Just wrong

Last week I talked about having balls. I had given a random guy my number on Saturday May 20. After I hadn't heard from him by the following Thursday, I gave up. I resisted writing another self-deprecating, woe-is-single-me entry in this blog and just went on my merry way pining after an elusive guy. Then this last Saturday at 9:12 PM, I get a voicemail message from the guy asking me what I was up to this weekend. Saturday night. 9:12 PM. My friend was like, "Two words: Booty call." Obviously he didn't care for me enough to call me earlier in the week. I wasn't that crazy about him to begin with. And it didn't help that he called me by the wrong name. So I thought, "Screw it."

The following Monday, he calls me again, leaving me a message asking me if I want to grab dinner later or have lunch that week. I ignore it.

Tuesday around noon, he calls me again. No message.

Wednesday (today) he calls me AGAIN. No message.

I'm confused. The guy waits 7 days to call me (and yes, maybe his mom died, his phone was dropped in the toilet, all the cellular towers in the city exploded at the same time, etc.). Then he leaves two messages and calls me twice after that. Not to mention, he calls me by the wrong name. Something tells me he's not one of the Ones.

Why is it that all the right guys are wrong and all the wrong guys are wrong?

The professor

Professor Lee had a B.S. from Cal Tech, a masters from Stanford, and a PhD from Harvard. Professor Lee could calculate the speed of any subatomic particle of every element in his head and wax philosophical the wonders of the quark and antiquark. Yes, Professor Lee knew a lot. But he didn't know everything.

Professor Lee didn't know that every morning, the girl woke up and murmured a prayer to Whomever Was Up There requesting that Professor Lee fall madly deeply in love with her.

Professor Lee didn't know that the girl applied cherry-red lip gloss before every class.

Professor Lee didn't know that the girl dressed up and dolled herself up before venturing anywhere, whether it be the supermarket or the club, just in case she bumped into him.

Professor Lee was tall and lean with almond shaped eyes, smooth olive skin and a handsome, kind face. He wore black spectacles that always sat precariously at the edge of his nose when he called on students. The girl made sure to participate just enough to convey enthusiasm but not so much to be annoying. He was always so serious and stern with his even voice and reserved hand gestures.

"I wonder what's he's like in bed," the girl said to her friend.

"Ew," the friend said. "What is with your attraction to odd, ugly or weird guys?"

"He's not ugly! He's...eccentric," she said dreamily.

"Whatever."

One of her office hours fantasies went as follows:

[Soft knock on the door]

"Come in."

[Slowly opens the door] "Hi Professor Lee."

"Hello, come sit down."

"You know, Professor Lee, there's something I have to tell you."

"Oh?"

"I...I...I have always been in love with you, from the moment I saw you pull down that periodic table and point to hydrogen with your laser pointer." [Dramatic pause.] "I hope that's not too forward of me to say..."

"No...you see, I know already."

"You know?"

"Yes."

"But how?"

"Because. I'm Professor Lee."

"Oh, of course."

"And I must confess..."

"Yes?"

"I am already madly in love with you. You are everything I could want in a woman."

"I am?"

"Yes...ever since I saw you in the first row in the first day of class with your text book opened to page 1."

"Oh..."

"But this can never happen. I am your professor and you are my student."

"Alas, so true, so true."

"For now, we must resume our lives as if we never knew the truth."

"You mean live lives of lies and abject misery."

"More or less."

"So be it."

[The girl stands up to leave and then pauses.] "Unless..."

"Unless?"

"Unless I temporarily decide drop the class and just jump you now."

[Professor Lee looks at the girl. The girl looks at Professor Lee. He pauses and performs perhaps the most complex calculation in his head.] "Fair enough."

[Door locks.]

--Fantasy ends--Reality begins--

The girl looked at her watch. Ten minutes to three. She opened up her make-up kit and pulled out the cherry red lip gloss.

