Revelations from my first online date

I'll start from the top. I'm an online dating skeptic. But I needed a distraction from the current state of my life and to put myself "out there" more. But this experience with online dating was more than enough to remind me that Prince Charming doesn't do online dating.


After much debate (and persuasion from my friends), I very hesitantly agreed to meet someone. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did it because I realized that it wasn't for me. But I realized a lot more as I sat for two hours in a local cider brewery last Friday night.

This is what I felt went wrong at the meet-up that can be applicable to other online daters.

What did he do wrong?

1. Don't be late.
   Especially if you are the one who proposed the idea of meeting, don't be late when the other person offers to meet you. There's a fine line between being moderately late and really late. Forty minutes is really late.
2. You shouldn't lie about your height.
   I'm pretty sure he listed himself as being the same height as my brother, who is taller than me. When I got up to introduce myself to this guy, I noticed I didn't have to look up very far to meet his eyes.
3. Play a little hard to get, just for the heck of it.
   Early on, I was not impressed by this person because of his frequent and rapid responses. There was no "thrill of the chase" flavor. I never wondered if this person would respond or when he would. He just did, promptly.
4. Being boastful about oneself is unattractive.
   Let the girl compliment you on your achievements or mention how impressive your background is. You can fish for compliments because who doesn't love flattery? However, it is not necessary to put yourself mildly above your colleagues or tell me about how all your superiors are so impressed by you.
5. Limit your pride in your hometown/state/country.
   Same goes for this one. Let the other person ask about the place of your origin, if she's interested. There really isn't a need to try to list every "claim to fame" person from your small town -- especially if I lost you at the first two.
6. If you're meeting an ethnically or culturally diverse person, there's no need to try to "relate".
   You can tell me you went through a "phase" when you read lots of books on North Korea. But don't ask me how it is there or what ancestry of mine potentially remains there because I don't know. Moreover, you definitely don't have to tell me your mom adores the another Asian population in your small town to hint that I don't have to worry about any potential problems with discrimination in this nonexistent relationship.
7. Let's save talking about money until you know me better (or not talk about it at all).
   I really like travel, so please don't (indirectly) tell me it's a waste of money. That night, I learned that guys who I have been attracted to in the past  have traveled quite a bit, or at least aspire to. One can be frugal and talk about it, but don't talk down rich or poor people. Their situations can be hard-earned or inevitable. Let's not judge.
8. Open books aren't that interesting.
   After the two hour nonstop rollercoaster, I felt like I knew everything I could possibly want to know about this stranger and more. When we parted ways, there wasn't a drop of curiosity I had about this person. The book had been written, I had read the end.
9. Your aspirations are something you actually have to work towards.
   Yes, I took the DAT. Yes, it was hard. And that's great that your dream would be to be a professor, but the fact that you don't want to pursue a Ph.D or get your J.D. because you tried a couple of sample questions of the GRE/LSAT and thought it was "too hard" is unbelievable. How do you think your college professors and the lawyers you work for got there? With a magic wand and a miraculous spell?
10. Awkward pauses can be okay.
    I couldn't formally announce that I had to be up early the next day or could even make up an excuse to leave early because this person wouldn't allow for a pause in the conversation. When I was done answering a question he asked, he immediately tried to pick up the conversation. It was only after two hours that he had asked, if I had to be anywhere the next day -- which was my out.

What did I do wrong?

1. Dragged the online conversation out too long.
   What I should have done if I was interested in this person was have met him right away. Waiting as long as I did (about a week) was far too long and built up too much anxiety when I agreed to meet this person another week later. All the superficial topics had been covered during our online chats back and forth.
2. Met a person I had virtually nothing in common with.
   A political science major working in the State Attorney General's office who is from rural Minnesota, five miles from the Canadian border should've been the first sign.
3. Actually, going on the date was a mistake from the start.
   I obviously was not looking for any type of relationship. This I realized after I arranging a date and time with this person, especially not with someone online. There was too much pressure off the bat. So much for getting myself out there.
4. All of the above.
   I swear off online dating, maybe at least until I'm 30. Unless I'm going to pay for it and be serious about resolving my being single.

