• Number of cigarettes: 5
• Number of lesbian kisses: 2
• Number of lap dances: 1
• Number of unattractive strippers: 6
• Number of attractive strippers: 1
• Number of slices of pizza: 3
• Number of units of alcohol: what do you think?

Zee is back from Australia for a few days, so we called up our old crew for a little get-together¹. Zee transferred there for medical school in early January. It was pretty sudden and there wasn’t much time for proper goodbyes. I hadn’t seen EnigmaticRebel for over a year, but when I called him up, he was game for anything.

Originally, we planned a low-key night at my place. Order some food, open up a few bottles of wine, and catch up on each other’s lives. That was not at all how the night went down.

Although we had said we were staying in, I knew that going out after dinner was fair game with this crowd, especially after a few drinks. So, as I was getting ready, I decided I might as well get ready for anything².
When Zee and DubaiGirl saw me, they decided they wanted to dress up too. And what was the point of dressing up if no one was going to see it?

So, following my recommendations, we ended up at a fairly upscale restaurant downtown. My friends thought the food was fantastic, but I, of course always being the food critic, thought it didn’t reach its full potential. Over duck, pasta, and risotto, I told them about my recent deflowering incident. This led to a length discussion on sex, everything from oral sex and foreplay to girth, stamina, and technique (I wanted to know, compared to ‘average men’ and ‘average sex’, how good/bad my first time was). Given the upscale setting that we were in, ER was unsettled by how openly we talked about penis sizes and blowjobs.
“SassyGirl, you’re scaring me.”
“Why?” I asked innocently.
“You’re the manliest person I’ve ever met! Most girls would be a lot more sensitive about losing their virginity, but with you, it’s like you just went to a hockey game!”
We laughed, and then I said, “But seriously, how big is big?”

After dinner, we drove to Zee’s and started drinking. We continued the discussion on sex, this time involving ethnicity (black vs. Asian). When I was satisfied with the information I solicited from my friends, I came to the conclusion that the reason the boy I slept with didn’t realize I was a virgin was possibly due to his own ego – i.e. that I was tight and he was too big for me, and therefore I bled. Because obviously it wouldn’t occur to him that a virgin would ask for a booty call.

We went clubbing at our favourite new club, but it was surprisingly empty (maybe because it’s exam period for all the university students). However, it was ladies night and there was a bachelorette party there, so we actually had a good time dancing with the girls without being bothered by creepy men.

By the way, did I mention that Zee is a lesbian?

That explains how we ended up on the patio, kissing each other. And by we, I mean all four of us. I don’t really remember how it started. One minute we were smoking, the next minute DG was asking whether kissing a girl was any different from kissing a guy. And I piped up that I had never kissed a girl before so I wouldn’t know. Next thing I knew, DG was kissing me.
“How was it?” Zee asked.
“It was… wet.” was all I could say.
Then, Zee kissed me, and it was also… wet.
DG and Zee also swapped kisses, and at some point ER got some lip action too, so he wouldn’t feel left out.
“Why is it so wet??” I whined loudly.
I heard laughing behind me, and that was when we noticed the bouncer standing right beside us, staring bug-eyed. We all laughed awkwardly.
“Wow, I can’t believe we just kissed our friends,” DG said, “and we can’t even deny it because we have a witness!” .
“I definitely was not expecting to see that,” the bouncer admitted with a chuckle. “I’m feeling pretty lucky tonight.”
Although we’ll never see him again, on someone’s camera, there is a picture of us with this bouncer.

After clubbing, our feet were tired but my friends weren’t ready to call it a night.
“I want to do something sketchy tonight!” DG kept announcing, over and over.
“We’ve already kissed each other, isn’t that sketchy enough?” I asked.
“Let’s go to a strip club!” Zee piped up.
My friends liked this idea, but I was definitely not up it. In the cab, they tried to convince me to go with them, and even the cab driver joined in.
“Come on SassyGirl, it’ll be an interesting experience,” DG said. “Plus, I need you there with me while Zee and ER ogle.”
“You know I’m all for new experiences, but I have a feeling this is the kind that will leave a scar in my memory. I just don’t want to see fat old ladies with their clothes off³. It’ll be burned into my mind and I don’t want to carry that image around for the rest of my life.”

Despite my protests, I was somehow dragged into the strip club with them. It was dark. There were a lot of men, the kind that leer at you from the edge of the dance floor, they were here in packs. The women were trashy, to be expected, but unexpectedly unattractive. Most of the women were fat (like literally, pregnant-looking), and the skinny ones looked like anorexics (wrinkly skin stretched over small bones). It was like they had gotten all the ugly girls from the club to come here and take their clothes off. Were the men really enjoying this?
Zee didn’t seem to mind and asked one of the anorexics for a lap dance. It was over pretty quickly, and in her state, Zee didn’t remember much of it, other than the fact that the woman told her she was allowed to touch her. “The way her boobs looked like balloons on her chest, I didn’t want to touch them at all,” Zee said to us later.

We ended the night at DG‘s place, with a delicious feast of pizza, wings, and shisha.

Our night went from fancy upscale restaurant to trashy strip club, but I would expect nothing less from this particular group of friends. We’ve always been known for being spontaneous and ridiculous, and if I remember any of our nights together, it will definitely be this one.

1. Zee, EnigmaticRebel, DubaiGirl, and I were in the same residence in first-year university. We partied a lot together, knew each other’s sketchy stories, took care of each other as we were adjusting to life at university, and have basically become the kind of friends around whom you have no inhibitions.
2. Plus, I have a habit of over-dressing. Always. Which is not a habit I mind at all.
3. Zee had been to this strip club before, and I’d heard things from others, that it did not have high-quality girls. In fact, some of my guy friends went more for the breakfast buffet than the women. Apparently most of them were overweight or way too old to be in this line of work. I wanted to spare myself from ever seeing saggy boobs, thank you very much.

…

“I got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good, good night”
DG and I are now in the middle of the dance floor, shaking and moving to the rhythm. We both have huge grins on our faces, drunk and happy. We sing along to this familiar song, knowing they’ll ring true tonight.

…

She grabs my hand and pulls me up to the platform. We dance around each other, as if we’re the only two people in the club. I’m oblivious to the two guys coming up behind us. Before I know it, she’s pulling me off the platform and pushing through the crowd. I look behind me just before we disappear into the crowd, the guys are looking embarrassed and their friends are laughing.

…

We laugh as we run away, returning to our spot in the middle of the dance floor. After a few minutes, I see a guy trying to dance with her from behind, so I put my hand around her shoulders and spin her to a different position. She sees a guy coming up behind me, and spins me away as well. Both guys leave feeling confused and rejected. We laugh. Tonight was going to be about just us girls.

…

On the way out of the bathroom, we run into a friend of mine, who had just arrived with some other people I partied with in first-year. We start dancing with them, our dancing duo now turning into a trio. The third girl, MG, spots a recently vacated stripper pole and points to it. I shrug my shoulders and we get up there, knowing that the rest of our friends are watching us. But when Lady Gaga comes on, all is forgotten and we just dance.

