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?

1. Juicy, emotionally confusing, and morally questionable
2. Sensible, uptight, and boring

You’ll be happy to hear that my post is of the first variety. While it ranks high in the entertaining category, it ranks low in the my-proudest-moments category. So don’t judge, k?

I arrived at HB‘s to find him vacuuming. Apparently, he cared about making impressions, although this was not the first time I’d stayed at his apartment. Neither of us had planned anything for the first night, so we had dinner with his brother at a Korean/Japanese restaurant nearby. Then, we engaged in our favourite activity: wandering around The City. We walked through urban parks and impromptu art displays, we sat down on benches and stone garden walls, we held hands and linked arms. We were completely in-tune with each other, and conversation flowed endlessly. He never mentioned his relationship status and I never asked.

Around 11 pm, I said I wanted to head back¹, but he was hesitant. We ended up going to a dessert place with a huge menu and some quality patio space.

We shared the desserts, which were refreshingly sweet and cold in the warm night wind. There were four Japanese girls chatting away animatedly at the table next to us. I couldn’t help but stare.
“Why do you keep looking at them?” HB asked, giving me a funny look.
“I love the sound of Japanese. Plus, they look so animated.” I wondered if HB liked the sound of Japanese.
“Are you still dating that Japanese girl?” I asked, as nonchalantly as possible.
“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.
I continued to stare at the table beside us. There was a girl with sleek, straight black hair to her waist and a simple fringe, gesturing quickly with her hands as Japanese words spilled easily from her lips. She was very pretty. Is she the sort of girl HB would be interested in? I looked over at him to see if he was as mesmerized by her as I was, but he was looking at me.
“Let’s get the bill,” I suggested.
“Ok,” he said, not taking his eyes off me.

When we got back to his apartment, I started to get ready for bed, but he still hadn’t told me where I would be sleeping. I assumed the couch, so I asked for a blanket.
“Um, this is my only blanket,” he said, gesturing to the one on his bed.
“Oh.” Well, this is awkward. “Then, what am I going to sleep with on the couch?”
He hesitated. “I actually hadn’t thought of that.”
Seriously? I looked over at the bed, with its two pillows sitting neatly side by side. Bullshit. I guess he planned for me to share the bed.
I should have just slept on the couch without a blanket that first night, because then the whole weekend would have been very different. But I didn’t. I slept in his bed.

Of course, all we did was sleep. I stayed on my side of the bed and he stayed on his. At 2 am, we were awoken by the sound of his air conditioner exploding (it did this every five minutes after that), and he got up to get some water. Something must have been in that water because when he came back, he was suddenly lying much closer. He put his hand on my hip (above the blanket) and pulled me closer. Without a word, I let him spoon me. Then I turned around to face him, and he stroked my hair. I fell asleep in the crook of his arm with our limbs loosely tangled together.

Whenever my friends told me about some scandalous thing that happened in the dead of the night, I always wondered how they let it get that far. They were sensible girls, and most of the time, it wasn’t something they necessarily would have wanted, they just didn’t say ‘No.’ I always wondered how it could be so difficult for them to say ‘No.’ Whenever my friends told me they had had sex with someone and “it just happened,” I always wondered how something like that happens without any discussion. But now I know. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, the silence can be so comfortable that you’d do anything not to break it. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, things that you know are wrong can seem so right. Sometimes, it feels like whatever goes on between 2am and sun rise is part of a dream, not reality.

The next day, we met our friend PL for brunch at a little French place that had received rave reviews. I had been excited to check it out, but I was disappointed. The food was mediocre, the portions small, and the place less charming than the pictures.

PL yammered for two hours without coming up for breath, and by the time our bills came, I was bored out of my mind. To my dismay, she insisted on hanging out with us for the rest of the day. We followed her to an urban park she’d found, which had a few interesting water structures.




She spent the entire time yammering into HB‘s ear while utterly ignoring me. At first, I thought it was simply because she had a lot to say, but after being ignored or cut off for the fifth time, I determined she was purposely being rude to me².

HB was still hungry after our brunch, so we went to another breakfast joint for a second breakfast. I was starting to get annoyed with PL, for she was being unbearably rude and obnoxious. She shot me the most offensive look when I said I didn’t like egg yoke, only egg white. When I didn’t feel like ordering a second breakfast, she promptly said, in her loud voice, “I hate people who go to restaurants and don’t order anything!”