All in all, I made several realizations that night. Online dating isn't for everyone, but especially not for me. As good of a deal it seems to have your pick at the potential cream of the crop prospects by viewing a profile online and selectively chatting, it is just as much of a gamble as meeting someone organically and taking your chances. So I think I'll just be sticking to the old-fashioned way of meeting people. Or just sit on my stoop and wait for Prince Charming to come find me.

The newest generation of females to hit the tube...

The real world threw itself at me almost four years ago. Reality hit and it hit me hard, brutally with an unexpected swing. I never imagined that life after college would be so difficult. I thought the work force would love fresh, young minds like mine and that life would just happen as I let it. But it didn't and I thought I stood alone.

However, I'm coming to see that I didn't stand alone in this process. Not only are a majority of friends trying to figure out love and life in our twenties, so are many of the female leads we see in our favorite television shows. Maybe it is just the trends of time to have to actually work for what we want and the opportunities that we have to work for. Come to think of it, we should be grateful for this struggle, especially as females. The fight for equality has been around for decades, maybe even centuries.

My point is, I've recently come to realize that whether Mindy Lahiri is looking for love in all the wrong places on The Mindy Project, Jessica Day is having another misadventure as a teacher in New Girl, or Hannah Horvath is stumbling through life trying not to abandon her dream of becoming a writer on Girls, we all get a little lost in this time called our twenties. Life leads us down unexpected twists and turns before we find ourselves in a zone where we can rest our heads on our significant others shoulder and enjoy our glass of wine.

What do I love about The Mindy Project, Girls, and New Girl?

credits: http://tvpromos.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/new-girl-season-4-promotional-poster.jpg

The New Girl
Without Zooey Deschanel, there would be no New Girl. That is the reason why I started this show. Jessica day is quirky yet compassionate. She loves her job as a teacher, wants to fit in with the boys, and doesn't really know what she's doing half the time. She has a gorgeous model best friend and lives in LA. She's somehow managing to lead an amazing life on a teacher's salary in LA. But it's her small misfortunes, strange roommates, and misdirected boyfriend that add a little color to her life. I love the odd, dry humor of New Girl and how boldly unique each of Jessica Day's roommates are.

Zooey Deschanel's character makes me feel a little less alone in the world. Like finding our purpose in life is worth that struggle, whatever awkward position that may put us in. Jess Day helps us see that we can find our way out.

credits: https://anupturnedsoul.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/girls-s1-poster-1.jpg

Girls
This is a show I thought I would never relate too and started it because I was bored. But I got hooked pretty quickly. I was drawn to how lost Hannah and Marnie were after college, which was supposed to lead them into a life of luxury. They were in the city where dreams are made and flourish, but were hanging on by thin threads to make ends meet. Girls was real, a little too real. So real that it bit.

Lena Dunham was gracefully able to draw out the struggles of experiencing life in our twenties in this age, trying to "make it". Our young, ambitious minds want to leave our mark on the world that will last through generations of the more of us. But some brick wall always manages to block our way in this maze we call life. However, our stubborn and fearless souls break through and fuel our drive to get up and go at it again.

credits: http://www.spoilersguide.com/media/images/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/newgirlmindy-mindy.jpg

The Mindy ProjectMindy Lahiri lives THE LIFE. She's a doctor, co-owner of a small business, living in New York City, and has a great apartment to top it off! This, too, was a stumble-upon show that I have come to love. I binge-watched Season 1 in about two days in anticipation of my visit to New York City. I had no idea what the storyline was or was much of a Mindy Kaling fan -- I actually found her to be kind of obnoxious on The Office.