“I want your love and I want your revenge, you and me could write a bad romance.”

…

The three of us are dancing in the middle of a circle that our friends have formed around us. I feel a hand on my waist and a solid chest against my back, the faint smell of aftershave hovering above me. I throw my arm up in the middle of the song and accidentally hit the side of his head. “Sorry!” I gasp, as I turn around. I look up to see a tall Asian boy, one of MG‘s friends that I’d met once. I remember him to be good-looking, but tonight he is smoldering hot. DG winks at me and moves away with MG. TDH places his hand firmly on the small of my back and I melt into him, our bodies moving in sync to the music.

…

DG and I are waiting in-line at coat check, our faces gleaming with perspiration.
“Tonight was awesome,” DG says emphatically, her eyes shining. “This was the best clubbing night I’ve ever had!”
My expression mirrors hers as I nod. “Yeah, this was amazing. Girls night out at its best. I danced so much!”
“And did you see who you were dancing with? For an Asian guy, he was hot!”
I giggle, “I know, I couldn’t believe it when I turned around and it was him. Especially because we were dancing with all our friends, I didn’t think he would single me out.”
“That’s what makes it even hotter,” DG says with a twinkle in her eye.
As we exit the club, I say to no one in particular, “Tonight was a good, good night.” And I mean it.

One of my classes is called “Global Strategy,” taught by a Taiwanese professor with a very thick Chinese accent. Half the time, I can’t understand what he’s saying, and I’m Chinese! It doesn’t help that listening to him speak makes me want to laugh. I can’t even hold it in, it’s that bad. His accent is so classically Asian, he can’t pronounce ses for the life of him, and he kind of makes up his own sounds when he doesn’t know exactly how something is pronounced. Like “strategy” comes out sounding like “training” – I mean, how do you even do that?
But even without the accent, he is a very amusing professor. In our first class, he was trying to convince us of the necessity of this class by showing us the extent of globalization (foreigners invading our home environment even if we don’t have any intention to go abroad).
“You wake up in the morning, you put on your underwear, made in China. You put on your jeans, made in Bangladesh. You put on your t-shirt, made in Pakistan. You drive to school in your car made in Japan. You buy a coffee, imported from Columbia. And then you get to class and you realize, your professor is imported from Taiwan!” (Imagine this whole monologue with a thick Chinese accent, the kind that Russel Peters imitates.)

Anyway, other than school, I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get things back on track with PLB. I knew a month-long break at the start of a (potential) relationship would be hazardous, and I was completely right.
Actually, it’s more my fault that his. Ever since we came back from the holidays, I have been really awkward around him. It’s not like I want to be, but I just get really nervous around him, because now we are both fairly aware that we like each other¹. He was in my first class when I came back, and I didn’t prepare myself at all for that, so I barely acknowledged him there and left right after class. The second morning (we had the same class again), he did come over to talk to me, but I wasn’t really helping the conversation and avoided his eyes the whole time. The same sort of thing happened over and over again as we ran into each other over the next few days; I would be too nervous to flirt or say something remotely interesting, even if I told myself not to freeze up.
I was hopeless, and my awkwardness was going to ruin this!

Last night, I decided to try to redeem myself. I was going to Zee’s going-away party², and afterward, DG and I were going to The Club (the club that The Business School students go to every Thursday night). He was going to be there, that much I knew. So I drank, a little bit more and a little bit faster than normal, at the going-away party, so I was sufficiently drunk (but not sloppy) by the time we got to The Club. He was one of the first people we ran into, but it was in passing so I didn’t get to talk to him. The rest of the night I spent switching between the dance floor and the table where he was sitting. But every time I went to their table, some guy I knew would spot me and come over to talk to me. Many of them were my classmates from last year, so we’d always be very excited to see each other (one guy even picked me up and twirled me around – he’s really strong). I don’t know how it looked to PLB, that every time I sat down, a new guy would come to the table. Somehow, I wasn’t sure the jealousy card was a viable strategy for me at that point. In between guys, I tried to have a conversation with him, but it was hard with the loud music. I did find it more easy to talk to him, and flirt, now that I had lost my nervousness. But still, he did not make a move.

DG got frustrated and decided that I needed to redeem my self-respect, so she dragged me away from him for nearly an hour. When we went to the washroom, we ran into him at coat-check. He was leaving?!
I waited outside the washroom for DG so that he would have an opportunity to talk to me. He did come over, explaining how he had an interview the next day so he didn’t want to party too hard tonight. Understandable, but I was still disappointed. We hugged a couple times, but he seemed no more interested in me than any other guy I’d seen that night.

DG was more upset that PLB left than I was. “What the hell is wrong with him?” She shouted, a little too loudly. A guy nearby overheard us and said, “Forget him. I would never ditch a girl like you.” I rolled my eyes as a signal for him to move on³. Why was it that, today of all days, when the last thing I felt like was hooking up with a random guy, guys would hit on me so aggressively? Even the cab driver had offered to go out with me to “make that guy jealous.” (Yeah, I was pretty creeped out. I mean, obviously cab drivers eavesdrop, but isn’t it a cardinal rule to pretend not to be able to hear the passengers? Much less getting yourself involved and hitting on a girl at least ten years your junior?)
“Come on, let’s go get you a guy,” DG said as she dragged me to the dance floor.
“But I don’t want a guy,” I whined, although I didn’t think she heard me.

In the end, DG found a guy, and I went home alone. Am I really that pathetic? I guess I am.

1. God, I hope so. Because if I’m just making things up in my head again, I am going to feel like a huge fool.
2. She’s going to Australia for medical school at the end of the week.
3. Later, that guy found me on the dance floor and I literally had to push him away and tell him, “I don’t want to dance with you!” before he got the message.

After the show, I rushed over to an Italian restaurant nearby where SRF was celebrating a belated birthday. I was obviously late for dinner, but they poured me some wine and we had a jolly good time. I arrived just in time to explain to the dinner party why the wines they had ordered didn’t taste good (I had become the resident wine connoisseur to my friends ever since I went on those wine tastings last year). My alcohol tolerance is an embarrassment now², but that hasn’t stopped me from drinking.

We went to The Club³ after dinner⁴, except there was also a fashion show launch party there that night, so it was packed. I ran into a lot of people I hadn’t seen since second-year. Every time I ran into someone that night, they offered to buy me a drink, so two hours in, I had already had five drinks, none of which I paid for. It didn’t help that one of my friends from TheBusinessSchool had bought a private booth and bottle service and was handing me vodka tonics whenever my hand was empty. Free drinks are the worst way to stay sober (if that makes any sense).

Then I ran into YAR. Remember YAR? He is now in TheBusinessSchool, a year below me, and we had had lunch together a few weeks ago. I remembered that I still owed him lunch since I let him pay last time, but in order for it not to be a date, I’d insisted that he let me pay if we went out again. So I offered to buy him a drink when I ran into him, thinking this would absolve me of my obligation to take him out to lunch. Since our date two years ago, I had realized that it probably wasn’t a good idea for us to get involved. Besides, we didn’t leave things off very well last time, since he kissed my friend after taking me out to dinner. I was also under the impression that he currently had a girlfriend. Unfortunately, by the time I bought him a drink, I was far too inebriated for my own good.

