When I received the first two messages, I thought she was drunk-texting me. I have never been drunk-texted by a girl, much less on Sunday morning, so I was quite amused.
The Drake Hotel, I texted back.
She asked if I could join her for brunch.
I am with some guys from last night but they are leaving, she said.
I raised an eyebrow but only texted back, No problem.

Two hours later, CMA and I arrived at The Drake Hotel (I invited CMA at the last minute because she was a classmate of ours that had just moved to The City and I knew she was dying for me to take her to The Drake, or anywhere for that matter). I spotted BI immediately, lounging with – not one, not two – but four guys on the couches by the window.

BI introduced them as friends of Friend X who had shown up for Friend X’s birthday party last night. There was a German, a Russian, a Portuguese, and an Indian. It was like a bad racial joke. The introductions were awkward, seeing as we didn’t know them and BI barely knew them.

“Sorry for the last-minute notice,” BI said after we ordered. “I’m really glad you made it. This may be the last time I see you!” She has said that the last three times we’ve seen each other.

But it’s true, since classes ended, each time we see each other feels like it’ll be the last. Neither of us are sure how long it’ll be before our next get-together (after I go off to Singapore that is), so while we’re still in the same country, we make the most of it, which explains why I dropped what I was doing and drove all the way downtown after getting her text. I was hoping the boys would leave quickly, I wanted girl-talk time with my girl.

In the meantime, I concentrated on the food, an overflowing platter of scrambled egg whites, bacon, home fries, and toast, a breakfast burrito, and blueberry scones with raspberry jam and whipped cream (to share). What? We were eating for three hours okay?

After the food and the boys were gone, BI broke the news about her apartment-hunting woes. She was starting a job in The City in a few months and had originally planned to take over her cousin’s apartment, which was in a great location downtown (at a great price). Her cousin was supposed to move to Brazil with his wife, but he called her not 24 hours prior to say that he was probably not going anywhere. In fact, he might be getting a divorce.
This, of course, spurred a whole discussion about marriage, monogamy, and relationships. It’s strange how all my discussions with BI these days lead to the topic of marriage.
“I read this book called ‘The Myth of Monogamy‘ and in it, they say that most animals, humans included, are not meant to be monogamous. In fact, there are only seven species of monogamous animals in the wild,” BI said conspiratorially.
“Yes, I don’t know if monogamy is necessarily the key to a good marriage,” I said, surprising even myself. “Perhaps a polygamous arrangement could be just as successful, if people know what they’re getting into and have the right expectations.”
“Really?” CMA asked, looking doubtful. “I mean I know marriage is a social institution, but don’t you think the point of this practice is to elicit the promise of devotion?”
“Well if marriage is just about tying down someone who promises to devote himself to me, then I might as well marry my dog!” I said, a little too loudly.
Suddenly, BI burst out laughing, breaking the mood of our overly serious discussion. Seconds later, I was laughing with her, until we were making such a ruckus that our neighbours started shooting us angry looks.

This is why I love BI. She laughs with me (at me, with me, same thing), she makes me see the absurdity of some of my more extreme statements, and she makes me feel endlessly amusing, albeit a bit naive. For the last year and a half, BI has been my best friend at The Business School. We’re not best friends in a wearing-BFF-bracelets-and-having-sleepovers kind of way. But I feel like we can talk to each other, truthfully and without judgment. She’s the closest thing I have to a confidant at TBS. And of course, I love the fact that she finds me hilarious. She will often burst out laughing in the middle of our conservations at something I’ve said, something that I wouldn’t have otherwise found funny. I like the fact that she finds me amusing, lovable, sassy. I love seeing that me through her eyes. She makes me feel really special, like a true Sassy Girl.

Moreover, she’s five years older than me, and that much wiser, so she can give me advice about boys like she knows what she’s talking about. Having a friend like BI makes me honestly start to wish that I had an older sibling. Because seriously, I would love it if I had an older sister to tell it to me like it is without the bullshit – a trooper of the “He’s Not Into You” camp – and prepare me for the heartache that’s sure to come. I guess what I’m saying is that I want to keep BI as a friend, but I’m afraid that it might be difficult once we’re oceans apart with no shared context. Friends can care about you when it’s convenient but the commitment isn’t unconditional.

Unfortunately, I can’t force BI to be my older sister and care for me unconditionally. She’s been a great friend, whether or not our friendship stands the test of time (and space). I’m not supposed to feel bad about moving on with my life, even if that means leaving some people behind (kind of par for the course when I choose to move halfway around the world), but as she said at our last meeting, “It’s like the end of an era!” (and then I squealed with delight for hearing a quote from Friends, my all time favourite TV show ever) and I gave her a tight hug because I knew in that instant that she got me. She was the only person I met at TBS who ever really got me.

