June 8, 2010

romantically vulnerable

8

I’m left feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and won­der­ing if I can be truly attracted to some­one for who they are, instead of the idea of a rela­tion­ship and the asso­ci­ated com­fort of famil­iar­ity and phys­i­cal con­nec­tion. I miss affec­tion­ate text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tions, spon­ta­neous plans to cud­dle, and hav­ing some­one to spoil, but I need more time to sort out my feel­ings, and to get over the last one.

This is the exact rea­son I had to take a break from her. I haven’t had any con­tact in a while, and even though I sel­dom think of her these days, I’d be lying if I said I’ve for­got­ten completely.

There are morn­ings I wake up with the mem­ory of her next to me in bed, pass­ing hours with only del­i­cate grazes between us. It’s as if my sub­con­scious is still lin­ger­ing on what we had, even though my con­scious has given up on what could have been. Wanting to live my life with her became such a habit that I still catch myself wish­ing she could be there to share in my con­tent­ment when I’m sit­ting out­side with the breeze against my skin on sunny Spring days.

She never under­stood why such a break would take so long1, or why I couldn’t give her a solid time-frame, but now I know it was the right deci­sion. Even though the pain and jeal­ousy have left me, I have to let go of the good mem­o­ries just as much.

Not that I can’t be in a rela­tion­ship with some­one right now. Rather, I shouldn’t, cause it’d be unfair to the other per­son; I still catch myself mak­ing com­par­isons to her, believ­ing that no one will be as dynamic, inspir­ing, or good for me. Or wish­ing I could some­how relive those mem­o­ries through some­one else, even though I know that new, won­der­ful, unique expe­ri­ences are cre­ated with every rela­tion­ship and every partner.

I know where I need to be before I’m ready to be with some­one again. I’ve been com­pletely taken with peo­ple in the past, and even­tu­ally I truly get over them. It may take years, but one day I wake up and the mem­o­ries don’t affect me any­more, though they remain as beau­ti­ful as they are important.

  1. And this break was with the expec­ta­tion that we’d even­tu­ally be in con­tact again, which would assuredly take even longer! [↑]
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March 30, 2010

Protected: Trolling

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March 29, 2010

On Being 5’4″ and Weighing 115 lbs

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  • Her: Does it bother you that I’m taller?
  • Me: Hah. No.
  • Me: I never under­stood why a guy would feel that way.
  • Her: Good good.
  • Me: Usually it both­ers girls that I’m shorter.
  • Her: I don’t care at all.
  • Her: Do you care that I prob­a­bly weigh more than you as well?
  • Me: Hahahahh, every­one weighs more than me.
  • Me: Trust me.
  • Her: Hahah, I’m just saying!!!
  • Me: I’m super light.
  • Me: Why, does it nor­mally bother other guys if you’re heavier?
  • Her: Yeah for sure, I mean I don’t care one way or another…its their prob­lem not mine, they’re the ones miss­ing out.
  • Me: Well if I only dated girls who were lighter than me, I couldn’t date any­one older than 14.
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December 15, 2009

Protected: Reversal of Fortune

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November 24, 2009

Protected: I Have Nice Hands But Could Fit In Your Breast Pocket

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September 15, 2009

Protected: Not As Strong As I Seem

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March 11, 2009

Relationship Advice From Chinese People

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My fam­ily always ask me if I’m dat­ing any­one right now. They assume I pre­fer Caucasian girls. I tell them I don’t mind either way (the other side of “either” being Chinese girls). That’s when they warn me about main­land girls. Chinese main­lan­ders are com­monly viewed by Hong Kong peo­ple as being low-class, crude, and provin­cial. It’s said that even if a girl from there is pretty, they lose all attrac­tive­ness as soon as she opens her mouth. On top of that, they’re gold-diggers, just look­ing for a way to get money or a green card.

They tell me I’ll be fine as long as I don’t marry a main­land girl.