Ironically, as a result of my buying him a drink in order to get out of buying him lunch, I ended up sleeping with him.

He asked me for a dance after I bought him the drink, and even though I said no, he ended up convincing me anyway. After a little grind and bump, he held my hand and led me away from the crowd. We talked for a while in my friend’s VIP booth, and he told me he wasn’t seeing anyone. Another friend of mine had mentioned that he got back together with his ex, but it must have been old news, because YAR said they tried the long-distance thing and it didn’t work out⁵.

When I said I wanted to leave, he left with me and we shared a cab together. I told the cab driver we were making two stops, but somewhere along the way, it turned into one.
How did this happen? I swear I’m not some sort of slut, but it’s hard to convince even myself sometimes.

I ended up sleeping over at his place, and of course, nothing happened. At least I still make sure to set expectations straight before entering a guy’s home, drunk or not. All we did was sleep, although I didn’t do much of that because I was throwing up in his bathroom every half hour. Yeah, not fun. After this many nights of partying though, I’m very good at handling myself in the morning, so it’s not as gross as it sounds; I didn’t make a mess. He slept through most of it actually, snoring the whole time. It was kind of hilarious to hear him continue to snore even though I had just climbed over him to get to the bathroom for the umpteenth time. That guy can sleep through anything it seems.

The morning after was not fun, not just because of the hangover, but also because I realized I should not have agreed to sleep over. He is my 学弟, my younger classmate, and I would still be seeing him around. What had I done?
I know he has always liked me, but how much? Was he going to date me seriously? Granted, last time we went out, I didn’t take it seriously either, but that doesn’t mean I won’t notice if he doesn’t call. He knows I’m a catch, and a difficult catch at that, so shouldn’t he have held onto me when I gave him the chance?

Goddammit, I have exams to study for. What the hell am I doing?

1. You have no idea how great it feels to actually be making progress with my life list. I encourage everyone to make one!
2. Case in point, chugging that glass of wine during intermission made me tipsy for the second half of the play.
3. It is the official club of TheBusinessSchool because we go every week.
4. I wasn’t dressed for clubbing, and hadn’t planned to go out originally, but in my tipsy state of mind, I was easy to persuade.
5. Although, I was recently on his Facebook and she is leaving messages there like nobody’s business. What’s up?

More importantly, I get unimaginably bad hangovers now, and each time, I swear I’m never going to drink again – it’s that bad – and then, a week later, I find myself at another pre-drink. What is up?

I think somewhere between October and now, I realized that I have more sex appeal than I used to. I mean, I used to be more desperate and naive¹, and while that might be appealing to some (har har), now, I am an older, more confident version of myself. I’m also ten pounds heavier, but surprisingly, that hasn’t stopped guys from hitting on me.

So on Thursday, I shimmied into an outfit I had bought a long time ago but never wore because I didn’t think I was skinny enough to pull off a body-hugging dress. And yes, I haven’t gone to the gym in three months, and yes, I eat ice cream almost exclusively, but I still wore it, and I wore it proudly.

I arrived at my friend’s pre-drink only to realize that it was a major sausagefest. I knew most of the guys there, so the flirting was kept to a minimum. The guys were taking shot after shot of absinthe and aged whiskey and tried to drag us down with them. I had some of the whiskey, which was okay, but I didn’t touch the absinthe. A limo arrived to take us to the club, and one of the guys threw up in the limo. That definitely killed some of the atmosphere. But once we were in the club, things picked up again. There was a joint event held by the Asian clubs happening, so there were a lot of Asians there, many of whom I knew from first and second year. The downside of knowing most of the people was that I was more uptight than I otherwise would have been; I didn’t want anything happening that people could gossip about. On the upside, guys I sort of used to know kept buying me drinks, so I didn’t end up spending much money at all. As a result, I was quite drunk², but I kept it together and even took care of some of my friends.

All this partying and “meeting guys for one night only” almost feels like I have given up on finding a boyfriend. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m going to be moving to Singapore in less than a year, so anything that starts now will have an expiration date (I don’t do long-distance relationships). Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m going to be graduating soon, and this may be my last chance to act like a reckless 20-year-old.

Whatever the reason, I feel like I should just embrace it. Once I graduate, even if I do go clubbing, it won’t be the same. I won’t be surrounded by horny university students³ who just did eight shots in an hour at a pre-drink. Alas, partying in university has just become another thing in my life with an expiration date.

1. Sad, but true. It was especially bad in first year because I was so curious to explore this “party world” and I was getting over MFL.
2. I was more drunk than I think I’ve ever been, in fact.
3. And if I were, I’d just be the creepy working woman among the young’uns.

Well, “meet someone” is a bit of a stretch. More like, I went out for Halloween, got drunk, and made out with someone.

And that’s where the story should have ended. But the next day, in the middle of my deathly hangover, NJB adds me on Facebook.

So I’m sitting there, trying not to throw up for the umpteenth time, hovering between “Accept” or “Reject” this unsolicited friend request. Quite honestly, I was surprised he even remembered my name. I certainly didn’t remember his (but my skills of deduction helped me realize who this friend request had to have come from.)

Do I really want to be friends with this guy?
I mean, I don’t want to be like “the bitch” who goes and uses some guy just so she’d have someone to grind up against in the club, and then drops him like garbage.
On the other hand, if I accept this friend request, I don’t want him to think it actually means something, like I want to actually be friends (or more) with him.
Because, let’s be clear about something, when I go out to a club, I’m not there to meet guys. In fact, I have very low expectations of the quality of guys in clubs. Sure, it’s fun if I meet someone that I actually enjoy dancing with, but that’s a one-night thing. If that accidental meeting extends beyond the one drunken night, it’s no longer fun anymore.

That is, at least, the lesson I’ve learned from four years of university.

So, while I should have been flattered that he remembered my name, while I should have felt a smidgen of optimism that you actually can meet decent guys in clubs, all I could think was “Damn, I shouldn’t have given him my real name.”

In the end, I did add him on Facebook, and when he messaged me for my number, I gave it to him. I realized that jadedness begets jadedness, and I didn’t want to perpetuate the cycle. I’d rather be the foolish girl who believes the best in everyone despite past experience than the bitch who treats men like garbage just because she’s been treated like garbage in the past. I didn’t want to perpetuate the cyclical behaviour that ruins the chances of happiness for everyone, because – well, it doesn’t have to be this way.

So, let it be known that if you ever meet me in a club or at a party, I will always give you my real name.

P.S. I was the Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween. I’m not one for fancy Halloween costumes but my roommate happened to have this, so I lucked out.

