, about things were brought up to know to be true.

...