How paradoxical

Am being obsessive and lazy. Sounds like a paradox, doesn't it? How about another one: the more you try to avoid thinking about something, the more you end up thinking about it (or him). So you might as well relent to the mind and think about it, right? You'd think that revisiting the same subject over and over again in your mind would grow tiresome. Yet there are a variety of factors to manipulate, like the conversations had (or not had), colors of shirts worn, events that may have happened or have yet to happen. The mind can be so monotonous and at the same time absurdly inventive.

Enough with the paradoxes. A little off-switch would be nice.

Inside my head part 2

I keep thinking, 'Okay the next time I'll see him, he'll turn me off, or he'll do something revolting. ' Like maybe eat salad with his fingers. Open his napkin after blowing his nose in it. Sneeze on my drink.

But he doesn't.

Instead he's perfectly charming. Funny. Witty. He's got an adorable smile. And table manners to boot.

God I hate it.

I hate that I have so much fun with him, that I lose track of time when I'm with him, that I feel like I can talk to him about anything, that I pretend we're on a date when we're having lunch or walking down the street together. Most of all, I hate knowing that he can never, ever see me in that way.

So I just saw him now. We were just strolling on the sidewalk in the beautiful weather when my right hand accidentally brushed against his left hand. He literally recoiled, like I was some kind of hideous leper. Then he kept his hand firmly at his side to avoid future contact with me.

Right now it's starting to hurt. I was on the phone with him, listening to him, and then it struck me that I was being delusional. It totally bummed me out.

What's the point of meeting someone you connect with when there's absolutely no hope?

Inside my head

I know he's there, smirking. "Would you mind leaving?" I say.

"No, I don't mind," he says. He doesn't budge.

"So would you?"

"Hm let me think about it, no."

"Please."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because."

I am getting annoyed. "Because?"

"Because I'm here."

"Look," I say, "I can't get any work done unless you leave. And I have a load of work to do."

"Not my problem."

"Actually it is your problem because you're beginning to annoy me."

"You're not annoyed. You like me."

"Whatever."

"That's not a denial."

"Whatever!"

"I win."

"Okay you win. Now get out." He shrugs at me.

I start re-reading the computer screen for the fifteenth time.

"I'm still here," he says.

"No you're not. You're gone," I say.

"If I'm gone, then why am I still here?"

"Because you're annoying."

I concentrate on the screen. I scroll my mouse. I highlight text with my cursor.

"Sixteenth time and counting?" he lilts.

"Shut up."

"I can't help that you think I'm irresistable. I'm actually pretty flattered."

"Shut up."

"How long before you get sick of thinking of me?"

"Shut up."

"You know if the real me had any idea how much you thought of me, I think I'd be a bit freaked out."

"Shut up."

"Fine fine. I'll leave for now."

"Thank you."

"You'll get your 3 minutes of work done, and then I'll be back."

I look at him and sigh. "I know."

What's in a name?

From time to time, I think of names I'd like to name my kids. No I'm not pregnant, it's just one of those things I muse over when I'm standing idly in the supermarket checkout line or waiting for the train to come.

I know I'd like to have 1 boy and 1 girl. I nonetheless have picked out several names for each sex. For some reason, the old school biblical names strike a chord with me. I know I will name at least one son Joseph. And though it's really old school and rare, I really really like the name Isaac. It sounds so masculine and unique, and it also means "laughs" or "he who laughs" in Hebrew. Then I like Jacob. As for girls, I like Rachel and Sarah, which to me sound pure, simple and feminine.

I know I know--I'm not terribly original. If anything, I'm being reactionary. And with all the names and different meanings out there, I have no excuse. Still, a gal can't help liking what she likes.

Stop

I seem to be falling hopelessly in like with this one guy. And it is oh-so-unrequited. It's somewhat depressing because nothing can ever happen between us (for reasons along the lines of him being gay, being a celibate monk, being married, being repulsed by me). I have fun hanging out with him, and the more time I spend with him, the more I like him. So I'm beginning to think I should limit my contact with him. Granted, there is the school of thought that says it's better to maximize one's time with the unrequited like than to deprive oneself. But what's the point in allowing oneself to fall more in like with someone when there is absolutely no hope? Isn't that torturing oneself?