After our second breakfast, we went back to HB‘s place and they watched TV in the living room while I studied the LSAT teacher training materials in HB‘s room. PL came in randomly, and started flipping through my teacher’s binder, making me lose my place in my notes. Then she sat down on the bed and asked, “So, where did you sleep last night? On the couch?”
“No…” I said slowly, not turning around to face her.
“Then where?” she asked, in that obnoxiously loud voice.
“On the bed…” I said, even more hesitantly.
Silence.
“So what’s HB‘s girlfriend’s name?”
“I don’t know…”
Silence.
“He just refers to her as friends,” she says, as if to console me.
I said nothing.
She finally left the room.
I let out an audible sigh and continued working, but my mind was elsewhere.
WAF just happened to message me, so I told her what had happened.

me: i just want this weekend to be over, i think i made a huge mistake coming here
PL has been a bitch to me all morning and now i know why
she totally disapproves and thinks i’m a slut
WAF: …or maybe she’s concerned for you as a friend?
HE’S making the choice to cheat.
me: yeah but i’m going along with it
i guess her judgemental-ness kind of makes me see what i’m doing in her eyes and i don’t like it
WAF: oh so it was okay for her to break up a marriage?³
she’s just enjoying that you are feeling like shit

As soon as PL left, I sat down with HB for a serious discussion. I told him what PL had insinuated, and he confirmed my suspicions. Apparently, PL had called him a few days before the brunch and asked whether he and I were in some sort of ‘secret relationship.’

Our serious discussion was extremely awkward. We had never acknowledged our ‘special relationship,’ much less tried to define it. I was so embarrassed I could barely look at him. We still danced around the facts, never mentioning the previous night or holding hands or any of the things we did that indicated we were not ‘just friends.’

“I think I should sleep on the couch tonight,” I finally said.
He nodded.
“Ok, good discussion!” I spun around in the computer chair and continued working. I didn’t know how to bring up what we really needed to discuss: are you cheating on your girlfriend with me?

That night, I slept on the couch, without a blanket. As I was falling asleep, HB woke me up.
“I think we should have our second serious discussion.”
I groggily rubbed my eyes open and turned around to face him. “Ok. I’m listening.”
“Oh, actually, I hadn’t prepared anything to say. I just thought… we should talk about it. Can we do this in my room?”
I rolled my eyes, but followed him to his room.

We sat on opposite sides of his bed, looking straight ahead. By nature, I am the talkative one, but this time, I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to hear what he had to say, I didn’t want him to just piggyback off my sentiments with half-hearted agreements like “me too.” That would be too easy. I needed him to say what he wanted.

“I’m so confused,” was the best he could muster. “What do you want to do?” He asked me.
I knew he was fishing for something, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to give it to him. “I think this is more your decision than mine. I’m not the one in a serious relationship.”
He looked downright anguished. “I think we’ve always been somewhere between friends and more-than-friends,” he finally said. “I did like you, back in high school, but I felt too guilty⁴.”
I didn’t ask him what made him feel less guilty this time. “I wish we’d settled this three years ago,” was all I said.

Our second serious discussion was even more awkward than the first one. There were a lot of silences. Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed my beauty sleep.
“I think we only have two choices. Either we’re just friends or nothing at all.”
“What’s ‘nothing at all’? Are we not allowed to see each other anymore?”
“We’ll still see each other at high school reunions I’m sure, but we just don’t see each other as often.”
“I don’t want that…”
I let him think it over.
“Do you think we could be ‘just friends’?” He finally asked.
“I think so. If we wanted it to work, it could work.”
After an even longer silence, I finally asked, “So, are we cool? Have we decided we’re just friends?”
“I guess so…” He was very hesitant. “Why are you so indifferent about this?” He seemed offended that I didn’t care more. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to tell him I liked him, to tell him to cheat, to fight for ‘us’ – whatever we were. But I could never do that. I could barely fight for my relationship with MFL when I was in a real relationship, why would I fight for this murky, undefined ‘us’? Personally, I just wanted to finish this discussion and go to bed.

He finally agreed to do the sensible thing and I escaped to the couch. The couch was too short and too hot, but ironically, it was the best sleep I had all weekend.

The next morning, we stuck to our “just friends” pact and didn’t hold hands once. We had a huge breakfast, strolled through a street festival, and then he accompanied me in my last-minute frenzy to buy a business casual outfit (I’d forgotten to bring one, and I needed it for the training session).

