girlabc

That’s how he referred to himself when he advised me to accept the offer so that I’d be closer to him.  I appreciate a self-deprecating sense of humor and a man who can call himself out on his less than noble qualities, but I started to wonder just how much truth was in his self-assessment after an impartial friend used the same operative word– selfish– to describe his character.  She hasn’t met him, so she only knows what I’ve said to her about him, and I don’t consciously portray someone I like in that way in a negative light; and yet, the first adjective she used to qualify him?

Selfish.

It wasn’t for the same reason that he had used the term to describe himself.  In fact, I hadn’t even mentioned any specifics regarding the opportunity abroad.  (Okay, I did borrow his words and tell her he’s seriously happy about the impending circumstances– again, I’m not about to tell my friend, “Hey, that guy I sort of like?  Yeah, he’s a self-centered ass for the following reasons.”)  No, what I had told my friend was that my correspondence with the purported selfish bastard always proceeded on his terms.  When he wanted to drop me a line, he dropped me a line.  When he didn’t want to write, he wouldn’t write.  When he was back home and living it up, party animal that he is, he contacted me two times.  It was like he had no use for me anymore, now that he was back in a happy place with friends and family to keep him entertained.  It was like writing to me had become synonymous with misery or boredom or loneliness– quite possibly all three.  I was his go-to girl when he had no other options– and I mean that at even the platonic level.

And what about the romantic level?  Well, what about it?  As far as I’m concerned, there’s none of it at the present time.  Is there potential?  Who knows.  Many things are possible, but the reason I have only ever regarded him as a fluffy flight of fancy is because the idea of him and me as we was too far fetched.  Consider the conditions of country and culture; those in itself are enough to put the kibosh on anything that might want to spring forth.  In the back of my mind, though, I am fully aware that he was seeking someone.

You know, the quest for love is a funny thing.  It’s all about what we want and what we demand in a partner.  What makes us happy.  What makes us smile.  What makes us feel good.  That’s how we decide if we want to be with someone– am I right or am I correct?  If we don’t feel happy with someone, if we don’t feel good with someone, if we don’t feel euphoric with someone, well, we hightail it out of there and start the search all over again– regardless of the other person’s feelings.  Who cares if he’s happy with me?  Who cares if she loves me to death?  He doesn’t make me happy, so I’m leaving!  She might love me, but I don’t love her, so tough– ta forever!

That’s how I see the hunt as a currently passive participant.  The search is all about oneself.  But the elusive prey itself?  Love?  It’s not supposed to be a self-absorbed egomaniac.  Love is giving, love is kind, love is patient, love is blind.  All that selfless stuff– that’s what love is made of.  Love is about the other person and ensuring his or her well-being, even if at one’s own inconvenience or suffering.  Highly idealistic and romantic, I know, but that’s what I think.

That said, my quasi crush loves himself lots to cater to his happiness.  But as far as his consideration for mine?  Based on the above criteria, I have to say that he has no love for me.

Selfish bastard.

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ABC Girl: A Bit Confused.

Questioning her identity, her origins, and her perception.

Dating really is a numbers game.  You just can’t but put yourself out there and take a chance.  A lot of chance, as it may be, which requires a lot of courage, as my friend’s brother said this summer.  Unless your future spouse is a UPS delivery person, chances are slim that he or she will just show up at your front door with a marriage certificate to sign.

Even so, though, there’s another number that I believe plays an even bigger role in the quest for love.  It’s your number: age.  Sure, age ain’t nothing but a number, and an older person isn’t necessarily a more enlightened, wizened, or matured person.  For the sake of convenience, though, let’s stick with convention and carry on as though age and development go hand-in-hand.

Speaking of development, picture now a house.  Some houses take a lot of time to be built and furnished.  Others take less time to become a home.  Imagine you’re a house undergoing construction.  Is now the time to invite someone in for a cup of tea?  Not quite.  So hold off on the invitation until the construction crew has cleared out and the dust has settled.  You’re probably thinking that now is the time to ask a person over.  Well, is your house properly furnished?  Is it comfortably inviting?  I mean, you can’t expect someone to stay for long if you don’t even have a sofa to slouch on.