And now I have to make new friends in a completely different city with a completely different culture on a completely different continent. Will I still be considered witty? Funny? Sassy? Will they get me?

We started drinking at 4pm at one of my classmate’s house, because obviously by now we are alcoholics and need to have a pre-drink before every single conceivable event. The weather was beautiful and we took tons of prom-esque pictures on his patio. I tried to be in as many pictures as possible because I had spent hours curling my hair¹, and obviously everyone needed a reminder of my beautiful face in their photo albums.
It was so great to see my old classmates all together again², and everyone looked beautiful in their suits and dresses. Despite the fact that I would not consider most of these people my best friends, even feeling like an outsider at times, I know I won’t see some of these people ever again, and certainly not all together like this, so I tried to savour every moment. It was an afternoon spent in the sun, toasting to our youth, congratulating ourselves on surviving Business School, and anticipating what’s to come.

The banquet itself was quite standard, but I was lucky to be seated with people whose company I actually enjoy (and enjoy immensely when inebriated). We had a grand time sharing stories of our classmates (or in my case, myself), recalling our best and worst professors, and of course, stealing cake. The banquet was buffet-style, so while there was a huge line for the appetizers and entrees, there was no one around the dessert table (at first). So I came up with the genius idea of stealing an entire cake and bringing it back to our table. TM executed the plan flawlessly and brought an entire, untouched mango mousse cake to our table. The servers were not impressed with us, but luckily no one tried to remove it (otherwise they would have had to wrestle it from my claws). We did not stop there. We then proceeded to bring the rest of the dessert buffet to our table. There were over a dozen cakes, and trays upon trays of tarts and brownies and other delicacies. Our table became dessert porn central, and we feasted. Dessert gluttony is the best kind of gluttony.

After dinner, there were buses taking us to The Club, but our program director asked us to control ourselves. “Please don’t let me end up in the Globe and Mail on Monday, like the MBA students did.” We, of course, ignored him. In the words of our student president, “For the rest of our lives, we will uphold The Business School’s ethical code, and we will represent our school in the best light. But tonight, we party.”

BI wanted to go home and change before The Club, and since my feet were killing me, I decided to go with her. Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea, because we ended up piling eight people into our friend’s tiny Audi. There were cops on every street as we drove through downtown, so we had to duck our heads and lie on people’s laps to avoid being seen. It was reminiscent of a certain night in first-year when we had 10 people in a similar-sized car (two people in the trunk). We debated the trunk idea, I was nominated because I was smallest, and I would have done it if I weren’t afraid to mess up my hair (see previous note about how long I spent on my hair). Also, as BI pointed out, “If the cops did pull us over and found a car full of mostly brown guys, with an Asian girl in the trunk, that would not go over well.”

Once I got to BI‘s apartment, I took full advantage of her hospitality and changed out of everything: my shoes, my dress, my purse, even my earrings. She has great style, and I had no qualms about the fact that my entire outfit that evening was going to be sponsored by her. At The Club, we joked with the bouncer that everything I was wearing belonged to her (to distract him from noticing that we had cut the entire line), and he said, “100%? Or 90%?” “Oh, well, not 100%,” I said, remembering that I was obviously wearing my own underwear. “Everything visible to the eye is hers. Everything underneath is mine.” When I saw the amused expression on BI‘s face, which mirrored the bouncer’s, I realized what the line sounded like. I swear to God, I don’t do this intentionally, I just never think before I open my mouth!

The rest of the night was kind of a blur. We had VIP booths and tons of bottles floating around, although I tried to limit my alcohol consumption (very difficult when there’s free bottles all around).

All in all, last night was a great ending to my journey at The Business School. Since I will be missing convocation, I can consider myself an official graduate at any point. I choose today. Today is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. Brave new world, here I come.

1. The process of getting my hair to curl (and stay curled) was a Herculean task. I’ve only used a curling iron once before, when I was 18, so I burned myself several times in the process.
2. Last year, we all had the same classes together as a ‘section’, but the sections got split up this year.

We had breakfast at a typical breakfast chain near our hotel, Yolk. It was literally bursting with people. It was as if the entire population of Chicago was at there for breakfast that morning. We were seated at the bar and could not stop staring in awe at the absolute chaos of the place. It was complete sensory overload, the sight of the people and the plates of food whizzing by, the sound of the clattering of dishes and the barking of instructions from the kitchen, the smell of eggs and pancakes and coffee and toast, and eventually when the food came, the taste of a big hearty breakfast.
American portion sizes are absolutely enormous, I have never seen anything like it. A $12 breakfast had enough food to feed a small army. Despite my disproportionately large appetite, most of the food went to waste. To be honest, I would have much rather preferred a reasonable-sized breakfast for $5 or $6, but apparently things don’t work like that in America.

