Posts tagged with "love"

Finding Love For Two Bachelors

The fact that my dad and I are the eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors in the fam­i­ly means we get a lot of advice around the din­ner table. They bring up avail­able women. Friends of friends, daugh­ters of dance part­ners, or this-per­son-I-know.

It’s strange to come upon the sud­den real­iza­tion that my dad and I are at the same point in life. Does that make me old, or him young?

They ask us our tastes: Looks? Personality? Older or younger? I say, “Money”, but they know me well enough to know I’m jok­ing. A joke to hide my answer, for to reveal myself in this way is to expose a cer­tain vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. So they side­step the ques­tion and ask me if I’m after any­one, think­ing that if I describe a per­son I’m inter­est­ed in, they’ll be able to fig­ure out what I’m look­ing for. It’s com­pli­cat­ed, I think to myself, so only reply with a “No”. They ask me if there’s any­one after me. “No”. That’s even more com­pli­cat­ed.

Last week, my grand­moth­er asked me how old I was. “28”, I told her. “Already! You’re almost 30. It’s time for you to get mar­ried.” She says if I stay in Hong Kong all the girls will be after me because I have some kind of gen­tle­man schol­ar look. My dad too; he’s the man’s man, who’s always been fun and pop­u­lar. And we have Canadian pass­ports. Apparently, we’re in demand.

But they also want to make sure we’re not get­ting involved with the wrong type of women. Someone who will take our mon­ey once we’re mar­ried, or force alimo­ny once they trap us with chil­dren. They tell us to keep an eye on each oth­er. I say that my dad does­n’t need my approval if he wants to get mar­ried, but I don’t need his approval either. So they tell us to bring our girls to meet them, to be sure they’re okay.

I won­der; is love this easy for oth­er peo­ple? Something oth­ers can con­trol, when I can’t con­trol it myself?

Relationship Advice From Chinese People

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.”

Accepting My Baggage

Sometimes, I won­der what my life would be like if I did­n’t have so much bag­gage. How my rela­tion­ships would be dif­fer­ent. Which ones would have worked, and which ones would­n’t have changed at all.

Love, in all it’s mul­ti-faceted won­der, lev­els, and types, is nev­er a sure thing for me. I may feel it, but feel that it’s fleet­ing and con­di­tion­al at the same time. Other peo­ple have the lux­u­ry of tak­ing love for grant­ed. They assume they’re loved. How com­fort­ing it must be. For me, it’s always been a strug­gle for sta­bil­i­ty. “We won’t love you if you don’t do well on this test. We won’t love you if you don’t prac­tice piano. We won’t love you if you don’t fin­ish your din­ner. No one’s going to love you if you always stay this skin­ny.”

It feels like I haven’t sur­vived my child­hood yet. And I arrive at this fact so many times when try­ing to fig­ure out the source of my issues that it’s start­ing to sound like an excuse. Therapy has helped iden­ti­fy my issues, but it’s still tak­ing work on my part to resolve them, along with patience on the parts of oth­ers. I’m begin­ning to ques­tion why peo­ple would accept and love me. I guess it’s worth it to some, but things would be so much eas­i­er if they did­n’t have to deal with my inse­cu­ri­ties.

Love Bias

Sometimes, she reach­es down and grabs a hand­ful of my der­rière. I laugh a ner­vous laugh, and she chides me.

It’s a reflex. None of my girl­friends have been so zeal­ous in their pinch­ing, or rev­eled in such an act. My laugh is one of sur­prise, and a good one at that.

This is what upsets her. But how should I react oth­er­wise? I hard­ly con­sid­er this thin-framed body, a frail com­par­i­son to the phys­i­cal con­ven­tions of a man, as being sex­u­al or attrac­tive.

This is why I think she loves me.

Otherwise, she’d see me as the rest of the world sees me.