My point with that poor analogy is that even if a single person is in the dating game and mingling like mad to meet someone, she or he won’t succeed without first ensuring she or he is personally ready to be in a relationship.  Wanting a relationship is not the same as being prepared for one.  More than numbers of dates and partners, it’s about what you’ve learned as you age.  Think about it: would you want to be with someone who appears put together on the exterior but is a wreck inside?  It’s the same as entering a house that looked fine but in actuality was not fine at all.

“But ABC Girl,” you protest, “I know lots of couples who are young and old alike and they have someone so why don’t I?!”  Well, here’s my answer: either they’ve found the best match for themselves (kudos to them) or they’ve not publicly admitted that they made a mistake.  Yes, there are so many people coupled up.  And how many are unhappy?  How many are divorced or separated, or rush for an annulment before one year passes in order to avoid ticking “DIVORCE” forever and ever more in the marital status box on legal forms?  From what I’ve seen, there are many people in troubled relationships.  It could be a result of many factors—even a result of many trivial factors—but it may also be because they didn’t pick the best option.

And ladies (and gentlemen), we always have options.  It’s just a matter of whether or not we pursue them.  What if I had married the chronic liar?  What if I had married the rich d-bag?  I’m not just saying these things.  The liar FedExed me a diamond ring, and the d-bag rehearsed asking for my dad’s permission.  The point is that I would be neither at my personal best or with my best partner had I ended up with either of them.  I’d be a subservient, domesticated wifey to (a) a chronic liar or (b) a rich d-bag.  Decisions, decisions.  Can I please choose option (c) none of the above?

To the singles who mingle: keep up the good work.  It is kind of like work, right?  Dating involves a lot of time, energy, and dedication to ratchet up the numbers and, in theory, boost your odds of meeting the One.  But remember it’s not the number of people you meet that matters most, but the number of personal lessons and growth you acquire in the process.

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ABC Girl: A Bit Confused.

Questioning her identity, her origins, and her perception.

I’m supposed to be looking for a King of Swords, but I’m temporarily taken by a King of Wands.  If I believe the Tarot, then I can tell you that this thing with quasi crush is not going to end well– but it will be for the best.  I hope.

I’ve been thinking too much about my quasi crush and what he may be thinking about me.  What does it mean that he proposed traveling together, for instance?  I am pretty confident that it means sexual interest, but apart from sex drive, is there any sentiment behind the suggestion?  See, that’s something I can’t figure out, and it’s not just because he’s a guy and I’m a girl that I don’t get his Martian landscape.  It’s not even because of our different cultures that I’m stuck.  It’s because of the circumstances– he’s not exactly in a place where he can wander to the local watering hole and ply a girl dressed in a low cut number with drinks in order to get laid.  And while I agree it would be ridiculous to fly half-way around the world to have sex with this girl typing this here, he’s not exactly a guy with much game going on.  If he had any– which he may very well have had back when he was younger and fitter– then he could easily bounce over to the Emirati playground and have his fun thereabouts.  However, no game means, well, no play.

Is this my cue to come in?

While I was proud of myself for abstaining from accepting his invitation to go on holiday for a week, I was also quietly disappointed.  I kind of like the guy and would like to see him so I can decide whether I’d like to like him more, you know?  I was also kind of bummed that I couldn’t even promise him two or three days on my turf due to a conflict of schedule.  Again, I really would like to see him so that I can better moderate how I feel for him.  Well, surprise, surprise: we just might see each other this autumn after all.  I had mentioned before that he’s there and I’m here and that, needless to say, going from friendly to friendlier is hard given the distance.  However, as of last week, it appears I’ll be going thereabouts at the end of this month.  He seemed delighted.  To use his words, he was “seriously happy” and has already looked for flights from his there to my thereabouts.  Even said he’ll visit me one of these weekends.

That’s very nice– I love playing hostess– but I’m still confused.

What does he want?  The jaded part of me says he wants sex, end of story.  It could be true, but I hope not.  As his friend, I’d be disappointed in him if he were so shallow, and from the exchanges we’ve had, he seems to have more depth than a few inches of engorged tissue.  The hopeless romantic in me says he’s looking for someone and that maybe, just maybe, that someone could be me.  The hopeless romantic in me says he and I will get together and see how we function as an item.  The hopeless romantic in me insists we’ll function beautifully because he has a beautiful mind and I have a beautiful heart so how can it possibly not work?

