Big Change

Lost my job. Stayed calm, focused on moving ahead very career-climb focused and no-nonsense. Followed through on plans for a weekend getaway. It was an amazing time but fucked up my calm. So, time to vent again. Today is the most nervous I have been since everything changed last week. Oddly enough because of a vacation.

What Happened

Several in my department were made redundant due to a change in strategy coming from the higher ups. I was assured it has nothing to do with my performance. I will be getting good references. That helps I suppose but it was still a shock and hard to stomach that you did well yet get thrown out. Everyone else in the office was also in shock by the news because our team has been consistently turning in good results. In fact we just broke a company record as the best performance ever. We’ve even gotten thank you emails from another department for consistently being their best support. Personally, I have been given more and more responsibilities which I carried out well and got good feedback.  Also, another department has been asking  repeatedly that I be transferred to them which gave me added job security because 2 teams were “fighting” for me. With that much positivity, who expects to lose their job?

What upset me more is that I really like the people and that’s not so easy to find. I spent my early time with the company being withdrawn because I was so upset about Rai stuff. I got out of that funk, made the effort to be social, and colleagues became friends. Close enough that we do lots of things together even outside work. Now I won’t get to see them as much. New office means new politics and that sucks…. These guys were a positive influence and I really liked learning and hanging out with them. Sucks to lose it.

Despite the gloom, my peers and the colleagues who worked with me on projects, all felt for me, sympathized and encouraged me. They definitely eased the blow. Everyone is helping me find new jobs — not just saying it but actually recommending me. It’s great. They helped me to be positive and just focus on what to do next. I dove straight into the next step. I wanted to keep going on the jobhunt but we’d already booked a weekend getaway to an island so I paused to do that.

It was a wonderful time. Time passes slowly and so fully. You feel like you have stayed there forever even though it was only 2 days. I snorkelled and kayaked etc. The group was fun and the place was beautiful. The ride home had a great roadtrip feel and we sang and laughed and it was super fun.

When A Super Good Times Makes You Sad About How Lonely Tomorrow Will Feel

The downside of it hit me though, because of how much fun it was, but the next day I wouldn’t be waking up to a job  and I wouldn’t be seeing these people as often. I was afraid of the stark contrast of loneliness to that very moment of elation, being surrounded by a whole group of friends making me laugh. I know it is stupid to ruin the moment, but I really liked this job and it was the one thing that kept me afloat when I was falling to pieces emotionally last year. So I felt sad.

I also met a guy on the island. Everyone else kinda turned in early but two of us girls stuck it out, tried to meet the other people on the island and party a little. It was a bit of a dud but very late in the day, good conversation sparked with person. It wasn’t about boy-girl really, just glad to be TALKING to someone, meeting someone interesting. That’s the best part of travelling. And parties. Or anything social. So it was good to find someone who had something to say.

All About Chemistry

It was very good conversation. My girlfriend, who is a fairly new friend, said something interesting about that. Based on my stories of boys she said earlier that same day,  “You always ‘have chemistry’ with guys”. She didn’t get what that means. The next day she said, “I saw you with him and how he talked to you and then I understood exactly what you meant about ‘chemistry’.” There it was.

I did think he was attractive but I wasn’t talking to him because of that. So we actually talked about nothing flirty or sexy. Just very interesting topics of all sorts, sharing opinions etc.

At some point attraction crept in. And some point later, I knew he was hooked.

It was very nice because it was gradual. We must have talked at that party for 2 hours. We were the last ones left, along with another couple. He took us all out to end of the jetty and looked out into the ocean under the night sky. We sat there talking for some time too. By then, there were just little touches.
I Forgot What It Felt Like

It has been a long time since I’ve experienced this. To meet someone, have that connection and grow gradually into the next step. It’s obvious you are drawn to each other, there’s something there. It’s not the same as having a spark with a boy at a party and it’s flirty and intentionally boy-girl from the get-go. This was slow. The attraction built. No one rushed it. There was no assumptions or plans to get laid. Instead it grows and you both feel it at the same time.

When they just touch your leg or your shoulder and you are so uber conscious about it. That feeling… oh that feeling…

It’s one of the most incredible things. Which is why, I felt starkly lonely returning home to nothing. I wanted a quick fix solution. To run out somewhere where you can find someone else to just fall into this way, to feel this. But you cannot find this stuff at will. I was tempted to run out and just go to a party and meet boys. But it’s all clubs here and it’s a much much different feel. It’s smutty and fast-forwarded. No romance.

I suppose that’s the word. Romance.

How it Makes Me Feel

It was a beautiful night. Connected, fun, sensual, natural. There was a lot of romance in the whole thing and also lots of laughter. We sat at the end of the jetty, we had our first kiss on the beach and wrapped around each other with long gazes, we laughed and we went to bed.

I woke up in his arms. We’d spent hours and hours awake together until we fell asleep most comfortably. I’ll write in the next post about the rest of the night. But for now this is about how I feel. And it ain’t good.

