I had a conference in The City the last few days. In order not to miss class, I went to an 8:00AM class on Thursday morning, then got on the train for The City. On the train, I ran into a classmate who was also heading into The City for interviews (it’s summer recruiting season for him). I had wanted to sleep on the train, but no luck. Instead, he spent two hours running his mouth off about all the interviews he had¹. When I got off the train, I wanted to take a taxi to the hotel, because I didn’t want to walk the two blocks with my luggage. Yeah, I was tired and lazy. But the taxi driver wouldn’t take me! He said it was too close, I should just walk. So he literally dumped me on the sidewalk.

By the time I arrived at the hotel, the cocktail reception had already started. I checked into my room to realize that I had roommates. Three roommates, no less. Was this a joke?
When I realized the conference organizers weren’t joking, that I was expected to share a bed with a complete stranger, I was not amused. Two of my roommates were in first year, and my bed-mate was in fourth year. They were all from the commerce program of The Other University.
I quickly staked my claim by unpacking my stuff over as much area as possible (their shit seemed to have exploded all over the hotel room and bathroom counter – although I should have expected that when I realized there were going to be four girls sharing one very small bathroom), and changed into a business casual dress for the reception.

At the reception, I realized that of the 100 delegates, about 15 were external delegates (including myself). That means that only 15 people were from another university, and the rest of the 85 people were from The Other University. The Other University and The Business School are rivals, so I tried to avoid the question, “So what school are you from?” lest the mob descend on me on the first night.
It got worse. I also realized that most of the delegates were first and second year students. I was probably one of four upper-year students.
Let me explain the gravity of the situation. I was in enemy territory, surrounded by nearly 100 people who did not go to my school and did not like my school. I was also surrounded by nearly 100 people who were barely of age and were running around asking for fake IDs so they could go to the evening bar festivities. They were so naive that they had no idea what the difference between finance, accounting, and consulting were, and was under the delusion that they could get a career in any industry they wanted. I wanted to strangle them.
Suffice to say, this was not my scene.

So I didn’t know anyone. And could barely hold a conversation with anyone (without wanting to strangle them, that is). But there was an open bar, good food, etc. So I inhaled every plate they served during dinner and drank too much wine. There was a keynote speaker after dinner, some important know-it-all from An Investment Bank, trying to influence the impressionable minds in the room that investment banking was the true, and only, definition of success. During the keynote speech, I texted WAF: “Get me out of here.” So we made plans to meet up after I was done.

While everyone else was getting ready to go to some pub, I started putting on a glittery top and a sequin skirt. I was clearly over-dressing, so my roommates asked me what I was doing. “I’m meeting a friend of mine at a lounge,” I replied.
“You’re not going to the pub?”
“No, I don’t drink beer.”
My roommates seemed confused that I wouldn’t want to participate in the conference’s event, but how could I explain to them that I didn’t see myself having fun with first-years who were engaging in underage drinking and were probably going to go crazy because, let’s face it, this was probably their first staying-in-a-hotel drinking opportunity? My two first-year roommates had invited all of their first-year friends into our hotel room and were passing around a 60 Litre bottle of vodka. Point proven.
I hurriedly got out of there and hoped that I wouldn’t return to a pile of vomit in our hotel room that night.

WAF and I ended up at a post-modern sushi lounge in the Financial District. It was filled with suits from the nearby banks. At one point, a 60-year-old man with a head of white hair and an expensive suit tried to give both of us a hug and invite us to drink with him. We quickly declined².

When I returned to the hotel room, my roommates were already back and asleep. I checked around quickly for vomit, and finding none, passed out on my side of the bed.

Friday was a packed day filled with keynote speakers and workshops. To give the conference organizers some credit, the keynote speakers were all extremely entertaining and knowledgeable. I learned more about international business and the global market in the last three days than I have in my entire academic career so far. Dinner was at an Irish pub hosted by A Consulting Firm (not the one I’m going to be working for), and surprisingly, the food was fantastic. Possibly the best Western food I’ve ever had. Dinner conversation was with a cute private-school boy who was in his third-year at The Other University and considering offers from several consulting firms.
That night, once again, I skipped out on the conference’s evening festivity and went clubbing with WAF. The club we went to had great music, but the crowd that night was very Euro trash, so we danced to our hearts content with each other and called it a night.

Saturday was dedicated to a case competition. Since I do cases every day, three times a day, at The Business School, this was a piece of cake for me. But The Other University does not teach with cases, so everyone else struggled to analyze the given case in the 3.5 hour time frame. My assigned team had the same trouble, but luckily, they listened to my wisdom (for the most part), and – long story short – we won first place in the case competition.

Since the final presentation was in front of the entire delegation, I received a lot of attention for my presentation skills. After dinner, two boys came up to talk to me. The first was one of the original founders of the conference, a fourth year from The Other University who was going to work for An Investment Bank in New York City. The other, also a fourth year from The Other University, was a Korean boy who was going to work for Another Investment Bank in Tokyo, Japan. Both were very eligible bachelors, at least according to the criteria of: Asian, smart, and potential wealth.

Saturday night, the conference had organized a semi-formal event at a club. Since I had never seen the club, I decided to go with them that night. I pre-drank with a few girls of my fourth-year roommate, who luckily did not make me want to kill somebody (or maybe it was the amount of alcohol I consumed that dulled the killing urge). By the time we got to the club, I was spectacularly drunk³, and ended up dancing with The Korean I-Banker. We spent most of the night together, although I left early because I was dead-tired.

Somehow, I was not hungover on Sunday. It helped that I had some greasy food before bed the night before, and of course, pigged out during breakfast to “re-nourish” my body. The conference finally ended at noon. My parents drove down to meet me for lunch, and after a quick trip to the grocery store for some veggies, drove me back to University Town.

And on Sunday night, I slept 12 hours, to make up for the lack of sleep during the conference. It was kind of amazing.

If you didn’t bother reading all that, the important things to note are:

• I did not mention PLB once. That is because, as of last Tuesday, I gave up on him. In a nutshell, he was playing mind-games and I was not having it.
• I won a case competition! I wouldn’t have had a chance in hell at The Business School, but going up against The Other University was a piece of cake. And of course, it made me feel really smart.
• I hooked up⁴ with a future investment banker in Japan. I don’t know if I will ever run into him in Asia, but it’s nice to know there’s a possibility. Plus, he’s Korean. I don’t know what it is with me and Koreans. It must be fate.
• I realized I am only attracted to ambitious (but not arrogant) boys. WAF had always said that she was only interested in boys who were going to be as successful, if not more successful, than her. I didn’t agree at first, but after this weekend, I think that is true for me too, whether I like it or not.
• Good food and open bar can cheer me up in any situation.
• I’m exhausted, it is Monday, and I have a very packed week ahead of me. TGFC (Thank God For Coffee).

How was your weekend?

1. He had literally gotten every single interview. He had second rounds from every single investment bank as well as the top three consulting firms. This kid was impressive.
2. Although some of the other female associates there were enjoying all the male attention. Many of them had more than one guy fawning over her.
3. As always, no one could tell because I don’t know how to be a sloppy drunk even if I wanted to be one.
4. Like I always remind my readers, my definition of hooking up does not involve sex.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.

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

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.