But I was so drawn to the fact that an Asian female was comically leading a network television sitcom and doing it so successfully. The Mindy Project has just the right touch of reality, comedy, and taste in great men. I mean if I had to pull a show off of Fox and it was New Girl or The Mindy Project, solely because of the supporting male characters. It shows a underrepresented minority, an Asian female, who is the sole female practitioner in an office of males and breaks the stereotype of a traditionally obedient and generally nerdy Asian. Thank you, Fox.
 

26.9

26.9 years old. I guess that is the average age that females in the United States are married by, according to a study released by Priceonomics published in Time.

I don't foresee myself being married by that time. I don't even foresee myself even being in a serious relationship at that time. What does that make me? An outlier? A straggler? Although I'm not looking to settle down anytime soon, the statistic does make me a littler leery of where I am in my life.

While I don't want to settle for anything or settle with one person for the rest of my life, I do want to be in a relationship and start to see what is out there. The only thing that really concerns me for pushing out marriage further and further is having children. I know that much, that I do want to begin a family at some point in my life when I have my future figured out.

I guess more than anything I worry for the health of a future child I could have. The likelihood of a child with a birth defect increases significantly after 30. Wagering a stable future for the health of a future offspring is a huge risk, but life has brought me here and there and just hasn't brought me stability or a man. So I guess I can't say that it's entirely my fault.

That number was just a little discomforting for me when I saw it today. Shocking, in fact. As much as I know that I'm getting older, to realize that in order to meet that statistic that it is sooner than I thought or was ever prepared for.

I wonder if other girls in their twenties are uncomfortable with this statistic. There is so much more I want to do before I am tied down with a man and a potential family. 

My first summer fling: the beginnings.

I really didn't have any idea what I was getting myself into when I signed on to work in Seattle for a summer at an elite summer camp for middle- and high school-aged children. What I did know is that I would take anything to get away from the stressful and monotonous lifestyle I had gotten swallowed into for the six months prior to when I had decided to leave. I could not be around middle-aged women who had to settle for their lives or deal with patients who felt the need to release their anger about their financial problems to me. I needed to live out my youth, even if for just a few weeks. I was so drained from preparing another application for dental school that I was ready to leave even before I had been offered the position.

In the back of my mind, I did hope to experience some kind of fictional summer romance and have the time of my life. To my disappointment, I immediately pushed that thought aside after observing the rest of the administrative staff I had met upon my arrival. Namely, because out of about 13 staff members, 11 were females. And of the two males, one was already interested in my co-worker and the other one was, luckily, taken. Thus, I mentally tossed the idea of a summer fling.

Days later the rest of the staff arrived and I honestly did not even bother to consider anyone else. I was just here to have fun, that was the new agenda. But my luck may have been steering me into new directions.

As we went on a tour of the neighborhood where we'd be the next seven weeks during orientation, a boy asked me a question out of the blue. "So, I saw that you're applying to dental school?" I was completely caught off guard and had not really even noticed him over a nearly 48-hour period since his arrival. However, I was deeply impressed that he had 1.) read my bio, and 2.) remembered that subtle piece of information. He went on to humbly mention that he was going to be attending medical school in the fall. And that's all it really took to get me interested -- interest in me and ambition.

Although a day or two had gone by since that happening, I wasn't expecting anything more to happen (because I am a skeptic). But then, one evening after putting all the children to rest, I got a text from this "friend". "Are you going out tonight?", it said. I was surprised, but nonetheless, happy to hear from him. I shared that I was. In the end, some of his crew was not excited about going out with administrators of the program. But we agreed to let each other know in the future, if we went out.