It's such a paradox. I'm happy when I'm with him. And I'm sad when I'm with him.

Waiting for nothing

Though anatomically impossible, a gal can have balls. I may be afraid of roaches. I don't like to touch the subway pole on the train. But sometimes I have random acts of braveness.

I was at a bar with my girlfriend for someone's birthday. I went up to visit the ladies' room. I came back and saw a guy sitting in my spot chatting her up. He was about to get up but I, not wanting to bust their groove, insisted he stay there while I get a drink. I looked at the bar and searched for gaps between idling patrons to hail the bartender to order a drink. There were two visible gaps. One was near a group of guys and girls chatting with each other. The other was near a guy standing by himself, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. From a distance in the dim room, the guy looked semi-cute. I walked toward gap #2.

I stood there. He stood there. He kept reaching across me to tap his cigarette into the ash tray right in front of me. Come on, that's an in, I thought. He didn't say anything. He eventually drew the ash try closer to him and continued being mute. I ordered my drink, waited there and "looked around the room" -- a.k.a. turned my head to check him out up close. He passed the Up Close Test.

I got my drink, paid for it and started to sip on it. Okay you've had a few drinks. Just talk, I thought to myself. I turned to him. "So are you here for the birthday thing?" I said. He looked at me. "Um, no I'm just here to have a beer and chill."

"Oh I see," I said.

"Who's the birthday thing for?"

"That girl"--I pointed--"but I only know her through that girl"--and pointed again.

"I see."

And so we struck up a conversation, asking and answering the trite introductory questions like Are you from the city? What do you do? Where are you from? Do you come to this bar a lot? Seemed like a cool guy.

At the end of the night, there was a new entry in his phone: Yellow Gal.

Now if only he would call me.

Robert

I know a lawyer named Robert. Robert is one of my pseudo-friends--i.e. one of those guys with whom I will be completely cordial and whom I utterly despise. I maintain my pseudo-friendship with him solely because he entertains me. My life, as of late, has been boring, and so I glean amusement from others' horribleness.

Every so often Robert will interview a candidate for a position at his firm. He typically interviews law students looking for their first job or junior associates who are looking to make a lateral move to another large firm. Most lawyers would be annoyed by having to interview people especially when they have a huge deal/case/project/memo/opinion on their plate. Robert, however, is different.

He selects candidates for interviews based on how "hot" they sound.

"How can you tell someone is hot from their resume?" I asked him once.

"Look at their activities and what school they went to," he said.

"For example?" I said.

"For example, girls from schools in the south and the west coast are generally hotter. University of Texas and UCLA have the highest concentration of hotties."

"Uh huh," I said, knowing full well that Robert knew I did not go to a southern or west coast school. "Go on."

"As for activities, drama club ladies are usually hot," he mused, "but it's all a gamble."

"I see."

Robert is on a committee, so not all the candidates selected for interviews will be based on Robert's Criteria of Hotness. Yet upon the receipt of his stack of resumes, he puts a preliminary number on the upper right hand corner of each female candidate's resume, indicating his prediction as to the candidate's Hotness Level.

As I was sitting in his office, Robert pulled out a resume with a "7" on the corner. "University of Arizona," he said, "but she's in a choir. That can be a toss-up."

He pulled out another resume with a "2." "University of Chicago and bowling," he sighed.

Robert then interviews these candidates and bases his recommendation on the accuracy of his prediction of the candidate's Hotness Level. The "2" from University of Chicago would get a stronger recommendation if in fact, she was a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. "This rule can be bent for those in the 9-10 range," he qualified. "There was one girl," he laughed, "who was an idiot. She said her main motivation in becoming a lawyer was making money so she could afford her expensive gym membership."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but she was a 10 so I strongly recommended we hire her."

"Wow. Classy."

"Yep," he said.

I wonder, what would the world be like without all the Roberts to fill it?