At noon on Friday, we were just finalizing our plans via a flurry of excited emails² when I received an email from LawyerMan asking if I still wanted to work for him as a legal assistant at his firm. I hadn’t heard from him since the interview, where he had made it abundantly clear that I was grossly underqualified for the position. I had interpreted the lack of communication as “I am too busy to even email you to let you know that, like I said at the interview, I don’t want you,” and left it at that. When I read his email, a simple one-liner asking if I was still interested in the position, I jumped at the opportunity and immediately said yes. I asked him when he wanted me to start. He said Monday.

Keep in mind that not only was I currently working, but I was in a different city! What kind of employer emails you on Friday afternoon to tell you to come in on Monday? Did he think I’d been sitting on my ass, twiddling my thumbs for the entire four weeks since the interview?
But of course I said yes, because I was afraid he’d change his mind. After all, this was the sort of opportunity that could really help me with my career, even if the opportunity came with an inconsiderate boss.

Luckily, my boss in University Town was very understanding when I explained the situation to her. I offered to finish my projects remotely and send my predecessor further instructions via email.
Then I went back to my apartment to pack and eat six eggs.

You see, the problem with last minute decisions to go back to The City is that I have to tie up loose ends in University Town. Which means, cleaning out the fridge even though I’d just stocked it two days ago with groceries. I am Asian, it’s not in my blood to waste food.

So on Friday night, I ate six eggs, eight yogurts, three bell peppers, two bananas, one apple, one tomato, and two pieces of tofu. I am not proud of this (ok, maybe I am a little). I decided to take what I couldn’t eat back to The City with me.

As a result of my decision to bring my groceries and as much clothes as I could pack with me, I arrived at the hostel on Saturday with three pieces of luggage in tow, each of which matched my body weight. Needless to say, I looked ridiculous, especially next to all the other hostelers who had traveled across the ocean with nothing but a backpack. But when has looking ridiculous ever stopped me?

After signing in with WAF, we went for a quick shopping trip before resting our feet at the Hard Rock Cafe patio. I slurped on a delicious concoction of Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort, black raspberry liquer, and vodka, aptly named Southern Rock, while my companion chain-smoked.

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped by the liquor store and bought a bottle of wine and rum. WAF wanted to split the purchase with me, but I didn’t really want to drink wine because it gives me horrible hangovers and I had a presentation the next day. I agreed half-heartedly and paid for my share, but when we got back to the hostel, I let her drink most of the wine.

Leaving her to oversee the pouring of the wine turned out to be a terrible idea. Between almost a liter of wine and a couple shots of rum, my companion quickly became drunk. WAF can usually hold her liquor quite well, or so I’m told, but I suppose being on the skinny bitch diet³ lowered her tolerance⁴. I should have seen the warning signs when she started whining loudly about BAD, but I figured she drank so much on a regular basis that a bottle of wine wouldn’t have done her in.
“Why doesn’t he want me?” She whined. “Aren’t I a pretty good catch?”
Like the dependable friend that I am, I answered her the way I always did, “Of course you are. He’s not good enough for you.”
She went on like this for a good half hour, even relating to me their sexual exploits. “To tell you the truth, the sex wasn’t even that good,” she announced loudly, as if I were a mile away from her, even though I was sitting less than a meter away.
I feigned shock, although I wasn’t really keen on hearing the details.
“I like it really rough,” she continued, “And he just didn’t know how to give it to me!”
I wondered if she was talking this loudly for someone else’s benefit, because surely she did not need this megaphone voice to speak to me. Perhaps she was drunk, or perhaps she wanted to attract one of the many male hostelers in the vicinity to join us – or maybe both. I felt a little embarrassed for her.

While I took a (much needed) washroom break from WAF‘s whining, she chatted up a 20-something geologist from Germany who had the misfortune to sit too close to us in the common room. She coaxed him into joining us for dinner in Chinatown, despite the fact that he’d already had dinner. I let WAF flirt with him, since she was drunk and I was not nearly tipsy enough. Plus, I got the distinct vibe that this particular Caucasian had no inkling of Asian fever, and I always trust my intuitions on these matters.

We finally found a suitable Chinese restaurant, but once the food arrived, WAF was unusually quiet. I figured she was just ravenous⁵, but in hindsight, I think she was starting to pass out from alcohol overdose.
She disappeared into the washroom for half an hour, which didn’t surprise me because she usually purges after pigging out like this (yes, this girl simultaneously suffers from every eating disorder on record), but when she still didn’t emerge from the washroom after half an hour, I went to check on her.

The first thing I saw when I entered the dingy two-stalled washroom was a bare bum sitting on the yellowing linoleum floor inside one of the stalls. A horrified Asian girl rushed past me, and I knew instantly who the bare bum belonged to.
“WAF?” I called out. “Are you ok?”
“No…” came a croak from inside the stall. “SG, I’m not feeling ok.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure what to do, since there was a stall door separating us and I could still see her bare ass on the floor. “What would you like? Do you want to stand up?”
A pause.
“I threw up,” WAF said. That much I had guessed already. “I kind of made a mess…”
“That’s ok, just come out, ok? Come on.”
I heard some shuffling from inside the stall and her bare bum disappeared. A moment later, the stall door opened.

I was not prepared for the sight of what came out of the stall.

WAF emerged, with puke covering the front of her body, from her chest all the way down to her hips and around to her bum. There were dirty streaks of puke on her black leggings, and on her hands, and in her hair where had ran her hands through her hair.
I quickly rearranged my expression to hide my shock, but it was honestly a disgusting sight. I couldn’t decide what was more horrific, seeing her covered in her own puke or seeing her with a bloody lip and mascara streaming down her face.

I navigated her to the sink and handed her some towels. Lucky for her, I was not a squeamish person, but touching her puke-covered body was a little too much, even for me.
“Is it ok if I go home?” She asked me timidly.
“Of course!” I said, almost too enthusiastically. The party had been over when she had puked all over herself, and maybe even before, when she had decided to drink a bottle of wine and then ramble on about a boy that I’ve heard way too much about. “That’s absolutely fine!”
“I’m so sorry for ditching you. I feel awful.”
“No, really, go home. You will feel better at home.”
I asked if there was anyone she could call to take her home, or if she wanted me to call her a cab. She wanted to call BAD but her phone wasn’t working. She handed it to me, and I realized it was because she had dropped it and her SIM card was soaked with puke. I pushed aside my feelings of disgust and put on a brave face as I cleaned the puke out of her phone. When I put the battery back in, it was working.

“Do you want me to get your things from the hostel?” I asked as I handed back her phone.
“I don’t know… Do you think I should call BAD? I don’t want him to see me like this.”
Nobody should see you like this, not even me, I thought, but I kept my thoughts to myself. “Honey, if there was any time to take advantage of that guy, it’s now. If he can take you home, call him.”
I convinced her to let me go back to the hostel to get her things while she figured out a way to get home. When I left the bathroom, she was sprawled out on the floor, unable to keep herself together. I felt bad, but the German guy was still waiting in the restaurant for us, and I didn’t know how much more of WAF I could look at without puking myself.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I vaguely explained to the German guy what had happened without going into the details. I was nice enough not to embarrass my friend in front of a stranger, even though she was being an embarrassment to herself.
“I saw this coming,” the German guy said, as if it was no big deal. “She couldn’t even walk properly on the way here.”
For some reason, his statement made me really angry. Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you still let her drag you to Chinatown? Even though he was a total stranger who didn’t have any responsibility toward us, I still felt like a decent person would have something, especially someone who had seen many symptoms of severe drunkenness. If it were me, I would have at least asked, “Hey, are you sure your friend is all right?” just to make sure things were under control.