Then, one fateful night, after all the kiddos had gone to dreamland for the night, we decided to go out to our escape, Capitol Hill - an area thriving of young people and a great bar scene. All the staff always congregated in the lobby before heading out for the night. When I stepped off the elevator, all were discussing who was going out for the night, it was stated twice that this "friend" wasn't going out. My curiosity and sudden wave of braveness that had found me in Seattle wanted to know if this "friend" was just "being nice" or was being somewhat flirtatious. So, because I knew he was staying in for the night, I texted him, jokingly, "You aren't heading out with your RA friends tonight?" No response. The group started to head out towards our beloved destination when someone came rushing out from our dorms. It was our "friend", whom will now be referred to as R.

Honestly, I was flooded with a mix of emotions. I, frankly, did not expect him to come. I had not calculated beyond sending him that text. As a result, my childish self resurfaced and I ended up pretending he didn't exist the whole night.

A few nights later, staff had planned to head out again to CapHill. My phone needed to be charged, so I had left it in my room while was lounging with two staff members in the main office. The two were staying in and when the office was officially closed for the night, I went back to my room to see missed calls and texts. R had called and texted. I asked if everyone had already headed out and he had responded, "Yes, come out!" I called and he had said they were already on their way out, but asked if I wanted someone to walk me back. I had crossed the street to head towards the group and saw that he had already begun walking back to our dorms. Internally, I was bubbly and smitten by the fact that he was thinking of walking back to escort me.

Incidents that made me continue to question the actions of my friend R were definitely quite confusing to me. I had never been in such close proximity to a guy, nor had I interacted with a member of the opposite sex who was that forward about being, well, friendly.  About two weeks after first meeting R, I had my first day off from the program and spent the day with my aunt, who was living in nearby Olympia. On our way up to Whidbey Island, I brought up all my excursions and funny stories from the program. In addition, I brought up my unusual encounters with my friend R. She immediately hit me on the shoulder and exclaimed, "Are you dense?" The honest truth was, I was hoping someone would tell me I wasn't just imagining these things.

My aunt had noticed this feller by vigilantly checking my Facebook to see what I was up to on her side of town. "Oh, he has great calves...A runner?...A traveler?..And he's an immigrant going to med school?! He sounds great!" As I shared bits and pieces of what I had learned about him over the course of two weeks, I began to see what a great guy he seemed to be. He had told me that he ran his first half marathon last year, had been backpacking in Central America before coming to Seattle, and immigrated when he was 10 years old to New York. That and I observed that he was pretty athletic during our makeshift staff intramural sporting events. Overall, I was extremely impressed.

Putting my interest aside, my aunt knew me too well. She knew I would never act upon this slight attraction, which was entirely true. I have always been one to move cautiously, calculating consequences and avoiding risk. My aunt asked me to drive back from Whidbey Island to Seattle, as she would have to drive all the way back to Olympia that night. As I was driving and just before she pressed send from my phone announced, "You are so cute. And you have nice calves. Seriously." "OMIGAWD!" I exclaimed, not believing she would actually send it. She laughed and mastered up another text, "You will make many patients happy someday. Especially the female folks." If I wasn't driving, I probably would've died.

to be continued...

The Backstreet Boys & My Mom - Spread The Word

It was 1997, I had fallen in love with Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson, and Howie Dorough. At the ripe age of 8, I was mesmerized by the harmonies of these five boys and was hooked on their hit singles As Long As You Love Me and Quit Playin' Games With My Heart. Before everyone had high-speed internet in their homes, I would go to the library and view pictures of the boys using the now defunct browser Netscape, printing off my favorite photos for ten cents a piece and noting when the boys would be on national television.

However, my strict and traditional father did not think an elementary school student should be interested in boys or get caught up in chasing celebrities. Being a young and obedient girl, I privately adored the boys away from the eyes of my father. What my father didn't know is that I would have a partner in crime, my mother, who would purchase Millennium and Black and Blue on the first day of release for me while I was at school because I could not stand to see my boys fall behind in first-day record sales, especially not behind their then-rival *Nsync. She would let me buy one magazine, on special occasions, when the boys were on the cover or had a pin-up I wanted. My mom even took me to Barnes & Noble when the Backstreet Boys released a limited edition photobook because I thought all 100,000 copies would be sold out if I didn't request one right away. She did this with great caution, but would soon be captivated by the boys just as I was.

