Pursuing a girl in dating is a tricky business. Through my
experiences, I realize a lot of it has to do with timing. Approach a girl to
soon with a romantic interest and she’ll get scared and run away, approach a
girl too late and you’ll be stuck in the “just friends” zone. For some guys,
the pursuit is a very exciting and natural process that comes quite easily. I
am always amazed at the guys who succeed in dating. As for me, dating comes as
natural as my friend Simeon’s incompetence at snowboarding. Yes, I’ll take the
instructional courses and the books, but any attempts at it results in a
seriously humiliating, self-defeatus, can’t do attitude. Any time I think I’ve
come coasting down the hill of success a shaky knee or accelerated speed in the
pursuit shakes my nerves for a sudden face plant in the snow of defeat.
We’ve all been there. The excitement of realizing you’re
attracted to a cute girl or realizing their personality matches yours. Before
you know it, you’re thinking about the girl quite often. The initial part of
this pursuit transforms guys into the biggest douches. Willing to give up
basketball with your boys to watch Oprah with cutie patootie. Spending hundreds
of dollars a month for lunch on a girl who is probably eating for free anyways
with other boys. Studying exclusively with a girl at God forsaken hours when
you know you don’t even study at all. Going to a certain social gathering or
area simply to see if the girl is there. “O
I didn’t know you’d be here. Hi, I’ve been here waiting for several hours but
I’ll pretend I just got here and randomly bumped into you.” Taking the time
to obsess in detail about what would be the most sweet-sensitive gift to give on
her birthday. Searching through facebook and wondering if we should contact
them through AIM, e-mail, text, phone? Too many options nowadays. Driving
through hell and high water just to see you. Yes it is ridiculous. You girls
have no idea how foolish you make us look.
Unfortunately, this seems like the only way. To show the
girl yes, we’re committed and we’re trying. But at the same time, all this
could be for naught because she’s already interested in someone else. See,
girls love attention. So she’ll let you act like a fool because it’s just too
good to pass up. So what now? The guy who put himself out there has to start
all over and hopefully have enough dignity left to try again. Battle another
day. Rejection is probably one of the most humbling things a man can put himself through. But then again, it's always funny to look back at it and share stories about rejection.
For me, I’ve been there and actually took the conservative
approach, possibly too conservative. In those books, I bought into the whole
God’s timing, patience, courtship, waiting on feelings. Guess what? I am in the
“friends zone.” Not just friend, singular. FriendS, plural. Maybe it’s my fault
too, since I was always unsure about what my feelings really meant. I was the
guy that pondered deeply and intensely about my potential romantic
relationships, but at the same time always trying to dismiss it as if it wasn’t
a big deal. I mean if God wants it to happen it’ll happen right? I’ll just
remain friends for now and build on this “friendship” foundation. And while I
build this friendship, some other jerk face casanova swoops down and
aggressively takes the girl. Well, like I said before. It’s all about timing.
Waiting too long will be a straight express to a statement like “Oh him?
Johnny?! We’re JUST FRIENDS.” This is no man’s land. Meaning no man wants to be
there.
There’s also the more aggressive approach, where the initial
meeting with a girl starts out with some flirting action. For some reason, I’ve
left all my flirting capabilities in high school. Everything about it just
seems so shady and cheesy to be honest. You know the part, where the guy likes
to tease the girl and call them a dork. Calling out the girl on some flaws she
has, but really loving that about her. Some friendly shoving or hitting. Joking
about pretty she is with girl trying to be modest. When I see that, I want to
hit them both.
So I really don’t know how to flirt anymore nor am I looking
to become just friends. I’ve also seem to lost a bit of patience with how I approach
this subject because every attempt in the past has failed. Quite the
predicament.
Of course, I’m just jibba jabbering again with a post that
really has no statement of purpose or enlightenment. I am simply a "Texas
post-modern Christian, Asian American activist, college-educated,
single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it, undersexed, buys any magazine that
say “relationship secrets”, and every 2 years I take up the guitar only to fail
in it” guy still trying to find my way in dating.
Ok, how can you NOT love the office even more after this?
I feel with every episode i watch, i get lost more and more into their fantasy. Just the way these actors intertwine with each other and actually like being around each other. It's kind of like the Houston Rockets.
I also want to play the banjo now...still working on the guitar though (i know G, D Am, D!) : )
I am not an adventurer, philosopher, nor am I even qualified
enough to call myself a pseudo-intellectual. But I do love reflecting my
current experiences to later reminisce and laugh in hind-sight how foolish I
was.