This night was feeling more and more out of control. I walked back to the hostel with the German guy and grabbed WAF‘s stuff. He offered to walk back to the restaurant with me but I told him WAF wouldn’t want anyone to see her. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that the German guy was as nice as he had seemed.
So, I was a little Asian girl walking alone in a sketchy neighbourhood after dark, but it was a neighbourhood I knew well. My friends have often warned me that my lack of fear for sketchy situations was going to get me in trouble one day, but at times like these, my baseless self-assurance helped a long way to keep me cool and collected.

It took me 40 minutes to get back to the restaurant. When I rushed in, I realized the entire restaurant had been alerted to the drunken girl in the washroom. There were four people crowded in the washroom doorway, one of which was a middle-aged woman, who I assumed was the owner (or the wife of the owner).
“SG!” WAF called out when she saw me.
“Oh, your friend is here,” the owner said. “Thank God, we just called the ambulance!”
I apologized profusely as I joined WAF‘s side. Ignoring the dried puke on her clothes, I looped my arm around her waist and guided her out of the restaurant. We hopped into a cab, then onto the subway, where she promptly passed out. It was an opportunity to rest my feet since I’d been wearing heels, and I had to practically carry WAF on one shoulder and her stuff on the other.

Her parents were going to pick her up from the subway station and take her home. I didn’t want to think how they’d react seeing her like this. They’d never even seen her drunk. It took nearly two hours before I got back to the hostel. I surveyed the damage. I was down $75 from buying liquor I hadn’t drank, paying for the dinner while WAF was hiding out in the bathroom, leaving a generous tip to the owner for having to clean up a puke-covered washroom, and covering the cab and subway fare. I also felt dirty and smelled like puke, but the hostel’s showers rarely worked after midnight. This was how I spent my supposed “staycation” from all the things that had been stressing me out.

As I waited on the empty subway platform, the feeling of being disappointed and stranded pervaded me, and this suddenly felt all too familiar⁶. I wondered if I was being too good of a friend. I place a lot of value in my friendships, but do I end up being used? Or do I just attract needy people because I can actually keep my shit together? This weekend was supposed to be fun, but I expected someone as smart as WAF to know how to have fun responsibly. Drinking without abandon is just selfish, because the onus ends up on me to clean up her mess and take care of her. Is it worth it to stick it out in this friendship with a problem-ridden drama queen? And when was she going to return the favour? Not that I’ve ever asked anything of her⁷; not that I’d ever let myself be in a position where I needed to ask this kind of favour, from anyone.
But no matter how needy and selfish WAF can be, I’m not ready to abandon her. I want to believe the best in her, that she would do the same for me if the occasion arose, and only hasn’t had the opportunity to demonstrate that friendship⁸. It is a naive notion, especially when my instinct is telling me that I’m getting the rotten end of this particular stick. But it seems too easy to only look for the “beneficial friendship” and jump ship when it doesn’t seem worthwhile. I don’t want to be one of those people, especially not to WAF, who so clearly needs someone to pay attention to her (lest she acquires more and more emotional disorders).

Surprisingly, I slept soundly in the creaky hostel bunk bed that night, and woke up feeling far less disappointed than I expected. I spent the morning acting as a tour guide to a Japanese girl who was staying at the hostel. She and I became fast friends⁹, and I welcomed the change of this uncomplicated friendship from the previous night’s drama.

So was Saturday night a Girls Night Out or Girls Gone Wild? You decide.

1. two summers ago, I had stayed at hostel with Zee and ER so I was comfortable with it, but this time we were staying at a different hostel, so I wasn’t sure if it would be sketchy or not. It turned out to be quite clean, although the location was a bit sketchy.
2. Both of us were at work and, apparently, not that dedicated to our jobs.
3. Anorexia.
4. Despite my best efforts of force-feeding her chips.
5. Food! Actual food! With meat and oil! I don’t even know when was the last time she had real food.
6. A year ago, WAF had also pulled drama like this.
7. Perhaps I should ask her to name her first-born after me.
8. Although, do I really want to be friends with someone who frequently, and selfishly, allows these occasions to arise?
9. I seem to be very good at charming foreigners, especially those from Asian countries.

I was downtown with WAF during her lunch break to make sure she was ok – and by that I mean, she wasn’t running back into the arms of BAD. Except now she wanted to run into the arms of her married coworker, who was apparently very sweet on her and open to the idea of a no-strings-attached affair. As if.
We ducked into a 50s-themed restaurant-bar and WAF ordered a bottle of wine before I had even removed my coat.
“Are you not eating?”
“Are you kidding? Everything on their menu has to be at least 300 calories. I can’t afford that. Plus I need alcohol if I’m going to get through today without calling BAD.” So this was how she lost twenty pounds since the last time I saw her. Good ol’ anorexia. Who needs food when you have cigarettes and alcohol? I considered force-feeding her fries, but by the time our waitress returned, I was happily buzzed and had forgotten all about it. Great, I was drunk at noon on a Wednesday off of indistinguishable house wine. And I wasn’t even the depressed one.

Soon we were chain-smoking on the patio and bashing all the men in our lives, past and present. We debated embracing homosexuality, then thought better of it. As I so eloquently put it, “Why would you want to deal with girls? I mean, PMS, pregnancy, menopause? Hello bitch extraordinaire.”

By the time her lunch break was over, I had had enough of her bitching and could feel a dull hunger in my stomach. HB called me just in time to invite me out for some real food. I wonder what WAF would have said about our meal of fried chicken wings.

Being with HB made me realize why I used to have so many guy friends. Hanging with guys is so easy, so stress-free. I can just let loose, pig out, have fun, whatever. Conversations with girl friends are always so emotionally charged, and if they’re not bitching about their boyfriend then they’re bitching about their lack of boyfriend. I mean, it’s always nice to have girl friends to commiserate with and the drama can be entertaining, but sometimes it’s a bit much.
HB was exactly what I needed. And he was so happy to see me. He is always so happy, all smiles, worry-free. I often wonder if the kid isn’t on drugs. If he is, what the hell is he on and where can I get some?

As refreshing as it was to be with HB after hanging out with an emotionally unstable WAF, there were a few awkward moments.
…Like when I asked whether WAF and I could crash on his couch after clubbing and he said, “Sure, you two can stay over. But not her.” Then… it would just be me? ‘Cause that wouldn’t be awkward, considering the last time I’d stayed at his place, we spent all morning cuddling on the couch and taking pictures of each other with my camera.
“Uh, you know what, maybe we won’t need to crash at your place. I’ll let you know.”
…Or when he tried to play footsie under the table.
…Or when he adamantly defined a ‘date’ as ‘a guy and a girl planning to meet each other – just the two of them.’ Jesus, if that’s the definition then I have gone on more dates with him than I have shoes in my closet.