My grandma used to tell me to find a Chinese girl, because Chinese girls treat their men bet­ter, or to find some­one who loves me more than I love them. She’s filled with all sorts of funny apho­risms, like “Women are to be loved, not hit.”

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July 30, 2004

Server Up-Time

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So much for server uptime. Breaking a dry spell is like reboot­ing after a Windows update; it’s not com­pletely nec­es­sary, but some­times it’s bet­ter to do it sooner than when it’s too late and one ends up with a dead hooker in the apartment.

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July 20, 2004

One-Year Mark

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I think I’m com­ing up to my one-year dry spell mark, but to be hon­est, I’m not sure. I used to tease Trolley about his dry spells, but now, well, yeah…heh.

I’m aim­ing for four. We were watch­ing a dat­ing show on the Life Network once, and they were try­ing to set up this guy who had a full out four-year dry spell. On his actual date, he couldn’t stop talk­ing about how his fam­ily had an inter­ven­tion con­cern­ing the amount of time he spent on the inter­net. He kept going on and on about how his par­ents wanted less than two hours a day but he was adamant on keep­ing at least four. My the­ory is that any­thing past three years does dam­age to the brain. I want to be able to doc­u­ment every dis­in­te­grat­ing part of my intel­lect Charlie Gordon style. I’m dying to find out if it’ll be a grad­ual process, or I’ll just sud­denly wake up one day with­out my sanity.

I got the idea from Dave, a guy on the floor in res in first year. He was in the reserves, so he always told us these crazy sto­ries about when he was serv­ing. One time he had to stay awake for three days, doing noth­ing but eat­ing and defending/digging a trench. After the 30th hour he started started hal­lu­ci­nat­ing. After that, Pita and I made a pact to pull a simul­ta­ne­ous three-nighter, just to see if we’d start to go insane, but I keeled over in my room at about the 23rd hour. I had never pulled an all-nighter before then.

This time though, I’ve had a bit of prac­tice. Not three years prac­tice, but prac­tice. I want to go for as long as pos­si­ble, sort of like server uptime.

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April 19, 2004

Guilt-Free Selfishness

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I’ve been brave enough to lis­ten to The Postal Service lately, although my enjoy­ment is restricted to head­phones on the bus. It’s still some­thing that’s a lit­tle too per­sonal to be lis­ten­ing through speak­ers, and for some rea­son, I’m not com­fort­able with oth­ers hear­ing the same songs that I do. It’s as if being able to hear the same trippy beats and soft voices gives other peo­ple the abil­ity to expe­ri­ence the mem­o­ries that the music brings to my mind; curves in a gen­tle face, car rides through the thick sum­mer air, ner­vous fum­blings on the couch, the scent of unfa­mil­iar sheets.

They’re all good mem­o­ries, noth­ing painful any­more, but it’s all some­thing I’d like to keep to myself for just a lit­tle longer.

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September 19, 2003

Janus

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Sometimes I see the same movie twice with a large gap of time between view­ings, and I under­stand the char­ac­ters, thoughts, emo­tions, and actions very dif­fer­ently each time.

A few days ago, I came to the real­iza­tion that I’ve been a dif­fer­ent per­son in every rela­tion­ship through my eight year dat­ing period. Not all of me has changed, but there are a few aspects which I believe would be impor­tant in such a bond.

I’ve gained more matu­rity and more con­fi­dence. I’ve gained a fair amount of intel­li­gence (though I still feel like I have infi­nitely more to learn). I’ve changed career goals, rela­tion­ship goals, and hap­pi­ness goals. I’m more out­go­ing, more tol­er­ant, more secure, less pre­ten­tious (I hope), less arro­gant, and less igno­rant. I’ve changed my opin­ions on chil­dren, abor­tion, and reli­gion. I’ve even changed my actions based on these shift­ing beliefs.