Because I was still young at the height of the Backstreet Boys' solid career, I did not dream of asking my parents to attend any of their concert tours, not only because I knew my father would say no, but because I knew my family was not in the position to purchase two tickets to go see them live. When I would pull open the Sunday paper at times, I would see the ads for their local shows whenever they came around town, wishing that that I could see and feel as one with them for one night. My mom knew me well enough to know that I desired to go but that I would never bring it up because I knew of our financial situation. So to compensate for it, she bought me the Backstreet Boys: Live In Orlando concert VHS. I would watch this over and over and over again, until the tape in the film actually ripped. (I ended up purchasing another VHS and years later, also buying the DVD -- for nostalgic purposes.)

Over the years, I have grown with the Backstreet Boys. I have stayed loyal to them as a fan, purchasing every record that they have released to date (not as loyally as I had when I was a youngster, but still getting them...eventually). Now that I am older and it's been over fifteen years since I first set my eyes on the first musical act I would ever fall for, they are a group I treasure. I say this because it enabled me to bond with my mom closely as a child and although my music library has grown to almost ten thousand songs, I never get sick of the Backstreet Boys. To this day, I am still amazed at how something I had encountered many years ago is still able to give me an unexplainable good feeling inside.

Now a little bit more about my mother. All my life, my mom has worked the graveyard shift. My whole life my mom has been home during the day so that whenever I or my brother needed anything, she would be there in an instant. If I forgot my gym shoes or lunch money, she'd drop it off for me, even lacking sleep. I wanted to take piano lessons when I was young because of the Backstreet Boys, she drove me once a week after school. If it was for me and my brother, my mom would do anything for us - lacking sleep, not eating what she wanted, or buying things for herself - so that my brother and I could have what we wanted. What you wouldn't expect hearing that she has worked the graveyard shift is that she is a college-educated woman, from a state institution I'd like to add. However, as an immigrant whose second language was English, my hard-working mother has been unable to get what the college degree had promised her. But she has never once, ever, complained about her life or the fact that she has sacrificed all this for her family, for our futures to be better.

Even now, as I apply to dental school again, she is supporting me, feeding me, and giving me a place to sleep. A college-educated, working girl. Now that I make a little money, most of which I am saving for dental school, I try to do good for my parents whenever I can. Give back little by little. Well, just last week I hear the Backstreet Boys are coming to town June 10, a Tuesday. I instantly think of the perfect person to go with. My mom. Though I still can't afford front row seats for the both of us, I can still pay for tickets to go see them. So I purchased two this past weekend at the box office, to avoid expensive ticketing fees (I get my frugality all from my economic mother).

I surprised her this evening, asking her if she could take June 10th off of work. She immediately tells me she can't because all the PTO has been distributed and shared FOR THE YEAR at her workplace. I might just add that this is a huge corporation that completely disgusts me now, even if it is on the smaller level where a problem lies. My mom quickly references her PTO sheet, two of the five sets of dates that have been completely denied with a blunt "NO" handwritten next to it, one "YES" but modified saying that only one of the three days can be taken off, and two "YES"s for days that are unimportant days in our family and avoid holidays. She tried to take the weekend of my birthday off, two of the days that was brutally denied.

I beat around the bush, asking if she could please ask her manager if she could ask to have one day off, not really expressing that I was trying to surprise her with a fun gift. My mom responds and tells me that days taken off in the summer have to be taken off by Sunday, Monday, Tuesday as a set, or by Wednesday, Thursday, Friday as a set. I got irritated both at my mother and the place where she works and began to get argumentative with her. We ended up bitterly ending the conversation with few words. She knew that her manager would woefully deny her request that she wasn't going to ask.