So when he invited me back to his place to “see his new lamp,” I promptly declined. I had more emotionally unstable girl friends to attend to.

Oh, and speaking of gender-bitching, check out two simultaneous conversations I was having with WAF and BBB.

Q: Do you ever get tired of gender-bitching? The never-ending ‘boys are stupid – no, girls are complicated’ debate? Why can’t we just agree that we all suck?

“What’s wrong with plumbers?” I asked defiantly, suddenly feeling protective of the low-income populous. “I mean, girls are always swooning over hot firefighters. How is a hot plumber any different?”
“That is true. They do come rescue you in times of need,” ALS offered.
“If you get their number, you can at least call them for a plumbing job even if you don’t end up going on a date,” FF added jokingly.
“It’s true!” I emphasized in all seriousness. “Personally, I love handymen, and I’m sure I have a higher chance of needing a plumber than a fireman. They should make a hot plumbers calender, like they do with firemen.”
The taxi driver checked me out through his rearview mirror and laughed audibly.
“Housewives across the country would go nuts,” FF chimed.

Last week, I went to a conference in Boston with about 20 other kids from The Business School. The conference sucked. So we skipped most of it to explore Boston instead. DEB was on the trip, and we spent a lot of time together. I really didn’t mean to, since I had already gotten over his dreamy eyes and given up on him. On the bus there, I ended up sitting beside him, but nothing happened of course. We didn’t talk much, but we didn’t sleep much either. Later, I would realize this was because he was as excited about me sitting beside him as I was.

Twelve hours is a long time to spend on a bus, especially when you’re brushing shoulders with a guy who has the power to make your knees go weak. As soon as we arrived, the Girls (BI, GHG, and me) realized we had adjoining rooms with the Guys (DEB, FMB, and two others). You know what this means — late-night sneaking into each others’ rooms was not going to be a problem.

After registering for the conference (which was a nightmare because the guy “in charge” of our delegation did not have the first idea what he was doing and had the maturity of an 8-year-old), BI and I went to Chinatown in search of cheap and fast food. We found an ancient-looking banquet hall that was bizarrely decorated, with faded walls, dingy carpets, a musty smell. In true Cantonese dim-sum style, carts soon started to roll by our table, offering unidentifiable dishes made almost entirely with MSG.

When we returned to the hotel, I did not feel like going to the afternoon workshops, so when I ran into a group of girls headed to Newbury St. for some shopping, I invited myself along. Newbury St. is famous in Boston for its high-end boutique stores, and I was excited to see for myself how it compared to The City.

One of the first stores we went into was Victoria Secret, which we don’t have in The City, so it was hard to contain my inner shopaholic. However, I was somberly reminded that I had only brought so much cash for the trip and I didn’t want to spend it all on the first day. I decided that I would come back on the last day if I still had cash left over.
The next store we went to was Anthropologie. It was adorable: exposed brick walls, cute patterned dresses, funky accessories, and even colourful kitchenware! As soon as I picked up anything and looked at its price tag though, I realized that this store, too, was out of my reach. So I found a couch, picked up a book of Spanish love poems, and started reading – just to avoid browsing around the store and getting the temptation to buy everything. Even from my safety zone of the couch, I could see the accessories stand, and there was a particular pair of earrings that caught my attention. It was a pair of dangling bronze pearls, unassumingly elegant and large enough to catch your attention. I dismissed it, assuming it would be very pricey. But as the girls and I were just about to leave the store, I couldn’t go without giving it a closer look. Nervously, I reached toward the rack and picked it up, knowing that the longer I held it, the more in love with it I was. I hesitated. Did I want to know how much it was? I really, really wanted it, but if it was too expensive, was I going to be able to walk away from it? Slowly, I turned it over.
$9.99 it read, in a red pen that had crossed out its original retail price of $40. This was destiny!
I let out an audible yelp. The people around me gave me a strange look before returning to their shopping. The Shopping God must have wanted me to have these earrings. I must have pleased him in some way in the past and this was my reward!
I literally dashed to the checkout counter and forked over the money. The shopaholic in me was appeased.

After shopping, the girls wanted to get food, but I was still full from the dim sum, so I wandered around on my own. I had done a bit of research before my trip, and I knew that I was on part of the Freedom Trail. There were a few things I wanted to see before I went back to the hotel, such as some churches and the Boston Public Library. I am a sucker for architecture. I love taking pictures of buildings and cityscapes, which I find just as breathtaking as natural landscapes.

By the time I got back to the hotel, the rest of my delegation was back our rooms debating how to spend our first night in Boston.

Since most of us were 20, we couldn’t go out drinking, so the few of us that were legal drinking age ended up buying alcohol and bringing it back to the hotel room, where we got quite drunk quite fast. We were hanging out in the Guys’ room, which sort of became party central. Until then, I had been determined that nothing was going to happen on this trip and that the DEB crush was not to be rekindled. But as we became more and more drunk, he was more and more flirty and encouraging me to drink, and somehow I ended up lying on his lap.
To sober up, we went for a walk outside in the brisk night air. As soon as we were outside, GHG linked her arm through DEB‘s, and told him to hold her. Another guy in our group commented on her flirty behaviour by turning to me and saying, “I didn’t know she was like that.” I shrugged. We were drunk, it was forgiveable. But it also gave me the courage to be more forward with DEB, and soon enough, I was the one linking arms with him. If I was sober, I probably would’ve known better, but seeing him link arms with GHG helped me justify that it wasn’t a big deal. We were walking ahead of the group, and I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but I do remember him getting very serious at one point and asking me whether I thought he was a good guy, or something to that affect. I called him soulless because he was selling himself out to be a ruthless, money-grubbing trader on Wall St..
“Seriously, you don’t think I’m soulless do you?” He asked, casting me a sideways glance.
“Sure I do,” I replied nonchalantly.
He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Really? You actually think that way of me?”
I tugged on his arm and kept walking, “No, of course not. I think you’re a swell guy.” I was purposefully being sarcastic to avoid telling him that I thought he was so sweet that it made me want to die.
He laughed. “Be serious!” he said, giving my arm a squeeze.
“I don’t want to be serious!” I whined in a tipsy stupor.
“But then I can never tell when you’re being serious or not!” He referred to the time we had to work on a presentation together, when he actually started to believe that I disliked him.
I laughed, pleased that I could make him so frustrated. “Of course I don’t think you’re soulless, nor do I find you annoying,” I said reassuringly. “Well, maybe sometimes.”

We walked on, arm in arm, enjoying the night breeze of Boston. After a while, the rest of the group caught up to us, and we headed back to the hotel. On the elevator ride up, he stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me, leaning his head on mine. I lost myself in that moment and melted into his warmth.

Back in our rooms, GHG and I debriefed the drunken night. She kept saying how much she enjoyed it, and confessed to me that she thought DEB was “the sweetest guy ever.”
“I love how we flirt with each other and all that without it being awkward, even though he has a girlfriend. I just feel really comfortable around him. He’s a great guy.” I agreed halfheartedly, soberly realizing that I wasn’t the only one who had a little crush on DEB.