It rained in the morning, so we drove aimlessly around the city until we found a shoe warehouse, and then went shoe-shopping for a couple hours. When the sun came back, we headed to Millennium Park to see the infamous Bean.

Millennium Park is one of the nicest urban parks I have ever seen. The juxtaposition of metal and greenery creates an interesting effect. The weather was particularly good for photography, the blue sky and white fluffy clouds made everything look beautiful.

On Saturday night, BI wanted to go to a non-touristy live jazz/blues club, so after looking up a few recommendations in our guide book and online, we settled on Lee’s Unleaded Blues Club. Little did we know that this place was on the wrong side of town. No wonder there weren’t an abundance of reviews on the place.
On our way there, we saw two guys get arrested by a group of cops on the street. Most of the windows and doors of the houses were boarded up.
We were the first two to arrive at the bar, and the bartender (and owner?) reluctantly let us in (the door was kept locked). She was a stout African-American woman in her late thirties, and she definitely had attitude, but behind her rough exterior, she was actually quite sweet. She promptly served us two very stiff drinks (apparently, drinks are served with 2 oz of liquor instead of 1 in this part of town). After we were settled into our seats at the bar and confessed that we were from Canada, we exchanged the following dialogue:
“I’m surprised you found this place. How did you hear about it?”
“The LonelyPlanet guide book suggested it. She,” I said gesturing to BI, “didn’t want to go to a ‘tourist-y’ place.”
“Well, I’m glad you girls made it. People say this is a bad part of town but I don’t know, I don’t feel that scared to come open the bar by myself.” I arched an eyebrow. If this African-American Chicagoan with attitude wrestled with fear to come open her own bar in the neighbourhood, what hope did we tourists have? A white girl and an Asian girl from Canada, we stood out like light bulbs in this part of town. “How did you get here? Even the cab drivers won’t come to this part of town.”
“Oh, we drove ourselves.” I shot a frantic look at BI. Even the cab drivers won’t come here? God, what had BI roped me into?

After two hours of sitting at the bar, trying to blend with the locals (not), the band finally started up. And boy, was the music good. Everyone was so into it, not just the performers but the audience too. Many of them spontaneously started dancing or singing aloud (their own additions to the music). It was hard not to get swept up in the energy.
The bar filled up quickly, and I saw a local sit down next to us at the bar. As soon as I saw him, I knew he wanted to talk to us. He kept staring at me, so I turned away to avoid eye contact. BI is much friendlier to strangers than I am and he started chatting her up. He made an effort to talk to me too, but I had the “I don’t want to talk to you” stamp on my forehead². Neither of us could really understand him with his thick Chicago accent and the loud music. Although we were friendly at first, we became more and more frustrated with his persistent chatter and not-so-subtly hinted that we did not want to talk to him. The bartender even came over and offered to forcibly remove him from our presence. In the end, we did not have to resort to that, he left on his own accord when we stopped speaking to him altogether.

Later as we were driving back to our hotel, I told BI that my parents would have a heart attack if they knew us two girls had come to a place like this on Saturday night. “This is exactly the kind of place my parents wouldn’t want me to go when I travel alone. This is like their worst nightmare.”
BI chuckled. “If I told my father, he would congratulate me on finding ‘real music.’”
“Well, if my parents find out and get on my case, I’ll tell them to call your parents and they can have a good row about their parenting techniques,” I said, and to that, we both laughed.

On Sunday morning, we drove to Cuatro, a Latin dance club by night that (for some reason) served a mean brunch on Sundays.

The food was good and the servers were friendly (one of them, who looked kind of Jamaican, was unexpectedly but unmistakably flirting with me. He wasn’t even our server and he kept coming over to interrupt our meal), all that was missing was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. And that was how we ended our weekend in Chicago.

1. Yes, BI thinks my lack of sleep requirements and abundance of energy makes me inhuman. I slept no more than 6 hours on any of the nights during this trip, and this was me trying to have a relaxing vacation. I was up for 19 hours on Friday, including swimming and being on my feet all day, and I was up at 6am on Saturday, went for a jog, and kept on my feet until 2am. Maybe I am a robot.
2. This is what BI calls my ‘I’m not interested’ look.

We started off the day with a walking tour of historic skyscrapers around The Loop.