Vacancy

I was lying in bed this morning, still slightly groggy from the night before. For an inexplicable reason, I reached with my hand to the other side of the bed and just felt the cool empty bedsheet next to me. This is the life of a single girl, I thought. That being, sleeping on the left side of the bed with a vacancy on the right. For a moment, the observation struck me as somewhat sad.

Yet as I remind myself, this vacancy -- in my bed, in my life -- could easily be filled if I so desired. I could have been married by now to someone I didn't love, had kids, lived in a modest home, and maybe not be deliriously happy, but be minimally content. It would be a satisfactory life. And perhaps I'm being unrealistic in wanting something more.

The night before I was chatting with a rather cute guy at a club. A little scruff on his face. Dimples. And a little odd, which I confess intrigued me more. At the end of the night, I told him I was leaving. He then asked me if I wanted "some company."

Some company.

Of course I always want "some company." But not just any company. I want the real company. The kind that means something.

So I told him I was just going to go home and catch up on sleep. I still gave him my number (is it a red flag that a guy asks a girl if she wants "some company" three hours after meeting her? Nah.). Maybe we'll grab lunch this week. Maybe not. It doesn't really matter as I suspect he is not one of the Ones.

The point is, if I wanted to fill in that vacancy, I could have filled it. And this morning when I woke up and felt the empty space next to me, I know I could have had "some company" right next to me (unless of course he bolted before the crack of dawn). I suppose I want something more extraordinary that just some company, more meaningful than just filling in a vacancy. I suppose I just want something more.

Friday

It was 7:45 AM, and like 99% of the people on this planet, she woke up this morning with a general feeling of bleh. Not quite icky, not quite blah. Just bleh. It clouded the rest of the day, from when she brushed her teeth, to her commute to work, to the entire workday.

The redeeming moment of this day arrived in an email from a certain male friend. He had forwarded her something about some nearby music event and asked her if she wanted to go during their lunch breaks. She of course said yes, and so after shooting a few emails back and forth, they decided to meet up at 11:55 AM and go to the event. Within the first five minutes of arriving, they realized it was pretty lame, and so they decided to just grab lunch. Lunch was pleasant and they chatted a bit. Then they went back to work at 1:10 PM.

She had planned on having an after work drink with this girl but the girl called at 2:05 PM to tell her she couldn’t make it. The after work drink was her only plan for this Friday night. She hung up the phone and turned back to her computer screen, realizing that her Friday night would be a menage a trois with her, her computer, and her work.

Then at 4:30 PM her phone rings. It’s the same certain male friend. Seeing his name light up on her phone momentarily startled her from her feeling of bleh.

She flipped open the phone. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said.

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“Good,” she said.

“Look, I’m looking for a present for someone. Do you have time after work to help me?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Okay cool, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. When and where do you want to meet up?”

“How about 5, on the corner of 53rd and Fifth?”

“Sure,” she said. “See you then.”

“See ya.”

They hung up. Thirty minutes. Thirty more minutes until this strung up version of bleh lapsed and she could meet her certain male friend.

At 5:00 PM, she sees him on the corner, standing patiently with his hands in his pockets. She walks over to him and smiles. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said back.

The two friends went shopping on Fifth Avenue. They went in and out of stores, perused items, talked to store clerks, admired certain things and disregarded others. She peppered him with advice which he gladly accepted. Finally he settled on the thing he needed. The item was purchased, boxed and wrapped.

It was about 7:00 PM and they walked towards the train.

“Thanks so much for helping me with this,” he said smiling.

“Sure, no problem.”

“I owe you a lunch,” he said to her.

“Yeah, you do,” she smiled.

They stood outside the subway entrance. “Have a good weekend,” he said.

“You too. Bye.”

He waved to her and walked away.

There really was no point to this story, except to say that her interaction with this certain male friend was the highlight of her day. That, and the fact that he was married and the something he was buying was a gift for his wife.

The ultimate best comeback ever

is worth little if it is thought of three days after the fact.

Come here often?