The next morning, I had planned a Boston/Harvard tour for our delegation, so we got on our coach bus and headed toward Harvard campus. The bus dropped us off in Harvard Square, which is a lovely commercial centre in the middle of campus with unique shops and famous little bookstores.

We did our own tour around Harvard Yard, since we didn’t have time to go with the tour guide.

The Widener Library was closed, but we later found out that there is a very interesting story behind this library. An excerpt from Wikipedia explains:

Widener Library commemorates Harry Elkins Widener a 1907 Harvard graduate, who was a book collector and victim of the Titanic disaster. His mother, Eleanor Elkins, made a $3.5 million donation to Harvard University to build a library named after him.
According to a campus legend, under the terms of the Widener family donation, the exterior of the library is never to be altered, or else ownership of the building reverts to the city of Cambridge. Because of this, according to the legend, Harvard has been always been limited and creative in its renovation options, including the building of a causeway to neighboring Houghton Library through what was a large window.
There is a legend at Harvard that in order to prevent what befell Widener from happening to another student, all students of Harvard College are required to prove that they can swim before they are allowed to graduate. While Harvard did implement a swimming test in the 1920s, it had nothing to do with Widener, and the swim test is no longer required of students.

Before we left, I made sure everyone rubbed the lucky left foot of John Harvard. I am not sure where this legend came about, but it’s something that all Asian tour groups believe fervently in, and seeing as it was Friday the 13th that day, I felt like we all needed some good luck.

Interesting fact about the John Harvard statue (Wikipedia):

The statue, known by Harvard tour guides as the statue of three lies, claims that it depicts John Harvard, Founder, 1638, but in reality Harvard was a contributor, not the founder; the institution was founded in 1636; and the statue is actually a likeness of someone else. The sculptor used a student as a model because he had no image of John Harvard to work from.

We then raided the Harvard Business School (HBS), which was only appropriate given that the founder of our business school was a graduate of HBS and our education system is based off theirs. I left a thank-you message in one of their classrooms before we left.

Next, our coach took us to Faneuil Hall Market Place, which is a beautiful part of downtown Boston just bursting with character. There were so many eateries to choose from in the Quincy Market Colonnade that I had to walk up and down the hall three times before I could decide.

DEB and I got separated from the others after lunch, and we wandered around on our own. Once again, we were arm-in-arm, laughing and talking like a couple. He catered to my whims, let me lead him around to stores that I wanted to see, and waited patiently as I fell in love with Boston and tried to take pictures of everything.

When I got back from committee in the afternoon, DEB seemed to have missed me. After all, we had been quite a couple in the morning and had such a good time together. As I was cleaning up in the Girls’ room, he came up and gave me a hug from behind.
“How was committee?” He asked, like a husband asking his wife how her day was.
“Terrible, as usual. Complete waste of time.”
“Are you okay?” He turned me around to face him.
“Of course I’m okay.”
We stood there gazing at each other, inches apart. Just then, my roommates came home.

BI and I wanted to skip the evening committee session and go to the symphony. The rest of the group thought it was a good idea, so we all decided to skip committee. As we got dolled up (even the boys!), the sun was setting on the city outside.

For dinner, we went to Legal Sea Foods, a restaurant near our hotel that turned out to be a great decision¹. As the resident wine expert, I ordered a bottle of 2006 German Riesling that everyone complemented. Our waiter was amazingly accommodating, and best of all, did not ID us. After placing our orders, we were reading our place mats and noticed that Legal was known for their clam chowder, which none of us had ordered. So we called our waiter back and he brought us a bowl and eight spoons to share. In a matter of seconds, the bowl was empty and we were fighting over who got to lick the bowl.

With warm stomachs, we headed over to the Boston Symphony Orchestra to listen to some Mozart. The orchestra hall was beautiful, as it was the original building, and had very European moldings and statues on the inside.


The music director, James Levine, is an extremely well-known American music director, and is also the music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. What fascinated me was his crazy hair and the way he swiveled around in the conductor’s chair.

At the symphony, PCG² held onto DEB as if he was a lifesaver. Her arms were tightly around his and it didn’t look like she would ever let go. I noticed her attachment to DEB that morning when we toured Harvard as well. The worst part was that DEB didn’t seem sensitive to the fact that he had been flirting with me all through dinner. It didn’t help that when we got back to our hotel, BI said she’d seen PCG emerge from her room with DEB, her hair all messy, and then immediately pull GHG aside for some girl talk.
“Just judging by that, there has to be something going on between PCG and DEB,” BI said as she straightened her hair. We were getting ready to go to the conference’s cocktail party.
“But doesn’t DEB have a girlfriend?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“Yep. And it seems like they’re really serious too. I was talking to him earlier and he said that she might just be the girl he ends up marrying.”
“Then how could he be like this around other girls? How would his girlfriend feel if she knew?”
“I don’t know, but I know I wouldn’t want to marry him,” BI said decisively, alluding to the fact that DEB might cheat.
“He said he might marry her?” I asked, perplexed. It didn’t make sense to me. DEB had said that he’d met his girlfriend after hitting on her one time at a party in Grade 11. They’ve been together ever since, although he tried to break up with her twice. After that, he decided to just stick with it. “I feel like he’s just settling, maybe that’s why he acts like such a player.”
“Oh believe me, I know. He is a complete womanizer.” Then BI told me a story about how he had flirted with her when they first met.
“He’s so smooth that you don’t realize it, but he does come on pretty strong huh?” I remarked, more casually than I felt.
So DEB is a flirt. He doesn’t like me, he likes women. Although this realization should have strengthened my resolve to forget about him, instead it made me wonder if I could toy around with him too. Since it was just some harmless flirting that didn’t mean anything to him, why should it mean anything to me?

Nonetheless, I ignored DEB at the cocktail party and ended up chatting in Mandarin with three girls from Beijing University, who were very nice and very curious about American culture. Being in a group of Asian girls also meant we were hit on more than once, but I advised them not to react to it as most of the boys were nerds who couldn’t get any at home and were trying to take advantage of desperate nerd-girls.

The next day was Valentine’s Day, and I actually went to all my committees and got my money’s worth for the conference. They were sending out rose-a-grams in the conference, and sadly I did not get one, but I found out later that someone had actually sent me one but it got sent to the wrong committee. I managed to avoid DEB since I had lunch with people from my committee. I was still mulling over what BI had said.
For dinner, I went out with AHB, a high school friend that also happens to be MFL‘s best friend. We talked easily, and at the end of the night he gave me two tickets to the Museum of Fine Arts, which he got for free somehow.
When I got back to the hotel, everyone was curious to know where I had been all day and who I had had lunch and dinner with. I didn’t want to tell them I had dinner with AHB because they would interrogate me about him and I didn’t want to explain to them that AHB was actually my ex’s best friend.

