Girl and City

On Saturday night, WAF and I went to M2 where my friends from TheBusinessSchool, MBB and SFG, had a table with some of MBB‘s friends. The club had a decent-sized dance floor and an even more decent-sized crowd. On one side of the dance floor was a raised platform upon which Lady Gaga-esque back-up dancers (I think they were paid dancers) were shaking their booties to top 40 hits. All night long the booze kept flowing, we had an endless supply of Grey Goose vodka and Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey. Amazing!

LAC was a friend of a friend’s and arrived a little after we did. I saw him standing next to the table with nowhere to sit, so I asked the two girls beside me to scooch in so he could have a seat. I hadn’t even been introduced to him or gotten a proper look at him, and the opened-up seat wouldn’t be beside me, so it was clear I wasn’t doing it to sit next to him and flirt. I was just being nice. I knew what it felt like to arrive at a party and only know one other person and stand awkwardly on the outside. He did notice me for my nice act though, and half an hour later, when a seat opened up next to me, he sat down and introduced himself. It was only at this point that I noticed how cute he was. He was Cantonese but raised in L.A., and now he was working in Shanghai. He spoke Cantonese, English, enough Mandarin to get by, a bit of Spanish (because of LA), and a bit of French (because his grandparents were living in Ottawa). We were only chatting harmlessly for a few minutes when WAF came over to ask me if I wanted to go dance. I assumed I would excuse myself to the dance floor and come back in a few minutes, but he surprised me by getting up and taking my hand. He was coming with me? I led him on the dance floor and when I turned around, I saw that WAF had not followed us. A few minutes later, she appeared with MBB‘s best guy friend. Apparently she had felt the need to grab a dancing partner at the last minute. I couldn’t blame her. Unfortunately, MBB‘s best friend was not into her at all and barely danced; his disinterest was so immediately obvious that I don’t know how she got him to go to the dance floor with her in the first place.

LAC was not a great dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he didn’t create his own rhythm to interfere with the music. Nonetheless, I avoided the dance floor most of the night and we just sat at the table, talking and cuddling. WAF was miffed that I found arm-candy so quickly, but I wasn’t worried that she would be able to find her own. By some strange twist, she couldn’t, and almost ended up making out with my friend, MBB.

LAC wasn’t very talkative and I noticed that he asked very few questions about me. But I had no doubt he was into me because he asked for my number very quickly and was physically keeping me next to him. Maybe he wasn’t a talker but his actions told me enough. He was among the hottest guy I’ve ever picked up, and he was also among the sweetest. When I couldn’t find my clutch¹, he walked around the whole club with me twice to look for it. He didn’t seem as concerned as I was, but in the end, it was still he who found it. He asked me to go outside with him, and we sat outside the club for a long time just talking. When he kissed me, he didn’t try to stick his tongue down my throat. Instead, his lips were soft and surprisingly gentle. (more…)

1. I had left it with MBB and they had moved tables and I couldn’t find the new table. [↩]

We stood on my front porch, facing each other in semi-darkness. It was the moment we’d both been dreading.
“I’m sure I’ll come visit you within the next two years. After all, I haven’t been to Malaysia yet, and Malaysia is right next to Singapore.”
I nodded, “I’m sure we’ll see each other.”

And then he kissed me. Or I kissed him. Our lips came together in the most natural way, as if they were two pieces of a puzzle, meant to fit side-by-side. Our kisses became urgent, as if we were cheating time. Four years of suppressed emotion spilled out of me into that kiss. The moment felt like an eternity and a millisecond all at once. (more…)

Ah, Paris, the city of lights.

For me, Paris was the city of world-famous art museums, night-time strolls, and impeccably trimmed gardens. I wore scarves. I walked along the Seine. I ate Pierre Hermé macarons. I went to the Louvre – three times. I had wine on the Pont Neuf bridge. I made a four-course gourmet meal in our apartment. I went shopping in the Saint-Germin-des-Pres district. I dined until midnight on a street patio of a corner cafe on the Pont de L’Ile Saint Louis. I found myself in a block party. I drank wine on our balcony as I watched the sun set behind the Eiffel Tower. I bought art from street painters in the Latin Quarter. I got scouted by a French film director outside the Notre Dame. I napped in the Versailles gardens.

I fell in love, with Paris.