We went to Osaka Express for a bite to eat before heading to the Art Institute for the afternoon. We split up once we were inside and never found each other again. I spent nearly five hours wandering through the American and European exhibits (pre-1900s). My favourite Impressionist artist is still Renoir, although my two favourite paintings from the Impressionist exhibit were “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” and “Paris Street; Rainy Day“. I decided after two hours in the special Matisse exhibit that it wasn’t my cup of tea. I did discover a new favourite American artist though: Georgia O’Keefe.

We met two of my high school friends at Lou Malnati’s for dinner; obviously we had to try deep dish pizza while we were in Chicago. The pizza was good but not so memorable that I’d go back to Chicago for it.

After dinner, we drove through The Magnificent Mile and walked around Navy Pier. The Ferris wheel looked beautiful all lit up. From the Ferris wheel, the Chicago skyline looked ablaze with a thousand lights against the dark night.

We strolled through the Magnificent Mile, which was still packed by 9pm. For a late night snack, we popped into The Melting Pot for some chocolate fondue with fruit, cake, brownies, and marshmallows. Any day that ends with chocolate is a good day in my books.

1. Did I mention that BI has seriously great legs?

The end of my Business School journey began with a road trip to Chicago. The day was not the smoothest. My very last class turned out to be a mini-exam, which I had completely forgotten about. You can imagine how that went. Then BI showed up in our rental car an hour late due to technical difficulties. On the bright side, our rental card was not one of: GM, Ford, Chevrolet, or Toyota, the four brands that I now refuse to drive. It was a white Mitsubishi, and so far in my experience with rental cars, it’s the best car I’ve driven. Plus I have inexplicable good feelings towards white cars (a.k.a. love).

We were only armed with a set of instructions from Google Maps (but no actual map) and had no GPS. We were lost before we even left University Town. We couldn’t find the highway. Our male counterparts would mock us to death if they knew. Since we were both girls, we pulled into a gas station at an intersection and asked for directions. It turned out the highway was literally half a second down the road. and the gas station attendant thought our question was some sort of bad April fool’s joke. I wish it was.

It didn’t take us long to reach the border, but hilarity ensued at U.S. customs.
“Where are you going?” The customs officer asked us. I’m used to American customs officers looking grim and unsmiling, but this one looked downright angry.
“Chicago,” we both said with a grin.
“What are you going to Chicago for?” He asked, unamused.
“Just for fun.” Apparently ‘just for fun’ was not on the list of acceptable responses. The customs officer did not look like he understood ‘fun.’
“Where are you going in Chicago?” He finally asked in a monotone.
“What do you mean? We’re going to be hanging out in downtown Chicago.” Apparently ‘hanging out’ was also not on the list of acceptable responses.
“What do you have in your trunk?”
“Our stuff.” We were clearly not the most articulate pair.
“Are you planning to leave any of ‘your stuff’ in the U.S.?”
“Huh? Why would we leave our stuff in the U.S.?”
The customs officer looked like he wanted to eat us, but he finally let us through.

In hindsight, if I had given standard responses like “vacation”, “clothes,” and “no,” we would have gotten through much faster. For two very smart girls, we can be incredibly airheaded sometimes.

After we were in Detroit, our instructions told us to go off the highway in search of another highway that would eventually lead us back to the highway we were driving on. We didn’t read far enough down the instructions to realize this, so we followed the instructions and got off the highway. And, you guessed it, we were lost.
We gave up on trying to follow the instructions and headed back. The detour cost us almost an hour, but at least we were heading in the right direction again. At this point, we decided to ignore Google’s instructions and just head west. All roads must lead to Chicago, right?

We pulled into a McDonald’s for dinner (because apparently there are no other options along a highway that crosses three states), and this is when we realized how Canadian we were.
First of all, there are no vegetarian options in the McDonald’s here. Salad comes with cheese, and we’re both lactose intolerant. Second of all, the serving sizes are massive. Third of all, there are no washrooms in the U.S.. There are restrooms.
We had almost nothing for dinner and instead, returned to the car to munch on our baby carrots and freshly cut bellpeppers. Nom nom.

Also, toll booths suck. Seriously, what’s with that? Stopping highway traffic every couple miles to throw in a few bucks? For a country that’s focused on productivity and efficiency, they should really rethink their toll booth system. Oh, and we also realized we were Canadian when we were scrounging to come up with 50 cents USD.

We didn’t make it to the city until past 10pm, but it was worth it. Chicago looks beautiful at night.