Recently a guy came up to me in a bar and uttered this line to me. I thought this line was an urban legend, a joke, a mockery of the real pick-up line. But he wasn't joking.

"No this is my first time here," I responded. Then I felt compelled to ask him the same question, "So do you come here often?" He replied something along the lines of "Yeah once in a while." And that was pretty much the end of that conversation.

I haven't encountered too horrible pick-up lines. This is of course excluding the lewd catcalls of drunken obnoxious men. I think the most effective and unassuming line is a simple "Hi." If a guy just walks up to a gal and says "Hi," there's no ulterior motive or hidden agenda. The purpose of his "Hi" is obvious - to talk to the gal, to initiate conversation. It shouldn't be sheepish or smarmy, but confident and friendly. The girl will inevitably respond "Hi" back. Depending on the girl's interest level, she will either continue to face him and smile, or turn her back to him/walk away from him/go to the restroom. It's all very simple and straightforward.

What happens after that, however, is another story.

The procrastinator

She went to work every day, Sunday through Saturday. It was a welcome escape from her messy apartment, from her unlucky love life, from pending bills and unreturned phone calls. Her work was nonjudgmental. Pure effort and thought with a dash of schmoozing led to the validation she needed. Everything else was uncertain and damning. She knew things needed to be done outside of work. The nagging persisted in the back of her mind. And perhaps in time she would relent. But now she liked sitting in her office amidst her stapled and opened Word documents, sorting through her thoughts and typing into her soft touch keyboard. Life can after all be procrastinated.

Mother's Day

Phone rings.

Mom: "Hello?"
Me: "Hi mom."
Mom: "Oh hello."
Me: "Happy Mother's Day!"
Mom: "Oh thank you..."
Me: "Hope you have a good day today."
Mom: "Hopefully soon you find a man to marry so you can be a mother soon."
Me: [thinking] Um.. Happy Mother's Day!
Mom: [continuing] "Hopefully soon you have baby so you have mother's day."

I can always count on my mom to remind me that: (a) I am not married, and (b) I don't have a baby. It's almost endearing. You gotta love her.

What would we all do without our mothers?

Bailamos

My girlfriend and I went to our first salsa class this week. I was a bit apprehensive, as I suspected the class would be full of women and no men. It turned out to be a blast--there was an even fit of men and women, everyone was our age, and the boys were cute. It was so much fun to dance the steps and the instructor was funny, articulate and enthusiastic. I catch myself practicing my beginner salsa moves on the train, in my apartment, walking down the street. I can't wait until my girlfriend and I go into a salsa club looking like the biggest gringos (my girlfriend is white, and I heard Asians are considered gringos as well), and then bust out our newly minted salsa moves. All will be awed, hot guys will want to dance with us, and the night will end with everyone applauding and cheering.

Okay maybe not, but a gal can dream can't she?

Yuppie idiot

I just paid $3.02 for a tall nonfat Tazo green tea from Starbucks.

Irony

At 5:02 in the morning, a man in my apartment building screams at the top of his lungs, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" effectively waking up the entire building.

Behold the Power of Woman

I was researching an issue when I happened to come upon a case where the judge made the following observation on women:

The literature of all countries in all languages and in all civilizations since the Garden of Eden is replete with the lures, the enticements, the inducements and the temptations used by womankind to lead, control, direct, influence and, indeed, to confound man. Their use has not been either universally malignant or universally benign.

Who knew I harbored so much power to confound men? All this time I thought they were confounding me.

Why orc why?

I confronted my friend as to why he set me up on a blind date with an orc from "Lord of the Rings." He said he thought we'd get along. Then I asked him questions along the lines of: Do you think the guy is genuinely attractive looking? ("On a scale of one to ten, he's a 6.") Do I look like an orc? ("No.") Are we both on differing yet similar levels of orc-ness? ("No, you are definitely more attractive...")