And I met a boy. (more…)

On our second day in Chicago, BI and I had originally planned to walk around Millennium Park. However, it was raining that morning, so we drove around aimlessly in our car, letting ourselves get lost in the city. As we were driving, we had an interesting conversation about relationships and marriage.
Her parents have never married, despite being in a committed relationship for over 25 years. My parents were married soon after they started dating, not out of love but out of a need to settle down into a committed relationship¹. So it’s no surprise that we had very different perspectives on marriage.

My perspective was that I had to get married. I would not be happy without marriage. In fact, I wanted to get engaged by the time I was 26 and married by the time I was 27. BI is already 26, so this sort of talk no doubt alarmed her. She was ready for a serious relationship now, but she certainly wasn’t sold on marriage. In fact, if she had a committed relationship that never led to marriage, she would be just as content.

Although we could not agree on the “need” for marriage, there was one thing we could agree on: relationships² are not what they used to be. And we believe this is mostly because women’s roles in society have changed.
In the past, women were financially dependent on their male counterparts. Thus, finding a husband was absolutely necessary for survival. Nowadays, women are financially independent, which means finding a husband (or a life partner) is no longer about need, but about want.

I’ve talked about this before but I had another realization this time. The tricky thing with “want”, and the reason for all these failed marriages nowadays, is that “want” changes much more quickly and easily than “need.” A need for a breadwinner exists perpetually, unless you win the lottery or a huge inheritance falls into your lap out of nowhere. However, without that need, what you want becomes rather capricious. What you want can change several times a week, much less a lifetime. For example, right now, you may want someone who can make you laugh and cheer you up no matter what, around whom you are more impulsive and fun. But in five or ten years, maybe you’ll want someone who can take things seriously, who won’t make light of things that are important, and who can be a steady rock, no matter how boring and predictable. As a result of these changing “wants”, not only does your life partner feel superfluous for not being able to satisfy a need, but they feel uneasy because they are at risk of being kicked aside on a whim.

Of course, I exaggerate the effect of this problem, but it is indeed a real problem. Unless our need for human companionship³ is as strong as our need for survival, a marriage for a lifetime no longer seems plausible.

The rain stopped just as we were about to buy tickets to see Blue Man’s Group, since we decided that doing something indoors was the best course of action on a rainy day. Seeing that the rain stopped, we decided to go to Millennium Park after all. If we can change our mind three times during the course of one day, how will I be sure what I want for the rest of my life?

1. In China, when you near the age of 30, people around you start frantically setting you up on dates, with the idea that if you like what you see, you’ll get married. This is very similar to practices in Korea and India. [↩]
2. Marriage being the ultimate form of a relationship. [↩]
3. But I question the strength of a marriage if the philosophy behind is companionship for companionship’s sake. [↩]

A blog friend of mine recently got married. She met her hubby through her blog, and they were married within three months. Her story is crazy, especially because I’ve been reading her blog since before she met this Blog Boy. She tells the story better than I can.

Her story got me thinking. What is the point of a long engagement? I mean, if you love someone, and they love you, why wait a year, or two, to get married? Why date for three or five or eight years? What are you waiting for?

If you never want to get married, then fine, I will put you in the “never getting married” box and ignore you. But what about the rest of you? Are you testing the waters? Do you want “to be sure”?

I’ve always thought that I’d date at least two years before my engagement, and then another one year before the wedding. But now that I think about it, why do I need those three years “to be sure”? I know there are people who have been married for over 20 years, and they say that they were always sure about their feelings for each other. Good for them. Me, I don’t think I’ll ever be sure. I don’t think I’ll be sure after dating someone for two years, I don’t think I’ll be sure if we lived together for four years, and I don’t think any length of engagement will make me “sure”.

Maybe being sure isn’t about the other person but about myself. Maybe I am just somebody who can’t be sure of how I feel. That doesn’t make it any less real.

I’ve always admired how quickly marriages were decided in the old days. You’d court for a little while, and if you found each other to be pleasant, the man would propose, and a wedding would take place soon after. In those circumstances, you would only see each other a few times before the engagement, always in public settings. Now we have all these checkpoints in place like anniversaries and co-habitation and long engagements, and still we have people (like myself) who never seem to be sure. When will it ever be enough? It’s like the show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, every time the host asks “Is that your final answer?” you re-evaluate yourself one more time. He could ask you a million times, and you would still hesitate. At some point, you just have to bite the bullet and say, “Yes, that is my final answer.”

So Erika, you have inspired me to re-evaluate my position on long lead times for marriage. Perhaps in a few months, I will be married too. (Ok, probably not, but anything could happen.)