Although I view most of these changes as being good things, they may put strain on a rela­tion­ship nonethe­less. After all, change is change, and unless a rela­tion­ship is strong and flex­i­ble enough, it can­not endure such stress. It’s a lit­tle scary to think that I may be bring­ing extra strain into a rela­tion­ship, sim­ply by being myself.

At one point in my inex­pe­ri­enced youth, after hav­ing changed a fair deal already, I believed that I wouldn’t change any more. Now I real­ize how stu­pidly obliv­i­ous a com­ment that was, and am of the belief that I’ll never stop changing.

The most impor­tant thing to keep in mind through all of this is whether the change is for the bet­ter, and as Tom has helped me real­ize, rela­tion­ships (friend­ships or oth­er­wise) should form around this idea.

Whether or not a rela­tion­ship will work out in the end is not based on one per­son, but the foun­da­tion and dynamic of two people.

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December 5, 2002

Relationships As A Nash Equilbrium

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A sub­ject I find dif­fi­cult to express myself about is that of freedom.

Freedom is a dif­fi­cult thing to under­stand. In a rela­tion­ship, free­dom is always bounded by some con­straint imposed when the rela­tion­ship is first made. Yet free­dom is a very gen­eral state­ment, even if nar­rowed down to the sit­u­a­tion within a relationship.

The free­dom I wish to speak about is that of depen­dence within a rela­tion­ship. Freedom in this case is related to a sense of responsibility.

As a per­son, I find respon­si­bil­i­ties to be detestable. I have always tried to avoid respon­si­bil­i­ties in my life, and I do it well. The only thing that I am respon­si­ble for is myself, a fact that I’ve very will­ingly accepted, unlike oth­ers that I know.

However, in a rela­tion­ship, I’ve always felt that one should be respon­si­ble for his or her bet­ter half. I’ve always believed that it should be a com­mit­ment when enter­ing such a bond. Yet there is always the sep­a­ra­tion between being respon­si­ble for some­one, and being forced to be with some­one to serve their whim.

As a respon­si­ble per­son, it is one’s job to make sure that one is there if the other needs it. However, this other per­son must under­stand that when­ever he or she feels this “need”, he or she should not inter­fere with the free­dom allowed within the bound­aries of the relationship.

A generic exam­ple may make things clearer. If a boyfriend wanted to spend some time at home on the week­end with his girl­friend, but his girl­friend wanted to go ski­ing for the week­end with her friends, then the male should not hin­der the activ­i­ties of the female, unless he was in dis­tress, or in great need of com­pany. If his demand for her time is too great and con­stantly smoth­er­ing other activ­i­ties she wishes to do, then he is not being a respon­si­ble per­son and respect­ing his part­ners’ wishes.

It has always seemed like such a self­ish thing to me, to be inor­di­nately demand­ing, or unsat­is­fi­ably clingy. It begins as a form of flat­tery, to be sure, but exces­sive con­straints become a bur­den or strain on the rela­tion­ship. One finds one­self con­stantly try­ing to please the other, with­out prevail.

I believe that such greed­i­ness stems from inse­cu­rity. When some­one is inse­cure, he or she is scared that his or her part­ner is hav­ing too good a time, and will hence for­get about the rela­tion­ship. Perhaps jeal­ously plays a part in such a vague sub­ject, and serves as a more con­scious man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sub­con­scious feeling.

Of course, I am guilty of such self­ish­ness myself at times, though I wish I wasn’t. I feel that I’ve improved, that I can respect the desires of other peo­ple, so that they may be free to do what they wish. Perhaps this is a sign of increased con­fi­dence in my rela­tion­ships, that all I wish is for oth­ers to be happy.

A Nash equi­lib­rium is a ter­ri­ble thing.

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October 16, 2002

The Rules

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Aaron told me that he didn’t think I was spoiled today. I was a bit sur­prised, since even I think I’m spoiled to an extent. I real­ize that I take many of the priv­i­leges I have for granted, but I’m always thank­ful of the finan­cial free­dom that I’ve been given. We seem to be able to talk for hours on end, and it’s worth get­ting in trou­ble at work for it.

