Girl and City

Canada Day was celebrated without too much fanfare. During the day, my parents and I went to dim sum at a restaurant (more like diner) that specialized in steamed dumplings.

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If you have any sense of foreshadowing, you’ll know are only two types of posts that could follow a three-night sleepover with HB:

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.
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In the past week, I have been single-handedly trying to revive the Canadian economy with an inordinate amount of shopping. And eating out – because those are the two best aspects of The City.

The first night after I arrived in The City, I went out for dinner with two girlfriends at a little-known Shanghainese restaurant and we had Peking duck, an elaborate three-course affair¹.

The next day I went shopping with my mother and I bought two blazers, a pair of trousers, and a pink blouse. Since I entered TBS, I have been purchasing business clothes almost exclusively (primarily because I had none before).

A few days later, I was out shopping again, followed by mainland-style dim sum at First Markham Place.

The next night was dinner at Grazie, a lively Italian restaurant uptown. I drove threw a blizzard to get there, but it was worth it. ALS was there, along with three other girlfriends. Over pasta (theirs), pizza (mine), and wine (ours), I related to them the MFL conversation and they all agreed that our friendship was an unhealthy one.
“It sounds like neither of you want to let go. But where is this going to go?” PL emphasized.
“Exactly,” I agreed, bobbing my head up and down, “I’m too weak to let go. I can’t let go until he does. But he won’t.”
“He’s a douchebag. Seriously, you just have to forget about him. Stop seeing him!” ALS practically yelled.
“I don’t see that there is anything wrong with it really. Maybe he still likes you. Maybe you guys will get back together someday,” OBF interjected hopefully.
“No, it’s not going to happen. It just won’t,” I said with finality.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re both different now!”
“And as different people, maybe you’ll get back together!” OBF was the most idealistic of the three, even though none of them had much relationship experience. In other words, none of them had any exes to speak of, so it was difficult for them to imagine having a post-relationship relationship.

Looking at our group, OBF is definitely Charlotte York. She is naive, idealistic, and believes there is a soul mate out there for everyone. Her own relationship is a dictatorship – her boyfriend essentially caters to her every whim, she being a very needy person.
PL is Miranda Hobbes: smart, quick-witted, and snappy. She can be charming, but most of the time she is strongly argumentative, opinionated, and judgmental. Her current and only boyfriend is a man twenty years older than us, divorced, and used to be our economics teacher in high school (he still teaches there). There was a big scandal over their relationship, but since it was not official until after his divorce and after PL graduated, nothing could be done by the school. It is not altogether surprising that her boyfriend is a forty-year-old; she was always into older men, finding everyone under the age of 29 to be far too immature.
ALS is so desperately inexperienced that she cannot be any of the women from Sex and the City. For her character, the show would simply be named “The City.” She is immensely close with her family – for example, she tells her mother everything, from the parties she goes to (very few) to the boys she likes (again, very few). I cannot even begin to imagine telling my mother those sorts of things. I mean, what are girlfriends for?
And I am, without a doubt, Carrie Bradshaw. Not because everyone wants to be Carrie Bradshaw, the long-legged, charming, and quick-witted sex goddess, but because I was Carrie Bradshaw before I knew Carrie Bradshaw existed. My blog is my very own “Sex and the City” column, and while I was far less obsessed with fashion and shoes until a few years ago, that has more to do with age and income than with personality. Worst of all, I, at my young age, already have a “Mr. Big.” In fact, if it hadn’t been for this single factor, I might not be Carrie Bradshaw at all. I might not even be a character on Sex and the City. I might be a more care-free character on Friends, or a more career-oriented character on Lipstick Jungle. Instead, I am Carrie Bradshaw because I have Mr. Big, and because of Mr. Big, I also have had more run-ins with the opposite gender in the Land of Ambiguity than I care for. Consequently, I have also formed a circle of friends to commiserate with, a la Bridget Jones. So, I blame this entirely on MFL.

1. The first course is skin wrapped in “pancakes,” the second is stir-fried ground duck that you can roll in lettuce leaves, and the third is duck soup. [↩]