Of course my friend isn't going to tell me I look like an orc, nor is he going to tell me that I exceed my blind date's orc-ness. I think I made my friend feel really bad because then he began sputtering that I was "hot" and he wanted to "show [me] off." It didn't make any sense and so made me suspect that my friend does in fact think I'm an orc. Maybe I should change my blog title to Yellow Orc.

My etymological conclusion

I used to think it was called "blind date" because the two blindly go on the date or go on the date having no idea what the other person looks like, i.e., as if they were blind.

I now suspect two other reasons for it being called "blind date": (1) After seeing your date, you wish you were blind, and (2) After seeing your date, you go blind.

A tiny headline

For some reason, this tiny headline on the New York Times made me very sad:

Last American Titanic Survivor Dies at 99

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 7, 2006
Filed at 1:54 p.m. ET

BOSTON (AP) -- Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died, a funeral home said Sunday. She was 99.

Asplund, who was just 5 years old, lost her father and three brothers -- including a fraternal twin -- when the ''practically unsinkable'' ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

She died Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, said Ronald E. Johnson, vice president of the Nordgren Memorial Chapel in Worcester, Mass.

Asplund's mother and another brother, Felix, who was 3, also survived the Titanic sinking in the early morning of April 15, 1912.

Random Saturday night

A friend and I had a drink last night and then stopped by a party at a bar. The scene at the party encapsulated my dating experience overall: All the guys either were gay or had girlfriends.

One of the guys I met was half Asian and half white. We were chatting, all flirty, leaning into each other, giggling, etc. Then my friend taps on my shoulder and whispers to me, "Yo, he has a girlfriend, she's right behind him, and he doesn't date Asian women."

Doesn't date Asian women? The Halfie was just telling me what Asian ethnicities he's dated before. It never occurred to me that a half Asian half white guy could have an actual distaste towards Asian women. And it threw me off that he was flirty with me (or letting me be flirty with him). I suppose if there are Asians who only date white people, and white people who only date white people, then it shouldn't surprise me that there are half half-people who only date their one half.

At any rate, when I bumped into him later that night and started chatting with him, his tall blonde girlfriend came scampering along, wrapped her arm neatly around his waist, leaned her head on his shoulder and smiled at me. I smiled back at her, introduced myself to her and shook her hand. (Aren't I the politest girl? At least as polite a girl can be after unknowingly flirting with a spoken-for guy.)

My friend and I left before midnight, seeing the utter lack of prospects. I ended the night by eating an entire small pizza (incidentally, a great way to stave off a hangover).

All in all, a random Saturday night.

Epiphany

When a friend tells you, "I'm going to set you up with someone who is right for you," the presumption is that the someone is comparable in intelligence, personality, and attractiveness. When you meet this someone and see that he is less than attractive, a few theories come to mind:

1) Your friend thinks you're unattractive and so sets you up with a similarly unattractive person.
2) You overestimated your attractiveness and are in fact unattractive. Your friend then sets you up with a similarly unattractive person.
3) Your friend thinks the unattractive person is in fact attractive, so in your friend's mind, the friend has set you up with a similarly attractive person.
4) Your friend knows that the person is less than attractive, but that person's personality, sophistication, and success will more than compensate for his appearance.

I will be the first to admit that to be in relationship with someone, I have to be able to at least entertain the mere possibility of being able to get it on with the guy. If the prospect of being physical with someone sickens me because he resembles an orc from "Lord of the Rings," then chances are we will not succeed as a couple.

Hmm. Maybe I've resembled an orc this whole time and never knew it. In which case, I'd have to thank my friend for leading me to this epiphany.

Lame Asian Moment

Six Asians are squished in a Lexus. The radio is on. "A Little Respect" by Erasure comes on. Six Asians freak out, turn up the radio to maximum volume, open the windows and sun roof, and drive through the city.

White passerby stare into car, confused by Six Asians' obsession with 90's new wave music.

Six Asians decide to turn down the music and close the windows. Six Asians suddenly feel lame.

Biz

I've been busy with work. You know work is keeping you busy when:

1) you are working on a Friday night en Cinco De Mayo,
2) you have to work the following Saturday and Sunday, and
3) you calculate the number of alcoholic drinks you can consume on Friday night and Saturday night based on your having to work on the following Saturday and Sunday.

