Girl and City

Proof #1

My friend met this guy at the bar one night, and they really hit it off. They talked into early morning, and even had breakfast together. He told her that he couldn’t wait to see her again. She didn’t take it seriously, but gave him her number anyway. Over the next two weeks, he was texting her all day and calling her before bed every night. They saw each other a few more times and it seemed like he was crazy about her. Then, one night, he asks her to meet him at the bar. When she arrives, he was already there, grinding another girl.
In her words, “I couldn’t believe it. Not only was I confused since he had asked me to meet him there, but the girl he was grinding was totally ugly!”
I tried to decipher the cryptic behaviour, but could only conclude that the guy was a dumbass. I mean, even if he was out grinding other girls on the nights that they weren’t together, why invite her out to witness the event? He knew she was coming to meet him, did he want to get caught? Perhaps that was his way of telling her she didn’t mean that much to him.

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Proof #2

When TDH singled me out on Friday night, all of our friends were there, dancing in a circle around us (literally, facing us). He seemed not to care, which is pretty bold for an Asian guy. Although I expected my friends to feel awkward about watching us grind, I later learned of another reason. Apparently, he had a girlfriend, who they were all close friends with (I knew of her as well, but I didn’t know they were going out), and the only reason she wasn’t there that night was because she was sick. How do you explain that?

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Proof #3

For the first time in weeks, PLB said more than two words to me. What for? To invite me as his date to his friend’s wedding.
Are you kidding me?
You were the one who was all over me, forcing me to make plans with you on a night when I already had plans. You were the one who then unceremoniously blew me off with a lame excuse. If you were trying to make a point that you didn’t want to date me, that’s your prerogative and you made your point loud and clear. Fine, that’s fine. And then you invite me to your birthday party of close friends, none of whom are friends of mine. But that was a Facebook invite, so I ignored it. Now you’re telling me that, according to the Valentine’s Day questionnaire we filled out a month ago¹, I am your match, and therefore, I must be your date to your friend’s wedding?
I have two words for you: Not happening.
It turns out the acronym I gave him, “Preordained Lover” is a curse. Well, at this point, I don’t care how many signs there are that we are meant to be together, I don’t care if the hands of Fate herself reach out from an other-worldly portal to push us together, it is Not. Happening.

1. A fundraiser at our school for Haiti, you have to pay to get your results. [↩]

Classes have started, although that is not as ominous as it sounds. Last semester, I had to take a couple mandatory courses that were dreadfully boring, but this semester is all electives. So in order to pick ones that I will actually enjoy (it is my last opportunity to get a bang for my buck tuition-wise), I registered myself in eight courses even though I am only allowed five. So after I went to the first class of each, I had to cut three. The result? I have an excellent schedule and some very interesting classes.

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. [↩]

It’s been half a year since I last wrote any grievance letters, but today, I cannot think of a better way to express my grievances.

Dear Mother,

I do not need you to tell me what I look like, that’s what mirrors are for. I do not need you to tell me how much I weigh, that’s what scales are for. I have an eating disorder as it is, so it’s probably not a good idea to tell me I am fat every time you see me. I am in shape. Round is a shape.

Regards,
Your Not Chubby Daughter

—

Dear Professor,

I am not really sure what you want me to write about in this exam since the answers are all pretty much given in the various articles you had us read. I guess I can spend 2000 word giving you a “best of” but shouldn’t you have read these articles before assigning them to us?

Cheers,
A Confused Student

—

Dear PreordainedLoverBoy,

Why have you not texted me in three days? I know you know I’m in The City now, don’t you miss me? Aren’t you going to miss me over the next few weeks? If you don’t contact me, aren’t you afraid that I might give up on you and hook up with someone else over the holidays?

xoxo
Your Preordained Lover Girl

P.S. Feel free to show up at my door with hand-written signs expressing your ardent love for me. My address is…

—

Dear Chocolate,

I love, love, love you. Thank you for being in my life.

Love,
Your Number One Fan

That last one doesn’t count, it’s not a grievance. But seriously, PLB, that’s it? No more texts? We’re just going to go cold turkey for the holidays? That is so anticlimactic.

At noon today, I got a text, and before I looked at it, I thought, “Hey, it’s almost lunch time. If I hadn’t been such a doorknob around PLB the other day, we would be having lunch together.”
Then, I read the text.
PLB: Do you want to go to sushi for lunch?

YES!

I may have done a little dance.

Ah, I love the beginning parts of relationships…

Not that I’m in a relationship with him. Ahem.

But it wasn’t a date, because his roommate and another friend were also there. But at least he took the initiative to ask me to go. Plus, the other two people didn’t really know me, so I was, without a doubt, his guest. I wonder if he told his roommate that he liked me? Did she egg him on to ask me to go with them?