I am definitely tired of the transient stuff. But I didn’t realise how much I missed feeling this way. The boyfriend feel. To have someone be gentle and sweet. He massaged my foot when I complained of a pain, brushed my hair from my face, stroked my skin and admired all of me, we lay with my leg draped over him and his arm holding me to him. He soothed me when he saw that I was nervous/bothered about something. It’s all the caring things, the gentleness and the deep interest. When they make you feel absolutely beautiful and worthy and adored. He even brought out my wit and humour. I like when you don’t have to just play the surface card, when they stimulate your mind too and bring out all the best aspects of you.

I loved that he didn’t want to let me me sleep. That he wanted all my attention. That he made me laugh too.

At some point I just said I like you and rolled into him to sink in a hug. He pulled me right in and said I like you too.

When I needed to get up and get something, he refused. He got up and did it for me.

I have gotten so used to protecting my heart, expecting guys to leave and these come and go travellers. They have a way of bringing up beautiful feelings but they are so good at managing it the next day, if they need to let you go. I’ve gotten so used to that that I expect so little. I forget what it is to be adored. To be cared for and soothed. To be treated gently and your girly emotions make them soften. Essentially, forgotten how it feels to be treated like a girlfriend.

That’s why I felt super sad and alone coming home. How terrible it is that I’ve gotten used to cold day-afters and fleeting connections. How much I would love to have a partner I can keep, one who makes me feel this way and cares about my happiness in the long run. Who, when I’m with him, makes me feel like the world. And I have license to be loving back. Being able to verbalise I LIKE YOU is a big thing. It shouldn’t be, but it is. And it was really nice to have him reciprocate genuinely.

 

It Ended There, But Made Me Miss Someone Else

Unfortunately there is no fairytale ending for this story. Precisely why I had limits in the bedroom because it matters whether this is long-run or not. It felt beautiful but it could well be just for the night. I was aware that wouldn’t be enough for me. And it was. It is sad of course. But sadder that it’s so hard to find someone and I don’t have someone like that now.

It made me think of how long it has been. How nice it would be. And it made me miss Rene.  I don’t know what it is about Rene, whether I actually believe we’d have a good relationship. But we have a friendship-romance pendulum almost. I was certain we were jsut friends. But sometimes, like this, he’s the one I think about when I think about wanting to be with someone. Maybe it’s because we didn’t get together for distance only, or that he still calls me and we talk about everything, and we laugh but most of all it’s his tenderness. He’s kind of a tough guy but he is so tender sometimes with me.

This island guy has a sleeve tattoo, which reminded me of Rene. They are both a little badass and very different from me. Island guy is English though and so we share more of the same humour and cultural influences and he gets more of my nuances which is why I made him laugh so hard and he said I was very a very funny and witty girl. He’s also a traveller. It’s his lifestyle choices that are wildly different and his opinions fascinating. Rene is young and hasn’t developed as much “life fillings” as this guy. But they have similarities for sure.

He was busy but called because I was sad. We talked for a few hours and it was fun. But at the end when he wanted to hang up I got really sad and it showed. I don’t like to show my vulnerable side like that. But it came out. And I feel safe with him. I love that he is intuitive enough to pick up on my changes. He asked me to tell him why I was sad. But I didn’t because it was hard to say I feel really lonely and it was hard to return from being loved that way and sometimes I really want you to be mine.

I didn’t say it.

Life Wide Open

My focus is a little thrown now, because it is a deep thing, this kind of loneliness. And meeting him on the island, brought back all my carefree, traveller, live-for-now, struggle-is-okay, experience experience experience, love fast, kind of inclinations. That side of me has been quietened because I’m focused on work and adding long-term value to my life. No more short-term stuff. I’m thinking career and money and moving up etc. Now suddenly I remember all the non-monetary things and the fun of working in a bar or meeting shitloads of travellers… Fucked up my direction a bit.

Feeling lonely as a girl doesn’t help now, at this moment where I need to make big-girl independent decisions about my career.

And being reminded of my bohemian side also fucks up my focus, because now the OPTIONS I have for career are so wide open that I don’t know which to go for. It’s scary.

 

Single and Attractive

One unfortunate truth is that whenever things don’t work out for me, I look at myself and wonder what’s wrong with me that things didn’t work out. Most of the time I recognise how I am different from the typical girl here and therefore attractive only to a select pool of guys.

This is one of the times where I am overanalyzing my behaviour and looks, frustrated that someone else can come along and get the guy in a jiffy just by nature of how she looks mostly. (In ref to the problem with wine-and-dine guy + the bitch: ) She looks like most girls here. Add a little bitch into the cauldron, and poof u get her. So u know, that sucks and feeds insecurity. Because him and I, we were close, and yet she managed to unravel all our ties just by tempting him and how she looks. When it comes to personality/behaviour everything was great between us, and I am confident in how I was, so it just comes down to physical attraction I think.

I wonder how to trust in people if they can be this fickle and sucked in by physical appeal… I worry if looking different really is that big an obstacle just because most guys here are significantly more attracted to the look shared by majority of the girls here. I cannot fight that. It’s not a personality trait I can change. It’s a look that is fixed.