I'm not complaining though. At least the work itself is interesting. All I know is there's going to be a margarita tonight with my name on it.

Another yellow gal's rants

I finally found someone interested in seeing Margaret Cho with me. The Naysayer tentatively agreed to cross various state lines to watch the show. Recently I saw Ms. Cho's DVD, "Assassin" which was filmed in D.C. It's interesting--I don't agree with everything she says, but she is so charismatic that I feel like I want to. Before watching the DVD, I considered myself a liberal moderate / moderate liberal. But dang, that woman is LIB-bral. A couple things she said:

o Bush would be Hitler...if he applied himself.
Disagree. Bush is not trying to annihilate an entire population of people via mass executions and concentration camps. I mentioned this to the Naysayer (who is Jewish) and surprisingly, he didn't entirely disagree with Ms. Cho. The N said that while Bush may not be advocating genocide, his political tactics in suppressing those who disagree with him, violating civil rights, and hating Muslims (to name a few) are akin to Hitler's. Bold statement.

o People who enjoy the show "Will and Grace" but are against gay marriage are lame/stupid/hypocritical. She said you can't pick and choose what you enjoy out of gay culture and leave the burden of their discrimination to them.
I never thought of this, but she has a point. It is akin to the 50s, when white people, adoring the black music, the rock 'n roll, the jazz, would say "I love your music, but can you not drink from my water fountain? Thanks. Now let's do the twist!"

Those were a couple observations I made. Okay sorry to get all political. I try not to get too political in my blog b/c I feel like I know little to nothing about politics. All right, back to banal musings about boys, about which I know even less.

Back in the game (sort of)

I went to a few professional events last week and made new friendly acquaintances. After one event, a bunch of us went out to shoot pool. Interestingly, it was four married guys and four single girls. That show I habitually quote from, "Sex & the City," once said that married men are the city's untapped resource of eligible bachelors. Befriend the married men, meet their single friends. I relayed this idea to the other girls and we began asking the guys if they had any cool single friends. My pool partner said he'd think about it, which I interpreted as, "Yeah yeah okay, now stop nagging me, woman."

Much to my surprise, my pool partner called me on Friday asking me if I wanted to go on a blind date with a "really cool" guy. At first I was hesitant. First, I have never been on a blind date. Second, I just met my pool parnter a few days ago. Now he was setting me up with a guy? But I'm open-minded. And if I'm willing to try dating guys from online or bars, I might as well try a blind date.

Blind Date Guy called me last night and we ended up talking for an hour. It was a pleasant conversation, nothing out of this world. We're meeting on Saturday for lunch. I may have been too presumptive, but to relieve any pressure, I blabbed something like "Never having been on a blind date, I know that the worst thing that could happen is we meet up and just don't click on that level. But it never hurts to meet new people." He agreed.

Interesting thing is, Blind Date Guy (BDG) is not only Asian, but of the same ethnicity. I haven't dated, let alone gone on a date with, a guy of my ethnicity since like 1998. I guess lately I've been dating white guys (with the exception of Online Guys # 3 (half white, half Colombian) & 4 (Chinese)). BDG came to the U.S. when he was in elementary school, and from speaking with him on the phone, I could discern a very slight shading of his ethnic accent. He is fluent in his native tongue while I am so not. So perhaps it is no surprise that I felt so...white speaking to him. Nonetheless, BDG described himself as a "twinkie," while I am a "banana." (Apparently, there is a difference between a twinkie and a banana, but that's another blog entry.)

Whenever a relationship fails, I always wonder, "What am I doing wrong?" I always try to find patterns in my dating style so I can learn from my mistakes. After ending things with the Guy, I realized that I hadn't dated a guy of my ethnicity in a while and began wondering what it would be like dating someone with the same cultural background, same Asian American experiences, etc.

Then my married pool friend comes through.

So strange how life works. We'll see what happens I suppose.