This morning, I woke up at 5am because I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I was too excited. I went for a stroll outside and watched the sun rise behind Buckingham Fountain. It wasn’t quite as breathtaking as watching the sun rise from the San Francisco boardwalk, but watching the sun rise in a different city is always exhilarating. Watching a city wake up in the early hours of the dawn is an experience for the senses, and my favourite thing to do as a tourist¹.
Whoever said that Chicago is like the Toronto of the mid-west was wrong. Chicago is much more beautiful. I haven’t seen anything yet and I already notice why this city is known for its architecture, art, and music. The Californian coast might have been more breathtaking during sunrise, but the Chicago city itself is much nicer, with its parks and wide pedestrian lanes and old-fashioned architecture and boutique music shops.
I can already feel myself falling in love with Chicago.

1. I don’t actually plan to do it, but it seems whenever I go to a new city, I can never sleep. I am such a morning person that this ends up as my “thing” as a tourist.

We don’t know why we’re doing it, other than the fact that we both feel the need to have a trip, just the two of us, before a trip like this won’t be possible anymore. I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago, even though I’m told it’s not much different from Toronto. BI is the perfect traveling companion for me: we are both into museums, art galleries, good food, and the finer things in life (as compared to our 21-year-old peers), which we discovered on our trip to Boston last year.

Here’s where I need your help. I have a list of “recommended things to see/do” in Chicago, but I need help narrowing it down. So for those of you who have been to these places before, please give me your two cents!

• Field Museum – is the T-rex fossil really worth it or will most of the exhibits be designed for school children?
• Shedd Aquarium – I’ve read reviews that Shedd Aquarium is a “world class aquarium”, but I’ve been to Sea World in San Diego and another marine park in the Dominican Republic – will I really think it’s world-class?
• Adler Planetarium – same question, is it for little kids?
• Are there any art museums/galleries that you would recommend other than the Art Institute of Chicago?
• Two tours have been recommended to me: the Historic Skyscraper tour with ArchiCenter, and the architecture boat tour with Shoreline Sightseeing. Are they worthwhile? Should I do both?
• What’s the best dance club for a Friday night?
• What’s the best jazz club on a Saturday night?

We are definitely planning to spend a good half-day at the Art Institute of Chicago, try Lou Maltnati’s deep-dish pizzas, go to a jazz club, possibly catch a show (Blue Man’s Group), do some shopping (any recommendations?), and obviously stuff our faces with the best food we can get our hands on in-between.
I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend before coming back to write exams. I really, really hope the weather will be good.

This was the exchange BI and I had on Saturday night. She bumped into me as I was leaving The Club. I must have had a stupid grin on my face, because she guessed right away that it was boy-related.

“Why don’t you just pick one?” BI asked incredulously.
“They’re leaving tomorrow, what’s the point?”
“That’s even better! You should take advantage of tonight.”
“Believe me, I have had enough attention tonight to last me months. I’m good.”
She could see that I meant it, so she let me go.

I went home feeling particularly pleased with myself. Sure, I was flattered by all the attention I had received, but I couldn’t be too attached. Because it felt too good to be true, it couldn’t be real. And I wanted to walk away before something brought me crashing down to earth.

Rewind back four days and I’m standing in the middle of a crowded banquet hall, greeting forty-four students from eleven different countries and glad-handing eleven advisors (professors that accompanied them) from their respective business schools. It was the beginning of The Case Competition, and I, as one of the main organizers, was feeling relieved to see that everyone had made it and that Opening Ceremonies went without a hitch. I had been planning this competition for months, emailing back and forth with their advisors and business schools, so I knew their names by heart and was only now meeting them in real life.
They were an incredibly friendly group, not to mention astoundingly good-looking. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we had invited a group of international vampires as opposed to business students.

Although I was exhausted for the next four days, running around from 8am to past midnight every day, going home only to collapse on my bed for barely five hours, it was totally worth it. The delegates that came were all open to new things and eager to make friends. Everyone was having a great time, and I was having just as good a time becoming fast friends with all of them, which was exactly as I expected.

What I didn’t expect was that I would be such a hit with the gentlemen. For example, for most of Friday, I hung out with the German team because I found them to have a surprising sense of humour. Friday’s events included going on a brewery tour, dinner at the campus restaurant, and having an egg drop challenge. By the end of the night, NGB was asking me out. I couldn’t believe it. Although he was cute, I didn’t like him that way, but I didn’t turn him down immediately. He was leaving a day later than the rest of his team, so he wanted to take me out on his last day. I said I would check my schedule and get back to him.
The fact that he asked me out after only hours of getting to know me was shocking, not because this sort of thing never happens, but because I was starting to take the game-playing tactics of most North American boys for granted. I mean, PLB liked me for months and yet he was still pretending not to like me until the very last moment. Here, it would take months of flirting and text-tagging and pretending not to be interested before a guy would ask me out. But it took NGB less than eight hours, and he was very upfront about it. He wasn’t hiding the fact that he was into me. In fact, it was written so clearly on his face, his actions, and of course his up-front question, that by North American standards, I’d say he was completely smitten.