Nearing my first full year of post-undergrad life has been a
pilgrimage of sorts into this wilderness of deconstruction and development into
another soul. I can’t say I’ve made any sort of enlightenment or explicit
truths in everyday living, but I find that life is exciting and pleasurable
with too much of the unknown still yet journeyed.
Other than this totally unique experience of working at HSP,
which I will not expound upon because it’s shop talk, I will delve into
the other aspects of my so-called life. For one, it’s been daunting and
refreshing to sit in church alone with the thought absolutely no one knows who you
are. The search for challenging and innovative theology has been an immense
hunger of mine ever since I saw the transparent flaws of the modern church.
For most of my Christian life, the Gospel on paper was
actually relatively easy to sell, “God, sin, Christ, faith.” This is actually a
very individualistic gospel, because it focuses on our personal relationship in
getting right with God. At the same time, it’s also a very consumeristic
presentation. But I like many other Christians; this is a defeater’s belief,
because if the truth doesn’t work for the person anymore, God can’t possibly
exist. That is why it is difficult to see anyone really changed for God. The
Christian community if anything, is the harshest critic on this. One slip-up,
one mistake, one night of debauchery or even one missed prayer meeting, and
you’re not holy enough. We are easily duped into being justified by people’s
approval of us.
I’ve also had the chance to sojourn into one those more
post-liberal, emerging type churches where the focus is more on “creation,
fall, redemption.” This has a more corporate appeal to people in joining the
“Kingdom,” the community, the coffee shop, poetry nights, etc. I mean hey we’re
all sinners and beggars here, let’s just make the best of it, be merry, and do
stuff together. At the same time, I can easily walk out of those services
without any sorrow or a longing to seek for constant redemption and grace.
Instead, I’m wondering if I should buy fair trade coffee, tutor these kids from
Nigeria,
or as one of these preachers told me during Christmas “write a big fat check.”
My resource-lacking friend Favio, in this mostly affluent white congregation,
along with the rest of the lower socio-economic part of the audience could
hardly carry out this challenge.
Maybe I’m being too harsh on the church, so I’ll leave this
topic and move on to singleness.
Yes I’m very grateful for this life, but I’ll admit, some of
my days are filled with loneliness and the feeling of being stuck in the
doldrums. For the most part I’ve been learning to relive my independence. Unfortunately,
as a critical thinker of human relationships, I can’t help but seek my
happiness through human relationships. Right now there is something troubling to
being caught in the middle, between how footloose I want to be and how
active I should be in looking for that “significant other.”
It’s actually a bit awkward to be a bachelor when most of
your closest guy friends are in deep committed relationships. Don’t get me
wrong, I like their girlfriends/wife…most of them (haha jk), but sometimes, I
can’t help but feel these guys will eventually be too far involved in this
other stage of their life that I can’t possibly be a part of. I mean wouldn’t
it be weird if you knew your parents had this really close single friend that
is part of their everyday life. As a son of that nuclear family, I’d be like
who is this loser? At the same time, I’ve been spending time with a lot of
sausa…I mean guys still in college or post-undergrad single life, and taking a
glimpse at their current stage feels like a step back for me.
So to combat this, I’ve been taking a more exuberant
approach in living. Embracing anything and everyone coming into my life. Being
open to possibilities. Taking an interest in the arts, nature, travels, literature,
and guitar. I’m no Chris McCandless, so no money does put a restriction on what
I want to experience. But I’ve been conditioning myself to be more physically
active, educated in bi-partisan issues, seek new ways to fathom my God, and
learn how to be more “flirty” and at the same time feel like a bumbling fool. Yes, on advice of a friend, i went online and searched for "first date" conversations. I even went to Borders and looked up those ridiculous "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" dating series. I am that far removed in how "normal" dating works.
In honor of the 2008 playoffs, student's finishing up with their finals, your co-workers being annoying, or just plain going through a rough patch in life. Here's a little quote to get you motivated and still truckin
I've been particularly fond of languages and certain dialects recently. More so because it's funny to try and speak it with the unique accents. Taiwanese is one of them.
For those of you that don't know this beautiful peice at the bottom, it's actually a really old Taiwanese folk song written in 1933. Here's an attempt at this rendition.
F.Y.I. For any of you couples getting married soon, I also do weddings. I can be the wedding singer at english, chinese, and possibly even spanish weddings.