I just wanted to do something good for my mom and share ONE night with her to enjoy a TWO-HOUR long show. What kind of world do we live in that my mom can't even get a day off to spend a day with her daughter? How inconsiderate are these large corporations that disregard the lives of their employees? Now, I have two tickets to a show and the person I most want to go with, can't go with me...

I'm devastated, to say the least.

Still hung up on you.

It's been a solid four months since I learned how you felt about me. Just friends, everyone has heard this story.

But why can't I get a clean cut from you? I don't want to be this pathetic. I don't want to be so dependent on you.

I love the highs that you give me, but I hate the lows that you put me through. The whirlwind that you don't even know that you still put me through. That you actually never knew about...

Nothing has really changed since that day in May when I you learned how I felt about you and I learned that my feelings were not reciprocated.

It hurt. I cried. I waited. Waited for you to let me know that you still wanted to be friends. But you were just you. Letting me be. Looking back now, I think you and I were both doing the same thing: giving each other space. I didn't want to be the person who forced my friendship on you (even though I desired, more than anything, to maintain my friendship with you) and you, you didn't want to make it awkward because I was the one who would need time to recover, to heal from something that would never be...

I realized this about a month after this confession that...nothing about our friendship had actually changed. That it was only me who was afraid to let things go back to the way they were. Though you showed up for me, there was a part of me that still wanted you to reach out to me for friendship, to prove that I was just as important in your life as you were in mine.

In the end, I lost to my own inner battle and reached out to you first. And just as I should have expected, you were just as you had always been, like a rock unchanged by the tests of time. I was overjoyed to know that you had not changed how you thoughts of me as a friend. I could not ask for anything more because I could keep you by my side, even if it was just as a friend. You had changed me for the better, done what no other person I have ever encountered could make me do. This past year, I took risks, stopped worrying so much about others and more for myself, I grew. You challenged me, cared for me, and gave me the courage to start over again. That nothing is over until I say it is.

Just a month later, you showed me that you really were something else. When I didn't expect it, you showed me that you cared. Showed me that you were different from all the other friends I had come to know there. You blew me away. With that small gesture, you reassured me that we could be friends again. Something that might have comforted both you and I was the fact that, chances were, we will probably never see each other again aside from the realm of social networking. It hurts, but it's the truth. Living on opposite sides of the day, of the world; we could not be farther apart.

There is just something, other than the fact that my affection for you will probably always hold a special place in my heart, that doesn't let me throw away this crazy lingering thought that maybe you have some sort of feeling towards me. The attention you continue to give to our friendship fuels this idea. Since my departure, we have spoken almost daily, never letting more than a week go without communication. Granted it is through private text messages thrown back and forth at opposite times of the day, but it is still more than from the more than hundred people I now know. Heck, I talk to him more often than my friends back home. And honestly, there are times, more often than not, that our conversation could just end because there is nothing more to say. But the both of us manage to respond to each other. Although, I will admit that I give it more effort than he does at times.

But what inspired me to pause from what I should be doing and write this unnecessarily long post about a boy who I just can't get over? It's been two days since our last communication...Each time this happens, which has been once since I returned, I dread the idea that this could be the end of our conversation. The end to our friendship. I'm scared of losing him, even if he is already half a world away. Afraid of losing the thread of him that I do have. Even though I should not be thinking about a stupid boy at a time like this, he occupies every breathing second of my mind when I am not focused on what I need to be doing.

When will I be free from this?

cmj...quit playing games (with my heart) lol

들었다놨다

왜 이렇게 내 마음을 이렇게 쉽게 들었다놨다 하니? 

근대 넌 모르겠지...

니게 나한테 그럴 수 있다는 사람이란걸...

내가 너 때문에 너무 바보가된것같아.

너무 싫어.

그리고 내 이름....

을 왜이렇게 자주 부러주니?

괜히 사람 설레이게...

짜증나.

내가.

내 자신에게.