The next day, the other boy on his team, SGB also made up his mind to tell me he liked me. Wow, two boys in two days? This never happens to me.
What really boggled my mind was the fact that their two other teammates were by far the best looking girls at the competition. They were fair, perfectly-proportioned, tall, beautiful, long-haired German goddesses. Next to them, I looked like a gorilla. So how was it possible that these two German boys both set their sights on me? I couldn’t make any sense of it.

On Saturday night, after the case competition was over, we booked out a VIP area of The Club and everyone was in full party mode. The Brazilians and New Zealanders were going absolutely wild, and everyone else was caught up in the frenzy. I danced with more gorgeous boys in one night than I have in my entire life. There was the incredibly tall and unbelievably well-featured Mexican, the handsome Norwegian that looked like a sculpture, the strong Brazilian that could pick me up with one hand, the dancing Mexican that spun me round and round, and the unbelievably good-looking slim Norwegian boy who I spent most of the night with. SNB was the second best looking boy at the competition, second only to his teammate, the Sculpture Norwegian. When SNB started dancing with me, I could see all the girls (and even some of the boys) watching us. I was thoroughly embarrassed, made even worse when one of my co-volunteers, a guy, came up to us and shouted to me over the music, “Hold on to that one, he is way too good-looking.”

Maybe BI didn’t understand why I would pass up an opportunity to make the most of a night like that, but by 1am, I knew it was time for me to leave. It was almost straight out of Cinderella, as if my clothes would turn to rags and my carriage would turn into a pumpkin if I stayed any longer. On nights like these, I want to end on a high note, and there was nothing that could possibly happen to improve my night. What BI didn’t know when she ran into me was that I had already received more than my fair share of male attention:

• Dirty dancing with the hottest Mexican I have ever seen: check.
• Being the only girl to be picked up and spun by a Mexican, a Brazilian, and a German in front of everybody in the club: check.
• Flattery from a ridiculously good-looking Norwegian: check.
• Kisses from a ridiculously good-looking Norwegian: check.
• Confessions from two cute Germans: check.

Of course, I was the epitome of “that lucky girl” that night. But what made me smile the morning after was not just because I felt flattered, but because I realized that there was hope.

After all my experiences with boys in university, and all the shows you see on TV like Sex and The City, I was really starting to believe that all men played games. That no one would put themselves out there and be true to their emotions. That even if they liked you, they wouldn’t admit it unless someone put a gun to their head. That even if they admitted they liked you, they wouldn’t do anything about it.
All of these mind-games were making me beyond frustrated. I think one of the reasons I have been relationship-less this whole time is that I haven’t met anyone that made me feel like the hassle of all those mind-games was worth it.
And now, within a few days, I had met at least three eligible, absolutely date-able boys who were not afraid to say they liked me and do something about it.

Of course, I haven’t forgotten the fact that they may have felt they had to move quickly since they were only in Canada for a few days. But nonetheless, it gave me hope.

The question I still haven’t been able to answer however is, why the hell did they pick me? Seriously, the girls at this competition were just as stunningly beautiful as the boys were handsome. I have never felt less attractive in my life than when I was standing next to them. Of course, I still loved them because they were friendly and interesting. I mean, they were beautiful and had good personalities. As far as I’m concerned, they were perfect.
Yet these boys (more than one, incredibly) were smitten by my charms. Was it my friendliness? My humour? My weirdness? Regardless of the reason, they were willing to put themselves out there even if they weren’t quite sure whether my over-friendliness was flirting or just the way I am¹.

So, clearly, there is hope. Just maybe not in North America.

1. I.e. I could have been overly friendly because I’m Canadian and that’s just the way we are. Or it could have been because I was one of the organizers and I had to set a good example for the other volunteers and be a good host.

