a description of the amazing and exciting adventures i have here in baltimore--- and other lies.

 
At one point, I had this ridiculous fantasy that I could try to learn Chinese by first learning a few key words. One hundred of them, to be exact, because by learning the most common of words, I could build a basis of the rest of the language.
Of all the people I thought would help me with this, R. was the last person many would ordinarily think, because most folks believed him to be particularly self-centered (which I donot believe to be true, myself ), but he voluntarily introduced me to a person he thought would help me out with my endeavor, and set me up simotaneously.

My instructor in this venture was a wonderful lassie who R. knew because he and she were teaching assistants for the same class. He knew of my desire to learn Chinese, and told me to call L, and have her help me out. She did her best, but, as she has no real experience or love of teaching language, our sessions were short, and, while informative, I thought, not productive at all in the long run. All these meetings did were to make me like her as a person. At the time, my head was at learning Chinese, not meeting anyone. Still, she was a pretty girl, and even for me that makes a difference; so, when she told me she had to study for her comprehensive exams, and could not help me anymore, I understood, even though I was going to be left without an instructor.

As we know, my interests have shifted a little eastwards even of that, but I still would think of L and how she was doing in her life. I went out and bought her a copy of a book I thought she would like to read: "The Founding Brothers" by Joseph Ellis. It lay fallow on my shelf (hell, still does) because as I was about to give it to her as a combination thank you for helping me---if even in a cursory way--- and congratulations for passing your comps, she trips off to New York to be a speech-writer at the UN for an internship job in November of 2004.

I heard her say it would be for two months, but by the first week of February had not heard from her at all. Not even one lousy email. So, I emailed her, and asked if she were still alive. And, for weeks, heard nothing; although, at the time I thought this nothing strange.

Two weeks later, I get a response. "Hi, how are you, do you want to go food shopping with me?"
---sure, why not?
"How about we cook Italian at my apartment?"

You better believe I said yes.

So, we cooked; I thought we had a fine time, drank some good Chianti; and she drove me home. I gave her a kiss. A nice, sloppy one, albeit on the cheek. We ate the next week too. Now, both times we met were punctuated by flirty emails, and nice words.
I had the impression that she was hot for more, but, hey, every time I have made a fast move in the past, it has backfired on me. I kept it cool. All my female friends said that I was doing the right thing all the time I was doing it: Asian and European alike. My instinct was to make a move, to jump on her, but, oh, no, the conservative gentleman in me said, "don't push it, you will lose."

And, so, I treat her respectfully, and she friends me anyway. I see her intermittently in the next few weeks; email her a lot, but still, when I say to her I would like to see more of her, she says she would be more comfortable if we were just friends.

There must be a lot going on in her head. I was angry at myself for not jumping her, when I had the instinct that she would have liked it. I could have had sex, I think, with precisely my fetish: a gorgeous Chinese girl. Instead, I get nothing. But, maybe I eluded yet another emotional minefield? She dumped me, and I felt bad for a week, and then made a promise to myself to get back on the horse, and not beat myself up again and again, which I would have done even six months ago.

However, who is the girl I can bounce back with? Where is she? It was hard enough to find someone to begin with.

Going to Japan is not the answer to my relationship woes. A lot of people have said to me, "oh, when you go to Japan, you will have so many girlfriends!"
I disagree, because I think that every country has the same proportion of fuck-ups to good people, and the latter are seriously in the minority. You cannot run away from yourself, you can only leave your surroundings. I am not someone who goes around and looks looks looks for a girlfriend. I would be nice to go out with a nice person every once in a while, but I get uncomfortable with being with someone for longer than a day or so. How do married people do it?

So I get dropped by a person who herself is super scared of her own feelings anyway, so what? I am not dead.

Quite the contrary. Terribly alive. Terribly alive.
posted by gregorio at 10:40 PM