One thing that we dis­cussed was the rules about accept­able dat­ing habits. The rules that he fol­lows are dif­fi­cult for me to under­stand. One seem­ingly uni­ver­sal rule is that you can never date a friend’s sis­ter. It’s hard for me to under­stand some­thing like this, because I’ve never had sib­lings of any kind. I think that the prob­lem would lie in whether a break-up would hap­pen; where would one’s loy­alty lie, since you’re so close to both peo­ple? I believe that if both par­ties are mature enough, they will be able to remain friends after some­thing like that should hap­pen. I real­ize that it may not always work out that way, but I believe that the deci­sion of the risk would be up to the friend and the sister.

He also told me that he would never date any of his friends’ ex-girlfriends, and that it was an unspo­ken rule among his friends as well. I guess the rule seems very rigid to me, as I’m sure there should be excep­tions, such as who was at fault, and why they broke up.

There just seem to be so many rules that peo­ple fol­low, good or bad. I know some girls who won’t date guys shorter than them. I can’t even begin to com­pre­hend this; it just seems so amaz­ingly shal­low, or per­haps I’m just over­sen­si­tive about my lack of height. I also know Chinese girls who won’t date Chinese guys. The only expla­na­tion I can find for this is that a girl may not like the Chinese cul­ture, so they asso­ciate Chinese guys with this. Yet how can every Chinese guy be com­pletely set in the Chinese cul­ture? The expla­na­tion just doesn’t seem to work.

One of my Caucasian ex’s said that she would never date a white guy, because they always seem so shal­low. I was offended because I wouldn’t be dat­ing her, had I sim­ply inhab­ited pale skin. She real­ized that she was wrong to sim­ply asso­ciate white guys with being shal­low, based on her past experiences.

It’s still some­thing that’s hard for me to grasp. Perhaps Chinese girls don’t find the “look” of Chinese guys to be attrac­tive, which is some­thing I could under­stand more. I still believe that one can be attracted to any­one though, as long as one keeps an open mind.

An inter­est­ing point that I once dis­cussed with Aaron was whether Caucasian girls found Asian guys attrac­tive the way Caucasian guys find Asian girls attrac­tive. We came to the con­clu­sion that, no, they do not. It lies in the fact that the mon­goloid race has a gen­er­ally slim­mer build, some­thing which guys find attrac­tive in girls, but some­thing which girls sure as hell don’t find attrac­tive in guys.

It’s a good thing that I’ve given up for now.

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October 11, 2002

Never

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I live so close to my cam­pus and to my work that I can go home between classes and work. Every time I step out­side, my mood changes. In the morn­ing, I’m reminded of the gray skies above the emer­ald green UCC foot­ball fields I would look up to as I waited for a ride, or hung out with John. Usually I try to put on my Bittersweet Mix, and some­times it fits. Other times, I’ll put on my Sad Mix, and it fits as well.

In the after­noon, the sun comes out, and spreads its’ rays across the street, remind­ing me of a time I sat in a library, the sky-light giv­ing me the suns rays through dust and the smell of old print. The Total Annihilation sound­track fits so per­fectly, with its’ some­times agres­sive, some­times calm movements.

At night, every­thing feels famil­iar, and I put on my Moon Mix or my Breathe playlist. I feel noth­ing but famil­iar. I’ve already expe­ri­enced every­thing I could at night.

I can see that my over­all out­look is chang­ing. Before, I would scorn the sun­light, and cast my eyes down­ward, wish­ing for a cloudy sky. Now, I know what hap­pi­ness feels like. I had finally expe­ri­enced it, and destroyed it sim­ply by being me. I’m not sure if I actu­ally want to feel it again. It’s some­thing that’s just too much trouble.

My friend asked me once if I had any advice about dat­ing. She believed that every­one just wants to be happy, no mat­ter what trou­ble, a Freudian, I’m sure.

I told her not to fall in love.

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