I was reflecting on this over coffee with BI yesterday, using it as an example of how I’ve changed since high school.
“I was so ignorant about what it meant to be in a relationship. I had no idea what was considered normal behaviour as far as showing one’s feelings. Sure, I showed him I cared in my own way, but maybe by missing out on all the cliched things, I made him feel more unsure about our relationship.”
Like a horse being whipped, words started tumbling out of my mouth at lightning speed. “I was so clueless! I didn’t know what it meant to be someone girlfriend. I didn’t know what to expect of anything. And I never talked about my feelings – not to him or to my friends.”
I took a breath.
“But now, now I know it’s ok to talk about my feelings. In fact, it’s expected that you tell your partner how you feel about them – they want to hear it! I also know it’s ok to talk to your friends about your relationship, I mean I’ve seen Sex and The City, which taught me all I need to know about commiserating. Since then, it seems like all I can talk about on my blog, with my friends, is boys! Boys, boys, boys!”
BI nodded with comprehension.
“Given that I’ve come such a long way in terms of understanding relationships between men and women, you’d think that I’d be better at it. But guess what? In the last four years, my longest relationship lasted two months.
That is the greatest irony of all. When I was in high school, I didn’t plan to have a relationship at all. I didn’t take high school relationships seriously and would have been just fine if I had graduated without ever having a boyfriend. Instead, I ended up in a three-year relationship.
But when I went to university, I was totally ready for a relationship, and guess what? In the last four years, I haven’t had a single relationship where I would actually call the boy ‘my boyfriend.’”

BI chuckled and shook her head. “Maybe ignorance is bliss after all. Once you knew what to expect, those expectations may have actually been a barrier to you falling for someone.”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s why first loves seem so perfect – because they’re easy. We’re all clueless with our first love, and it’s a clean slate. Our expectations only grow from there.

But my own statistics still left me baffled. “Four years. Hundreds of boys on campus. I mean, you’d think I could find one genuine love interest, right? Even if my expectations have changed, what are the odds that I would not like a single person in four years of university?”

For that, BI had no answer.

“He blamed it on my sleepwear, as if I was wearing it to seduce him!”
Like a good girl friend, BI mocked outrage. “You? Seduce? Impossible.”
“It gets better. Guess what I was wearing?” I paused for dramatic effect. “I was wearing a purple cotton dress with a pirate face on it. My mom had bought it for me.”
BI laughed so hard she nearly fell out of her chair. The patrons on either side of us looked at us before resuming their meal. We didn’t stop laughing until the waiter arrived with our glutinous rice roll with meat floss¹ and rolled scallion pancake with sliced beef.

“Although, maybe my mom was trying to buy me suggestive sleepwear. Maybe that’s her tactic to get me knocked up sooner.”
“Why would she want that? Grandchildren?”
“Bingo. I don’t even know if I want kids, but every time I tell her that, she just ignores me and starts describing her fantasy.”
I took a bite of the scallion pancake. Although it tasted good, it was made all wrong. Scallion pancakes are supposed to be thin and crispy, but this one was thick and doughy. The sliced beef was good though, so I picked those out from inside the roll.
“Her fantasy,” I elaborated once I’d finished chewing, “is to drive a school bus. Full of my children. And the children would bound out one by one, followed at last by a golden retriever.”
BI stopped mid-bite. “A school bus?” She asked, appropriately horrified.
“A school bus,” I confirmed solemnly, having already accepted my fate as some sort of baby-pumping machine.
BI couldn’t help but laugh, but I was not amused. “The only way I can fulfill her fantasy is if I do in vitro. I figure, if they can get the fertilized zygote to split enough times, I’ll only have to donate two or three eggs to fill up a school bus.”
The waiter returned with two steaming baskets of dumplings.
BI ignored the food and leaned across the table. “You realize that that is basically cloning. Are you really going to clone yourself a bus full of children? Honey, your genes are good, but not that good.”
At that, I had to laugh.

After I said goodbye to BI, I headed to LSAT training. The training ran nearly 40 minutes over, so even though I rushed down to the train station in a frenzy, I had missed my train back to University Town by mere minutes. The next train was leaving at 10pm and wouldn’t arrive until 1:30am. I had no choice, I had to work on Monday. So I bought a ticket and wondered what I’d do for the next three hours.

As I left the train station, I was not in a good mood. I was still wearing my skirt suit and heals from LSAT training. My feet were killing me (I’m pretty sure I was bleeding into my shoes but I did not want to look) and the blouse was starting to stick to my skin. I decided I needed a place to sit down and relax, possibly with a drink so I could sleep on the train.
I must have looked ridiculous wandering around downtown in a suit, with a bursting backpack and a tote, limping and muttering to myself. I was looking for a place to change when I suddenly realized that I had forgot to pack my tops. All I had on me were two pairs of jeans and half a dozen pieces of lingerie I’d bought the day before. If I wanted to change underwear, I was set, but otherwise, I was stuck with the skirt suit.