After my training session, we celebrated by going out for martinis at a cute little whole-in-the-wall joint in the heart of the martini bar district of The City.

As martinis with metrosexual names arrived one after another, he seemed to forget our pact and started reaching for my hand on the table. By the fifth martini, he was drunk. I was only tipsy, so I had to take care of him all the way home.
He was more aggressive as a drunk. This was a side of him I’d never seen. He was normally very passive and even shy; he never made the first move and always seemed to care about placating others. But as a drunk, he was completely uninhibited. While we waited for the streetcar, he pulled my body against his and locked his arms around the small of my back. I felt embarrassed – there was another girl waiting for the streetcar and I knew she knew we were drunk. I tried to get away but he wouldn’t let me go.

When we got home, I put him to bed, and as I turned to leave, he tried to pull me into bed with him. I reminded him of our serious discussion, our decision to be ‘just friends.’
“I don’t think we can do that,” he said, this time with no hesitation. “It is clear we like each other. I don’t want to be just friends.”
His straight-forwardness took me by surprised, but I had some liquid courage myself. “Do you know what you’re saying? Cheating is a slippery slope. Are you sure you want that?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t believe he really understood, and I told him so. “I don’t want you to regret this in the morning.”
“I’m not going to.”
I tried a different tactic. “I would not recommend this if you think you have a future with your girlfriend. If you’re serious about her, don’t do this.”
“I don’t know whether we have a future or not. But I know I can’t just be friends with you, and I certainly don’t want to lose you.”
In the end, I agreed to be more-than-friends⁵. Though I had been fine with the sensible decision we came to earlier, this sounded far more exciting.

We shared our first kiss. I was happy to find he was an excellent kisser. As he caressed my bottom lip, and then my top, I felt tiny little explosions all along my spine. This was a kiss three years in the making.

However, the euphoria from the kiss and the excitement of a ‘secret relationship’ did not last long. As soon as we decided to go down the slippery slope, his whole demeanor changed. The power dynamic shifted. Suddenly, I was the one in control and he was this clingy, needy, pathetic little boy. I was quickly starting to regret my decision.
He kept asking me questions to reassure him that I liked him when, in fact, I wasn’t sure that I did. He even alluded to love at one point, but I cut him off because I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to know how he felt about me (“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” I wasn’t). He asked me a million questions about my love life (“How many guys have you dated since high school? How many serious relationships?”). When I didn’t want to tell him, he got a little angry. He told me he felt like he could tell me anything, but when I told him I didn’t want to know, he got suspicious (“Are you letting me off the hook so that you can refuse to tell me something later?”). I had never seen this side of him. All the emotions he’d held back for the last three years came spilling out. Not only did the power dynamic completely shift, but it was completely unattractive. He was smitten and curious to know everything about me, and I was disinterested and just wished to be left alone. Was this what I had waited three years for? I felt like I had been tricked, tricked into agreeing into something that had been kept hidden from me all this time.

He became so unbearable that I kicked him out of bed. There he was, more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him, and I was so cold to him, more emotionally detached than I’d ever been around him. He thought I was mad at him, so he spent the rest of the night on the couch while I slept in his bed. Although he didn’t bother me the rest of the night, something scared me awake at 6 am (he had left at 5 am). I heard the TV on in the living room, but I didn’t go out to check on him.

In the morning, we went for breakfast⁶ and HB was back to normal. The controlling, clingy, insecure boy of the previous night had almost completely disappeared.

Then I went to a meeting with some clients for a consulting project, and by the time I was done, it was about time for me to go back to University Town.

HB wants me to go see him again in two weeks, but I’m considering calling off this whole thing. After his emotional gates opened, I realized that he likes me more than I like him, and I don’t think I can handle that.

Besides, I’m a fabulous girl. Why should I play a supporting role in his life when I can be the leading lady in someone else’s?

