Sunday Kind Of Love

Wives saying goodbye to their loved ones in the Navy, 1963. The reality of love and marriage continues to ruin my life.

When it comes to matters of the heart, it seems that I’m not just old-fashioned. Apparently, I’m very nearly prehistoric. I’ve always depended on my parents’ enduring marriage as the barometer of true love. On one hand, I feel extremely blessed to have such a solid example of love and marriage existing under the same roof as myself to aspire after. But as I venture further out into the wilderness, the fog is beginning to lift. And it is scary, you guys.

According to data published in 2011, the average length of an American marriage is 8.8 years and more than 5,000 couples were getting divorced each day in China that same year. Professor David Popenoe of Rutgers University mentions in an article that some 40% of American children are living apart from their biological fathers, and majority of these children aren’t in the habit of seeing their fathers regularly or often, if at all. Worse still, a third of children are now born out-of-wedlock, many of who grow up without ever knowing their fathers.

It’s become painstakingly clear to me, marrying your childhood sweetheart at a young age and staying by each other’s side even after 40 years, is not a common occurrence in the real world even if I may be coming home to it every single day. I repeat; it’s a complete fluke. Back then, if you found someone you could stand who could stand you, you’d hold on to him or her for dear life because meeting someone new wasn’t so easy.

Today, we’re just a swipe, like, retweet or click away from someone better because any social media app or website can be used as Tinder/OkCupid if you’re good looking. It’s distressing how similar the Internet algorithms for ordering mini skirts on ASOS and finding a life partner are. By trying to emulate my parents’ relationship all these years, I’ve basically set myself up for failure and condemned myself to envisioning life as a hopeless romantic.

Mind you, it isn’t just the concept of love that this wonderful bubble I’ve been living in has sugarcoated – it’s the concept of life. Allegedly, dresses aren’t just pressed, foie gras at brunch isn’t just served, and gallivanting around Europe for several months doesn’t just happen. How far removed from reality have I been all this while? That deserves an essay all to itself.

Dating is just trial and error after all, isn’t it? We actively seek out people we’re interested in, we try these people out for a bit and see how they fit into our lives, we learn about ourselves and grow from the relationship, we bounce once we’ve had enough or discovered it’s not for us, and then we start over again and slowly figure out what it is we do and do not want. This operation does get tiring and disheartening at times, but I’ve found that by just appreciating the honesty and simply moving on, we can avoid becoming blasé. As the Japanese proverb goes, "fall down seven times, stand up eight."

Bottoms Up, It's A Wrap

Life can’t be all Taylor Swift and rainbow sprinkle cupcakes. Mama said there’ll be days like this, there’ll be days like this mama said.

It takes some balls to initiate the “What Are We” conversation, because it’s become the make or break factor of all modern relationships. One wrong word, and the sorta-kinda-illa-defineda-relationship could be done for. It’s always easier to evade the necessary questions and stick to the status quo, than to probe and be faced with the possibility that the person you’re seeing – or worse, sleeping with – is just not that into you.

On top of that, our nerve to stand up for ourselves, our ability to exercise protectionism over our own interests, and our chutzpah in demanding respect from others for our limits and wishes are often confused with aggression and delirium. When in reality, all it speaks to is confidence and, quite critically, will help ensure that we aren’t being pathetically needy in a bid to get people to like us. Not having firm boundaries and not knowing when or how to put our foot down only leaves us vulnerable to passive-aggressive manipulation and at the mercy of emotionally abusive scumbags.

Admittedly, popping the question when I did is comparable to a premature ejaculation. It’s not usually advisable to grab a guy by his collar, shake him a few times and then stare into his eyes saying, “Listen, homie, do you mean business or am I just wasting my time here?” But given my manic disposition and how we’d already kind of jumped the gun by jumping into bed before we'd even clocked 12 hours of rendezvousing, he should’ve seen it coming.

Apart from saying “I told you so,” after I’d recounted the unfortunate episode to Maz, who has more recently taken on the role as my masculine voice of reason, he brought up an interesting analogy that struck a chord with me. “You’re like a really good Moscato, that people would enjoy if you’d just give them the chance to sip slowly. But you’re also the waitress serving it, and you’re just shouting at these people to ‘Chug! Chug! Chug!’”

I’ve more or less made peace with the fact that I’m a really, really, really, really, really, really intense person. Do I see this as an area that should be improved upon? Yes, definitely, and also, no. Of course not, are you kidding me??

I’ve been around the block with enough people to know that anyone can and will want to sip on really good Moscato, should the opportunity arise, but not many can and will want to chug it. It’s times like these that I don’t make a big effort to hold back on the crazies, because it’s only through a protracted and often agonizing process of tests and feats of physical and mental strength that we’re able to discern between the sippers and chuggers. To reiterate my point with the colloquial expression that I taught you some days back, Sean, “bo ta bo lam pa, my dear.”

