So I’m a bit confused. You know how in movies, people always seem to meet their soul mates in nightclubs and they dance and kiss the night away until they go home together? I don’t know how this scenario is supposed to play out in real life, but I kind of get the impression that under strobe lighting and after some tequila, any guy can be the perfect guy if you want him to be.
I don’t usually like to kiss and tell (Wait, who am I kidding? It’s just the kind of thing I like to document and share on at least 12 different social-networking sites) but the first and only time I follow someone I meet at a nightclub home, is actually a story worth oversharing.
My soul mate is supposed to be a French heartthrob, who is at least five years older than me, has dirty blonde curls, and works in finance as a trader. I think. I dunno, really. I hear they do a lot of coke and tend to womanize. The guy I go home with is the total opposite – he’s an American kid with spiky blonde hair, one year my junior. We watch Captain America and order in hotcakes from McDonald’s. Then he lets me play with his rabbit. And I mean an actual rabbit. Not like, code word for penis, or something. In fact, the rabbit actually belongs to his girlfriend. He’s just helping her feed it over the weekend while she’s in Thailand.
The only thing that I had to do that I didn’t really want to do that night, was eat hotcakes from McDonald’s. I’ve heard stories of girls being forced to eat much more. Just saying…
Now, this could have very well been one of those stories that ends with me being dead. I don’t know if it’s obvious enough to the naked eye yet, but there’s something in my DNA that makes me act on impulse without much thought and take terribly miscalculated risks. Over and over again.
On a sourcing trip to Hong Kong that year, I ask a stranger for directions. Of course, he knows the shortest way possible to get me to my destination and takes me through several quiet back alleys that are the perfect place to kidnap and harvest someone’s organs.
Later, I am severely handicapped in Guangzhou because I can’t understand or speak a word of mandarin. But by sheer luck, I hop onto the correct train. And by way of the counting rhyme ‘Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe’, I alight at the correct station.
And even later, I visit Istanbul and hang out with our driver after the tour is over. He takes me to a romantic lookout point on a hilltop. We’re in Europe, but we can see Asia – it’s magnificent. In the car ride back to my hotel, he asks if he can kiss me. I say “no” really awkwardly and really afraid to offend him. All the buildings look the same, and all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that he’s still driving me back to my hotel.
Throwback to 2010, I’m in Devon (UK) visiting my brother-in-law’s family. After a long night at the pub with his nieces who are around the same age as I am, they put me in a cab and send me on my way back to my hotel. I realize that I need to pee, so I stop the cabdriver and return to the pub to use the W.C. As I’m walking past the bar towards the exit, a fireman grabs my arm and starts a conversation. How does anyone say no to a fireman? The fireman, his skinhead friend and I end up walking down to the river and we talk about Asian food for a couple of hours.
I seem to really get off putting myself in situations where I have a 97% chance of being abducted/drugged/raped/killed. Is it because I don’t value my life? Could I be addicted to the drama? Am I just very naïve? I’m really hesitant to continue from here, because I don’t want to jinx it. Despite the odds being what they are, and where others have suffered third-degree burns, I’ve only ever walked out of fires unscathed with a couple of anecdotes in hand.
I pray to God to thank him for watching over me and I send roses to Lady Luck for smiling down on me. But to a large extent, I believe that we’re responsible for what manifests in our own lives because we attract who and what we are and we attract by vibrations.
Ok. I’m going to sound a bit loony, but there’s a quote by Thomas Dreier that goes “The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The world is what you are.”
Bryan and I start dating.
Our personalities are polar opposites. He is the kindest person I know, and ‘Justine’ seems synonymous with ‘Bitch From Hell’ by most people’s definition. He is slow to anger, sometimes even retarded – he seldom loses his temper with anyone or in any situation. At the other end of the spectrum, I am super quick to jump to assumptions and draw wildly inaccurate conclusions, busting his balls for no good reason. (Remember the time we watched a movie where the guy cheats on his wife and I got angry at you? LOL. And remember the time your friend brought your ex-girlfriend, who wasn’t actually your ex-girlfriend, to your birthday party unannounced and I got angry at you? #memories. And remember the time when I was just tired and hungry… And I got angry at you? Heeheehee.) He is always rational and has some sort of logical thought process behind every decision he makes, while I thrive in an ecosystem devoid of reason, powered by chocolate and impulse, constantly shooting myself in the foot and falling flat on my face.
Sometimes, two people come together, and it is just Not Wrong. (Eg: the collaboration between Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake. #HolyGrail) Aside from our clashing personalities working strangely in our favor, we are super comfortable with each other, aren’t afraid of looking stupid in front of each other, share the same values, have similar interests, are always eager to rip each other’s clothes off, but most importantly, we make each other laugh in a way no one else can.
And here’s the deal:
Life is hard. Life is stupid. Life is devastating. Shit happens. (Sometimes shit happens in your pants when you fart while walking to the bus stop. And sometimes pee can also happen. In bed when you’re too excited to run to the toilet.) Life is going to throw you more than a few curveballs that will leave you naked and vulnerable, and the only way to get through them is to laugh. First by yourself and then with someone else. I promise you it is the only thing that will keep you sane, even if you look crazy laughing. I’ve laughed my way through teeth extractions, betrayal, the depression and isolation of body image anxiety, the heartbreak of a comatose granddad, the humiliation of walking around with a period stain on white jeans, the mediocrity of my exam scores, a ton of other first world problems. You name it, I’ve LOL-ed at it. Usually after I’ve bawled my eyes out first. (I’ll admit it I’m a crybaby.) But what’s the alternative? How else do you cope?
I graduate from my diploma course. I intern with a local designer. I realize it’s not for me. I practice yoga with my mom everyday while I contemplate my next move.