1. I still had a lot to prepare for my LSAT teacher training session on Sunday, and we had to get up to meet our friend for brunch the next morning.
2. On Twitter, I refer to her as Obnoxious Girl.
3. The short story of PL‘s background is that she started dating our economics teacher in the final year of high school, and by the time she graduated, he had divorced his wife, changed his style to look 10 years younger, and was officially dating her.
4. He had been dating another girl at that time, too.
5. Is there a better term for this? I’m not his mistress, since he’s not married. We’re not lovers, because we’re not having sex. What other terms can be there be for this sort of infidelity?
6. Number of breakfasts I’ve had this weekend: 4.5

We were sitting in OBF‘s room, which hadn’t changed one bit from the last time I’d been in here, some time during high school. It was the epitome of a girl’s room, with a cream-coloured four-pillared bed and matching dresser, Lindsey Lohan magazine cutouts on the closet door, and the full collection of Babysitter’s Club on her bookshelf. I cringed.
This was one of the differences between OBF and I. While she grew up in all this girliness, I did not adopt any girlish fancies until I turned 18. That was the year I stopped boycotting lace, dresses, and the colour pink. Needless to say, I missed the age of Babysitter’s Club entirely.

OBF had called me out that morning at 7:30am, informing me that she had broken up with her boyfriend of three years. I should have been more alarmed – and I was sufficiently surprised considering two days ago she had been telling me about their wedding plans – but the truth is, I was sure they were going to get back together. Those two were made for each other. So I drove out to her part of The City and met her for brunch. She explained the premise of their break-up in between sobs and massive amounts of napkins while I chewed on a piece of a toast.

“It’s not just the breadwinner thing. I mean, I know that I’m going to make more money than him, and I’m fine with that. But on top of being the one who pays for everything, I’m also the one who plans everything and does everything, and he doesn’t even try to do more. I don’t want to be that woman. I want to have the option of staying home and taking care of the kids, and I want my husband to be someone who can provide for us if necessary.”
OBF and I have another difference: she actually wants to be a stay-at-home mom. If I stayed at home for more than two consecutive days, I’d go stir-crazy. I’d much rather be the breadwinner with a husband who has a more flexible work schedule to pack the kids’ lunches in the mornings and be able to pick up them up after school. OBF, on the other hand, does not want to be a “career woman.” She’s very traditional that way. But I don’t think she can help it – I mean, she’s the smartest girl I know, and I have no doubt she’ll graduate in the top 5% of her law class. Which means she’ll be offered a position at a nice big law firm downtown. Which means she’ll be on her way to making half a million a year by the time they decide to have kids. Whether she wants to be the breadwinner or not, she’s gonna be¹. It just can’t be helped.
If I were her – if I’d found a guy who was actually okay with the idea that his wife will earn more money than him, be more “successful” than him, and all-around more capable – I’d be thrilled. Because the reality is, being a truly capable woman is like a curse. Most men need to feel… needed. And this new generation of women – myself included – don’t make men feel needed anymore. I can pay my own bills, deal with my own finances (heck, I go to business school – banks and taxes are the last thing I’m afraid of); I can cook, clean, host parties; I can put up my own curtains, kill my own bugs, nail up my own paintings, and even fix my own plumbing system if needed (or call a plumber). There really is nothing that intimidates me enough for me to need a man to do it for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish for a man to take care of some of these things. But the truth is, in the day-to-day scheme of things, I don’t need a man. I just want one. And I am not alone in this sentiment.

But I digress.

After we exhausted the topic of OBF and her boyfriend, she asked me how MFL and I were doing.
“I don’t talk to him that much anymore. Well, right now he’s in the Philippines so I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But I don’t know that I want to anymore. I feel like being friends with him isn’t such a good idea. I mean, I certainly can’t blame him for my lack of boyfriend, or that I haven’t even been on a date in ages, but I do feel like our closeness hinders the development of any relationship. Because I know I’m the one pushing guys away, but it’s so much easier for me to not give guys a chance when I have him – our past – to compare to.”
OBF nodded. “I agree. Even though I think you guys will eventually be together, I think you need at least one serious relationship before you can do that. You need to fall in love with someone else.”
“That feels impossible right now,” I said with a sigh.

I realized that the only way I even have a chance of falling in love again is if I forget that I was ever in love. Like what OBF said about forgetting how to use a PC when learning how to use a MAC. I have to forget what it was like to love MFL before I can learn how to love anybody else. Because no two loves are the same and I cannot go around looking for love as if it is going to be identical to my first love. If I do, I’ll never fall in love again.

“I’m sure you’ll find it,” OBF reassured me.
“Well, if not love, then at least a summer fling…” I said, with a glint in my eye.

1. Especially considering her boyfriend is a complete bookworm and probably will end up doing his PhD in a completely unmarketable area like Physics, and then become a professor. Which is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that his career is likely not going to be as demanding as hers.