Oh, but I’ve been there before.  Just because two good people get together doesn’t mean they’ll be any good together.  It’s strange but, in my experience, all too true.

So, this is what I tell myself.  Self, you and he have to meet to determine if you and he want to attempt anything beyond platonic friendship.  And Self?  Don’t get ahead of yourself.  Take it day by day and see what happens.  Sure, maybe you feel taken and smitten and head over heels enraptured and enamored.  And sure, maybe he feels similarly if not the same for now.  Operative word: now.  Self, remember that there are two possible outcomes with any guy: the happily ever after ending (learning together forever and ever) or the unhappy ending (once the mutual learning is over).  Maybe quasi crush is the former and you and he will be partners on all planes for as long as you both live.  Or maybe quasi crush is the latter and your and his story will come to an end sooner than you’d wish for.  Whichever the case, continue to bear in mind that if he isn’t the one you’re seeking, then he will at least lead you one move closer.  In the end, everything will work out for the best.

And that’s the best I can believe.

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ABC Girl: A Bit Confused.

Questioning her identity, her origins, and her perception.

I don’t get guys who play games.  What I really want to say is that it’s the guys who play games who I don’t like, but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.  The guy circa 2008?  We had a lot of fun together, and I think we owe it to our little games of hide-and-seek and cat-and-mouse.  Good times.

But still.  That was an exception, and it was only because he and I had good timing that we enjoyed the tug-of-war.  When our good timing ran out, well, so then did our fun.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I understood what mind games was all about in dating.  The first time I even heard that term was from a dear Canadian colleague trying to comfort me after a break-up with a douche of a boyfriend.  It wasn’t the first break-up between us, mind you, but more like the second.  Or half.  Come to think of it, to this day, I don’t really know what went on with that guy because he was messed up.  I didn’t get what was going on in his head.

It was because he was playing mind games, I realize now– just as my colleague had said.  To him, it was all about power and control.  Maintaining dominance in the relationship.  Retaining the right to manipulate.  That’s what accounted for all the consistent inconsistencies– a stretch of expressing care and affection, followed by another even longer period of giving me the cold shoulder and being a royal asshole.  Repeat as desired.

Those nine months of asking myself, “WTF?” are so easily explained seven year later with perfect 20/20 hindsight.  And yes, I am a slow learner.

But really, it was 2008 when I learned that if a boy you like plays games, well then, girl, you just got to play along.  I don’t really understand why guys do it, but from what I’ve read, it seems men deliberately withdraw and go MIA for a stint so that the women they’re ever so slyly seducing will go into withdrawal and desperately desire them.  I think Mr. Game Boy is also trying to prevent from getting taken for granted by suddenly disappearing on a woman, but don’t quote me on that because I genuinely don’t know.

In fact, I kind of wonder about the effectiveness of this kind of peekaboo tactic.  That old school chum of mine with the terrible crush on me?  He plays this game a lot.  All eager to see me, offering to come by and meet me, suggesting things to do with me, and then poof!  He vanishes as soon as we meet.  But he always resurfaces eventually and tries again, acting all cool and nonchalant with an uninterested, “What’s up?” when I call him after hearing a message he had left on the machine half an hour earlier.  It’s like, “Dude, you called me.  You told me to call you.  That’s why I’m calling.  Cut the crap already and tell me why you want to talk to me.”

In case, like me, you’re a slow learner, too, and can’t figure out my feelings for my old school chum from the above paragraph, I’ll give you a hint: I don’t like him in that way.  That said, when he drops off the face of my planet?  It doesn’t devastate me to pieces.  In hindsight, I noticed the social worker had employed the same I’m-going-to-make-you-miss-me technique.  I was so happy that week when I heard nothing from him because I had naively thought it to mean I was free to dust my hands of him.  Little did I know that he was also scheming some kind of game in his foolish head, and how I sincerely wished he had just stopped altogether rather than stretch his stupidity for five months.

You probably don’t need me to tell you how I regarded him.  So here we have two guys I don’t particularly fancy, and my theory is that because I don’t have any interest in them in that way, I don’t really get affected when a steady current of contact is suddenly cut.  And yet!  When I’m interested in a guy and he pulls this kind of stunt?  Goodness, I can’t muster the breath to express how agonizing and aggravating the silence is, especially when it was preceded by a span of daily– and evenly hourly– messages back and forth, back and forth.  Like with quasicrush.