In light of my latest misadventures in lust and love, I’m amending my dating guidelines in two life-changing ways. Effective immediately is a new strategy to help me take on casual sexual relationships with a bit more poise and serenity, which involves me gluing my legs together. I haven’t thought about how I’m going to get around, but I’ll improvise along the way. This would help me preserve some levels of sanity and dignity while falling head over heels, allow me to get to know the person I’m seeing, and – most importantly – allow the person I’m seeing to get to know me in a much less terrifying way.

In addition to that, I’ve revised my cut-off deadline. If my Moscato-chugging pal simply won’t call it after eight weeks, then I’m out of there. My rationalization being if someone doesn’t feel strongly enough about me after a couple of months, then he’s never going to feel strongly enough about me to make any of my investments worthwhile. That’s my line, my boundary, the one I will not let others cross or drag me over. I feel like I'm really putting my neck on the line here, you guys – it used to be four days, would you believe it?

There’s always the chance that I may be wrong – that’ll be a real shocker. Maybe eight weeks is too early to throw in the towel. Maybe I’m going to miss out on throngs of brilliant but slightly indecisive men who need longer than a couple of months to contemplate if they want to be in a relationship. Maybe I’m being old-fashioned and unrealistic by wanting someone who’s actually interested enough to want to chase me, who is just as eager as I am to lock it down, who doesn’t need to be brainwashed into the bloody thing.

“It’s not like it won’t go anywhere, I just haven’t thought about it,” he said. “I’m about to go for a team dinner. To be continued.”

I laughed hysterically to myself, as I always do in the face of danger. “Looks like Mama’s still got it!”

Or not. Sean never texted me again.

Good Chat, Mate

The sequel: How to lose a guy in less than 10 days (2014)

Real talk: there are two things a woman can say that will ingrain ball-shrinking horror in every unwed man’s heart. The first is “I’m pregnant.” The second is “Where do you see this relationship going?”

How long do we have to date someone before we are allowed to drop these bombs on them? I think it’s clear-cut for pregnancy. Anytime between seeing the double pink lines on your pee stick and the due/abortion date seems pretty appropriate. Anytime outside of that window, you’d just be a sick liar.

But when it comes to dating, even the experts (don’t ask who, I don’t believe in using real names here) have varying opinions, citing time frames that start anywhere from after the first time you sleep together to after you have gone on something like eight dates to six months into the ‘relationship’. One can only presume that the true answer is probably: after you have binged on fudge for nine consecutive nights and can no longer bear not knowing where you stand in the liaison anymore.

And there we were, fretting about just finding a potential suitor. Well, congratulations on your match and welcome to dating purgatory – make yourself at home! This is where the real fun actually begins because your prospect isn’t super keen, yet isn’t entirely disinterested either. Often, there’s still visible enthusiasm, but not nearly sufficient to pass off as conclusive evidence for anything.

Most people claim to know within the first three seconds if they would fuck someone or not, according to a bunch of psychologists at UPenn. (Who are these people?? Did the study only sample 13 year old males?) But deciding whether to be in a relationship with someone, to firmly invest in making a purchase instead of just window-shopping, now that can take, umm… Forever.

I’ve a knack for looking for love in all the wrong and very hopeless places – mainly dingy bars and Tinder – I do it for the story, really. Even though Rihanna released a super catchy single about it back in 2011, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for ten weeks, if you pay attention to the lyrics, all she has to sing about this predicament is some “yellow diamonds in the light” and then repeats the phrase “we found love in a hopeless place” only about 350 times. And if you actually play the song backwards, you’d hear her singing, “don’t do it, don’t do it.”

I find the commercial success of this song a bit misleading. Finding love in a hopeless place is far from ideal, gurrl. What we’re more likely to find are one-night-stands and friends with benefits. And – speaking from experience – what we’re even more likely to do is expect unrealistic things from perfect strangers. Most of these people aren’t looking for relationships. Plot twist: some of them may already be involved in one. Use these people as bodies, and then leave it at that because that is all it is.

“What do you want from this?” I blurted (over text) without warning one day, emboldened by my excruciating need to manage my expectations about bungee chord possibilities in the distant future. At this point, I’d like to highlight that there is indeed a difference between what I asked and the navigational enquiry pertaining to relationships that we'd discussed.

“Honest answer: I don’t want anything out of this. I don’t even think about it. We’ve seen each other like, 3 times. I just like seeing you,” was the response I got after some nudging. Earth to Sean, we’ve seen each other like, 4 times. Not that I was counting. Expert tip: responding to rejection with violence is never the answer and my research has shown that firing gunshots by way of texting “pew pew pew” is not particularly helpful in such situations.