I found a place to rest my feet in the front courtyard of a large shiny building, that must house hundreds of bankers and lawyers on the weekdays. I checked my backpack again, not believing I could have forgotten to pack tops. Lucky for me, I found a t-shirt stuffed into the corner of my backpack. I was so overjoyed at the possibility of changing into normal clothes that I started to change on the spot.
Yes, I stripped down to my underwear in front of one of the shiniest buildings in the middle of the financial district. I seriously hope they have no video cameras pointed at the front courtyard.
Since it was a Sunday afternoon, there weren’t many pedestrians around. On the other hand, half my classmates from The Business School were working in these buildings this summer and if any of them had to go in on a Sunday afternoon and saw me, I never would have lived it down. But I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was only thinking that I needed to get out of the suit and heels ASAP.
Only one man witnessed my strip show, he walked by while I was trying to pull my jeans up, but he pretended not to notice my ridiculousness. He probably assumed I was a crazed intern who had to work on a Sunday and was now getting ready to go to a bar and get sloshed.
He wouldn’t have been far off the mark.

Immediately after I’d changed into more comfortable clothes, I attacked the next order of business: finding myself a drink. And there was one drink in particular that I was craving: Long Island Ice Tea.
Luckily, I am not a girl who worries about being being seen eating or drinking alone, although I had never had much occasion to do either. I walked until I found a street patio tucked on a quiet side street of the entertainment district and, before I knew it, I was sipping on a cool Long Island Ice Tea. I smoked my last cigarette and practically inhaled my drink, already eyeing the lychee martini as my next victim. I hadn’t had any food since dim sum this morning, so the alcohol hit me pretty quickly. Soon, I was feeling light-headed and famished. After devouring a plate of freshly cut fries, I settled into the only reading material I’d brought with me: Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger.

Sitting on the quiet street patio with my book, a good drink, my last cigarette, and made-to-order comfort food, I realized I was not the least bit self-conscious that I was alone and essentially stranded in The City. In fact, I could not have felt better. Maybe it was the alcohol getting to my head, but I really felt grateful that I’d missed my train. How else would I have gotten the opportunity to spend such quality time with my favourite city?

I slept like a baby on the train, and when I finally stumbled into my apartment at 2 in the morning, I could not have been more optimistic for what Monday would bring. Because once you’ve stripped in public, you feel pretty much ready for anything.

1. Meat floss is what it’s called on their menu, which I find kind of bizarre. It is actually dried shredded pork.

After dinner, BI and I went to a well-known lounge on the top floor of a building in the heart of the City. As the elevator doors opened up, I realized that this was The Happenin’ Place, the ultimate place to be on a Friday night in the City. Everyone was in their twenties and early thirties, well-dressed and well-versed in the drink menu. We were seated at the bar while we waited for a table, but ended up staying there all night. I eyed the clientele. There were a lot of Koreans, for some reason. A couple of the guys were cute, but they were all there with some girl. Hopeless.
Ironically, while I was surveying the eye candy, BI had started talking about how she picks up guys (“It’s a game. Literally, a game with a rule book. And I have that rule book memorized like the back of my hand.”). BI has always been able to walk into a bar and find someone to buy her drinks within ten seconds. She’s good-looking, but not in the typical sense. And yet somehow, she can command a male’s attention as well as any busty blonde on four-inch heels. She is a wonder. I told her so.
“SassyGirl, you just need to stop being so clueless and you’ll get the Game too,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, you’ve got game, you just don’t know how to use it. You have to tap into your power as a female!”
I suppose she’s right. I’ve never thought that my gender could be a source of power, but apparently I have been missing out. Most times when a guy starts making eyes with me, I just turn away. Not because I’m not interested necessarily, just because I’m embarrassed. I am not a shy person, yet I am too embarrassed to meet the gaze of a stranger. Perhaps it has something to do with not feeling comfortable with my femininity. I am not shy when I meet new people mostly because it’s a neutral introduction. But when a guy starts checking me out in a bar, he’s not looking at me as a person, he’s looking at me as a girl (well, woman, but I don’t think of myself as a woman – something else I have to work on). And that I can’t handle.
Is it strange that I am far more comfortable being seen as a gender-neutral, hormone-less freak of nature than a normal, hot-blooded twenty-something? There’s a back-story in here somewhere about my sexually-suppressed upbringing, but I am too lazy to figure it out.

After a couple gin and tonics, BI‘s entire dating history, my confession of shopaholicism, and a creme brulee that tasted like espresso, we decided to call it a night. As I walked to the subway in my new stilettos, I checked myself out in the glass windows. The girl looking back at me was pretty, not enough to stop traffic, but certainly enough to turn a few heads at a bar. She was fashionable, with a silk flower top and this season’s four-inch heels. She was innocent, the way most Asian girls look no matter how much eyeliner they’re wearing, but her rectangular frames made her seem smart. Her face looked like a teenager’s but she dressed like a working twenty-something. She had potential.