I don’t know enough about quasicrush, but I’ve seen this pattern before.  It happened back when we first started corresponding with one another– a week of solid, daily communication suddenly cut.  By him, of course.  And then it resumed, in accordance to his schedule.  And then paused.  Then started.  Then stopped.  All his doing.  The first time, I was confuzzled but coped by talking myself out my quasi attraction to him: “He doesn’t like you, you know, and he probably likes blondes or Russians and he parties and drinks too much– I mean, I love to drink, but not like the way he does.  And, he tries to be a playboy– I can see it in his pictures– even though I didn’t get that feeling from him in person and oh my God what kind of photo is that with his ass crack exposed online?!  That’s what he puts online to meet girls?!”

Pat on the back for having convinced myself he’s not into me.  But then we got back in touch recently, and then there was talk of traveling together and visiting me, and now I’ve taken a shine to him once again after all of that cheap, cheap talk and daily, hourly correspondence– followed, once again, by silence.  Again, his doing.  I’m going to take a seat at the sidelines, sit back and prop my heels up at this one.

The game he’s playing now?

It’s called solitaire.

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ABC Girl: A Bit Confused.

Questioning her identity, her origins, and her perception.

I did something very out of character yesterday.  I flirted.

Not just any flirtation, mind you.  It was flirting on the road.

You read right.  I flirted with a guy while in a car– two separate cars, that is: his and mine.  I was headed south, he was headed north, and the traffic was at a standstill, so what to do to bide the time but flirt with the ghettolicious guy in corn rows three lanes to my left in on-coming traffic?  He tilted his head back and smiled (manly dominance), I tilted my head down and batted my eyelashes (girly coyness), and then I thought, “What the hell am I doing?!”  I made myself blush and I think I made his day.  When it was time for my lane to go, I saw his passenger– another homeboy from the hood– leaning over to see the crazy chick who had given his friend the green light.

Seriously, this isn’t something I do.  I don’t flirt, especially not with men I’m attracted to.  And therein lies the problem.

See, with gangstafabulous over there, I had nothing to lose.  One, I was safely enclosed in a vehicle far enough away from him.  It’s not like he could have pulled an easy U-turn to chase me down the highway and follow me home.  So, it was not a risk to make eyes at him, which leads me to the second and more important point.  I didn’t like him, therefore, I really had nothing to lose– whereas, if he were my quasi-crush, for example, making a move on him involves the risk of rejection.  I’m Chinese, but I don’t like to gamble.  If I like a guy, I get tongue-tied and shy and my eyes won’t even make contact.  (Not until I know he likes me back.)

So I think I figured out why unwanted men try to cozy up to me: because I send them that signal.  If I have no romantic interest in a man, well, I behave as I normally do because I don’t give a damn what he may think.  I’m not trying to impress him none, no way, no how.  I don’t really mind my mouth or my manners, and it seems to me that maybe– just maybe– guys like a girl with a naughty mouth and flailing gestures.  (Seriously, I swear like a sailor.  Sweetly, of course, but still.  It’s not nice to say curse words.)

Of course, I am a nice girl, so that’s probably also why I attract sleazeballs looking to take advantage of my niceness.  But it only occurred to me after yesterday’s vehicular incident that in addition to niceness, playfulness with the wrong play toys– another point worth mentioning– only encourages the ones I don’t like to like me.  A man I like is a man I admire and respect.  I won’t play with him until, again, a relationship has been established.  But a guy I don’t care for?  He’s kind of a toy to bat around in lieu of boredom.  I’m sorry to say that because it sounds really mean, but I believe men have the same approach toward women– in fact, I think a lot of men have that attitude toward women.

Anyway, to rectify this problem, I think I just need to… what?  Treat every guy like a guy I don’t have any wistful intentions of getting closer to?  Treat the guys I like most the worst, and treat the guys I like least the best?  Man, that’s confusing.  And I’m still not keen on taking a risk like that and driving away a guy I like.

Maybe I should just keep cruising in the car and continue the drive-by flirting.

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ABC Girl: A Bit Confused.

Questioning her identity, her origins, and her perception.