Whatever, it doesn’t matter. It was a good thing there were other people there, because I was still kind of nervous around him. I ended up talking to his roommate and friend more than I talked to him. I also told a few stupid stories because I can’t keep my big mouth shut when I’m nervous. Oh well, can’t be helped.
(more…)

If you’ve been following my Twitter, you’ll know that I officially have a crush! This is incredibly exciting, because I haven’t had a “real” crush (i.e. a crush on a guy who is actually available) in over two years!

For all intents and purposes, his name is PLB and he is so cute. Why is he my preordained lover? Because someone I met over a year ago had tried to match us up before I ever met him! She was a friend I’d made in the first week of TheBusinessSchool, and when she heard I was “single and looking,” she started gushing about this incredibly sweet boy in her class. For whatever reason, she wasn’t interested in him herself, but she thought the two of us would be perfect together. I lost touch with her, but when I met PLB earlier this year, I remembered what she had said. It seemed she had told him about me too, because when we met, he asked me if I knew her.

Perhaps it was because we were pre-disposed to the idea that we might make a good couple, or perhaps we really are fated to be together, either way, we got along swimmingly. I met him around recruiting season, so I asked him if he wanted to practice case interviews together. It was weird to be alone with him so soon after we’d met, but we became comfortable with each other quickly. He’s quite disarming. Pretty soon, it felt like we had been friends for ages.

Now comes the good news, and the bad news. The good news is that he seemed totally into me. The bad news is that the more he flirted, the more nervous I felt around him, and the more I closed up. You could say I was playing hard to get, but I wasn’t playing anything. It might have actually been better if I was playing, but I had no strategy, no game plan. I just was hard to get – my own fault, and as a result, he probably thought I was indifferent towards him (which couldn’t be further from the truth).

After recruiting season ended, I rarely saw him. We could no longer use interviews as an excuse to see each other or commiserate together. Also, when he found out I had gotten a job offer in Singapore, it probably bummed him out. After all, he had only had a few interviews that led nowhere, and this prestigious job offer only made me seem more inaccessible to him.

Recently, however, we’ve been in contact again. It started with running into each other a few times at dinner parties and bar nights. I would always hug him when I saw him to demonstrate how close our friendship could be. But he never sought me out at these events, so I didn’t put much hope in it. At the bar last Thursday, I ran into him again and while we were talking, he put his arm around me because I was cold. His hand was even colder than my skin, so I took his hand with mine to try to warm it up. It was a reflex, I wasn’t even thinking about flirting. But in the days afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He might have felt the same way, because now when we run into each other, there’s this energy between us. There’s more play-fighting and physical contact¹. But I am such a huge doorknob when it comes to flirting that I totally missed my chance to go out with him:
Him: I didn’t know you were so into food [after seeing my food blog]. Have you tried Restaurant X?
Me: makes a face. Yeah, I’ve been there once. My bulgogi was burnt. It was pretty terrible.
Him: Oh.
Me: But I’ve heard they have good soup. Maybe I just ordered the wrong thing…
Him: Yeah, they do have really good soup. We should go there for dinner sometime.
Me: Oh, maybe. Sees someone running by that I haven’t seen in a while, and starts talking to him enthusiastically.

I really didn’t mean for the conversation to have gone that way, but it somehow did. When he mentioned us going to the restaurant together sometime, his tone was so casual that I completely missed it! At the same time, I saw KEB run by. I had a question for him, so I ended up ignoring PLB and talking to KEB enthusiastically. After KEB walked away, PLB was totally jealous and threw a little fit about how I was overenthusiastic in my conversation with KEB². That was when it hit me (yeah, delayed reaction, I know) how I had nonchalantly ignored PLB‘s invitation to go to dinner with him.

Needless to say, when I replayed the conversation in my head, I immediately proceeded to bang my head against the nearest wall.

Luckily, all is not lost, even for a huge doorknob like me. After going to see Where the Wild Things Are, with KEB no less³, I sent a simple one-word text to PLB – just to show him that I was thinking about him even when I was with KEB. A few minutes later, he texted back – hurray! I had redeemed myself, slightly.

The next night, I was thinking about him again but I didn’t want to always be the first one texting him. If he was into me, he should text me! I was starting to feel indignant when I checked my phone and realized he had already texted me, over an hour ago! Hurray!

Between the emails he had sent me during recruiting season (my bad for not replying), asking me to have dinner with him (my bad for ignoring him), and texting me (my bad for having my phone on silent), I’m thinking I have a pretty good chance with this one.

I just have to stop being such a doorknob!

1. Although I always avoid his physical contact as part of our play-fighting, even though I really, really want his arms around me again. Why do I play so hard to get? Geez, I even frustrate myself. [↩]
2. He might have also been jealous because I was going to see a movie with KEB that night. [↩]
3. Not a date though, really. [↩]