That night was the conference dance, and I had brought a cute little pink dress for just the occasion. I had bought it a long time ago on sale, but I’d never worn it because it was very low cut, I didn’t think I had enough cleavage to pull it off. However, I had found a bra that could give me a bit of a lift in that area, so I finally decided to wear the dress. When I went into the Guys’ room (where everyone was hanging out) after I changed, everyone started whooping and cheering. Uncharacteristically (maybe it was the gin and tonic I had), I did a little twirl and pose, basking in the compliments. When DEB saw me, his eyes just about jumped out of their sockets.
I exited with a curtsy and DEB followed me back to the Girls’ room. He stood in the doorway, the threshold between the Girls’ room and the Guys’ room, as if afraid to be alone with me. His eyes never left me. Making up his mind, he walked towards me, closing the distance between us so quickly that before I knew it, we were abreast and his arms were around my waist. I rested my arms on his shoulder.
“You look amazing,” he said, captivated.
“Thank you. You do too.” And he did. He was wearing a very sharp suit with a sleek belt that made him look tall and irresistible.
I looked in the mirror beside us. You had to admit, we looked good together. Just then, my roommate entered the room and we broke our embrace. Too quickly, it seemed, for both of us.
As we left the room, he stayed close to me the whole time, walking me arm in arm to the elevator. As we were waiting, I commented that his cologne smelled nice. Then he asked me what I was wearing. “Guess,” I said, and he bent down and took a whiff of my neck. The air was palpable with sexual tension.
“Ohh,” he moaned, as he straightened up. “I don’t know what it is, but you smell so good.”
“Guess,” I said again, with a twinkle in my eye. Again, he bent down to smell my neck.
“Something tropical. Mango? No. Coconut?”
“Yes. It’s coconut lime.”
As we piled into the elevator, DEB stood behind me, his hands on my hips, pulling me towards him. I was giddy with the knowledge that I could make him want me so badly.

However, when we got to the dance, we lost each other, and when I found him later, he insisted we find the rest of the group. As a group, we danced together for a while, then all of a sudden, he started grinding some random chick. I was miffed. I didn’t understand it. He had acted like he couldn’t get enough of me, and yet, here he was grinding a random when he could’ve been dancing with me.
It left a sour note in my mouth for the rest of the night, and when we got back to the hotel room, FMB noticed how down I was and tried to cheer me up. Except, he was flirting and coming on very strong. I didn’t understand that either, I mean this guy had been super nice to me the whole trip, but had never exhibited that kind of interest. All of a sudden, we were playing a game where the stakes were that if I lost, I had to kiss him. He cheated, I lost, he asked me to kiss him. I looked around. There were three other people in the same room! I couldn’t, so I refused him by not taking his request seriously. In all honesty, I would have kissed him. It was Valentine’s Day, I was without a boy, and DEB was with some random chick, having a ball. But my sense of propriety kept me from making out with FMB in front of other people. I wasn’t nearly drunk enough.

When DEB came back to the hotel room, he didn’t even acknowledge me. Instead, GHG was lying on his bed with him and asked him (I was so shocked by how forward she was) to spoon her.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had been as reserved as I could around DEB despite how attracted I was to him because I knew he had a girlfriend and I felt awful as it was. But now I saw him for who he really was. DEB was not a cute, sweet, nice boy. He was an insensitive womanizer, and a terrible boyfriend. Depressed, I changed out of the dress that seemed to make boys go crazy, and called it a night.

The next day was our last day there, and instead of going to committee, BI and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts. We grabbed a quick breakfast at au bon pain, a breakfast chain that I’d seen everywhere in Boston but hadn’t had a chance to try. Although the layout and selection was impressive, the actual food was not. Then we somehow navigated our way to the museum by taking the subway, which the locals insisted calling “train.”

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts held a surprisingly varied and impressive collection from Japanese prints all the way to impressionist paintings.







The two of us bought an audio tour and took our time going through the exhibits. As it turned out, BI and I have very similar “tourist” habits — enjoying good food, exploring ethnic areas like Chinatown and Little Italy, spending all day at a museum, etc. and neither of us minded being on our own. We spent over three hours browsing the exhibits until we realized we had to go. We made it back to the hotel just in time to stuff everything in our luggage and get on the bus.

DEB sat with me again for the ride back. This time, I had the courage to lean on his shoulder, and I slept while he watched movies. Aside from reminiscing about what a good time we had had and how Boston surprised us in its character and old school charm, we did not talk much. I was still wrestling with the disappointment I felt the night before at DEB‘s behaviour. What was worse was that I actually felt sad that the trip was coming to an end because DEB had been like my “Boston boyfriend” – albeit a very loose definition of boyfriend. He must have sensed it too, because when we stopped for food, DEB kept his arm around me and leaned his head on my shoulder. Knowing that DEB was no good and that I would never want him to be my boyfriend even if he was single made me want to hold onto him (the sweet side of him, that is) even more.

Oddly enough, halfway through the ride back, he moved to a different seat because he said his legs were feeling cramped. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. ACB came and sat down beside me and we ended up talking about his love life (nonexistent). He told me that he had actually sent a rose-a-gram to me, but I never got it because it went to the wrong committee. We ended up opening a bottle of red wine I had bought at the border and drank it out of soft drink cups. If I thought that was a weird way to end the trip, what happened next was even more inexplicable.
Minutes prior to us arriving at The Business School, DEB came back to sit with me. He put his arm around me and hugged me tightly, telling me he was really glad I came on this trip and that he was going to miss me.
As we unloaded the bus, he never left my side, helping me carry my luggage and call a cab. We said goodbye with a long and tight hug, twice. It was as if he was trying to tell me, in a bizarre sort of way, that despite his undiscriminating flirtatiousness to all women, I was his “Boston girlfriend.” He had picked me, for whatever reason. And without wanting to, I forgave him for his promiscuity and insensitivity, playing with all these girls at once. Without wanting to, I was smitten.
In the cab on the way home, I thought about the way he had treated me on the trip compared to the other girls. The other girls were much more forward about their flirting, and although he never turned them away, he also never initiated it (minus the random girl he grinded with). But with me, he had been the one to put his arms around me, to pull me towards him, to hold me. And the other girls saw the way he was around me, especially PCG, who shot me more than one dirty look during this trip. Maybe it was because I wasn’t as forward as the other girls, because I played hard to get and therefore seemed like a challenge to him that he treated me differently. All this is quite possible. But it’s hard to rationalize against what I want to believe: that I was special to him.

And now, days later, I still can’t get him out of my mind, even though I know that if I keep pining over the details of the trip, I will only be hurt, because when I see him in class again on Monday, he will act like nothing happened and I will feel like a fool. Just a foolish love-sick girl.

1. Because we walked in without a reservation and there were 8 of us, at first they said we would have to wait at least 40 minutes. So then we decided to leave because if we waited, we wouldn’t have enough time to eat before the symphony started. When they heard that we were leaving, they ended up seating us in a private dining room. Everyone was so pleased, and I declared it was because we had all rubbed the lucky foot of John Harvard that day.
2. PCG is the president of our class. She was not in our hotel room, but she is actually GHG‘s roommate back home.