I know it is not my fault. I didn’t lose a great guy. If an attractive girl flirting with u is enough to make u cheat, then I don’t want u anyway. But it still breeds insecurity. Or an over-consciousness about how I look. And resigning to fate that most people wouldn’t find me attractive, just by laws of attraction and genetics. It was after all recently showed in an online-dating-study that most men regardless of ethnicity prefer the petite Asian girl. It is what it is.

However, something interesting happened. I was out at a party with a work mate and he told me he thought I was attractive. I was really surprised. Particularly because he is definitely one of those guys who loves girls who have that typical local look. And because we’ve been around each other for a while. Guys act a certain way around pretty girls even if they don’t want to get with u. I didn’t think I registered as attractive at all to him. Suddenly I hear he thinks I”m hot.

It reminded me of several other occasions in the past. Where I think a guy/friend is hot, but he’s hot enough that he can get lots of hot girls attention and therefore has higher standards by which I don’t even register. And then he reveals much much later that he always thought I was hot and I’m totally surprised. I’m not talking about acting upon an attraction. Just whether they think I am attractive or not.  It’s a surprise to learn from someone you’ve been around for a while who never showed any signs. So u know, sometimes we underestimate our appeal. Or at least I do. Relationships are more than looks but looks definitely play a part, particularly for men. It’s a nice reminder to myself. I do not overly rely/need to know I’m attractive but it surely helps. So I got a reminder just because people don’t tell/show u doesn’t mean they don’t think you’re attractive.

Back to this colleague. He told me flat out that I was hot. It was kind of a declarative statement. I don’t remember specifically what we were talking about. And I can’t ask now because he was pretty drunk at the time.  Those are the kinds of things you don’t bring up again. I’m not interested in him, but it’s nice to know.

He did stick to me in the 2nd half of the night. Bought me drinks, held my hand to lead me through the club, danced with me. I learnt later that he told some guys I was talking to that I was his gf. So he was in fact interested at that point and trying to make something happen. But I feel it was just a thing of the moment and nothing particularly meaningful so it’s no big deal.

Funny that guys get so possessive like that. Probably he just wanted the chance to try and didn’t want anyone else interfering.

He tried to kiss me at one point and I pushed him away firmly. He disappeared shortly after. I don’t want no random kiss with someone I work with. Plus I know someone else interested in him, so I keep boundaries.

He did write me today which is cool. I thought he would pretend nothing happened. Or that maybe he’d be embarrassed about his move or pissed about the rejection. But thankfully no drama here.

Just nice to know people do in fact find me attractive. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

Oh Fragility of Image, You Funny Thing

Sometimes I fight stereotypes with a fury. But very often, a girl feels awesome when she feels beautiful and she feels beautiful when a boy makes her feel that way. (If it doesn’t apply to you, don’t beat me up. This be my opinion only!)

It is a funny thing. But it seems to be just how it is. That a little appreciation from a boy is needed every now and then to boost you up and feel like you could kiss skittles out of rainbows. And pop those skittles in your mouth for a shudder of magical goodness inside your being.

Okay I might have taken that metaphor too far.

A really cute guy makes you feel pretty and suddenly you are like superwoman.Go too long without it, or worse, if a boy makes you feel a little rejected,  and suddenly every girl is far more attractive than you and you feel like crummydoodles. Sometimes the guy isn’t even important! A wink on the street could put a bounce in your step.

On one hand I wish our self-image was not that fragile. Or dependent on other people. But on the other hand, it is kinda nice that the things that move us most is at the end of the day, how we connect to other people.

 

In Bali, it was quite liberating. Cute guys finding you cute. Moving forward without any promise for more. It was probably the first time I felt quite strong just casually.

This week at home, between comparing myself to girls on the street and the average couple, and then taking a peek to a popular online dating site (i don’t really like the idea because i think how you meet is so much of the charm of dating someone, but i am bored and meeting some interesting people is okay) and finding that guys there were still looking for the same kind of girl made me feel a little rejected again. My habit is never to present the sexy front first. I put up the more relaxed, goofier image first so a guy likes the ‘real girl’ thing and I only bring out the sexy girl thing later. I didn’t like feeling the pressure to be ‘sexier’ to even get a guy to say hello. So I was all like, the guys here are shit — very sweeping statement I know, but hey I am allowed to think these things in girly despair/coping.

Last night I popped online for a little banter. I thought talking to a semi-cute guy with good conversation would be nice. And I landed a super hot guy with good conversation. He liked me and I liked him. Just for that little while but I felt AWESOME.

And I went to bed happy.

 

Also of course while I am happily occupied, Rai has to text. I told him I was mad. Just like that, plainly and briefly. So we’ll see how he reacts.

Charting Womanhood: Virginity to Desire

Looking around the table now, everyone admitted that sex was definitely on our minds and in our drive far more than we ever would have imagined, thinking back to our 17 year old selves. Despite all that, I realised I was actually the only one who had been with a man. I was the most experienced and I felt a bit funny about that.

Chatting with girlfriends I’ve known for 10 years but haven’t met lately, there was a refreshing honesty and openness in sharing our experiences. Experiences with boys, with jobs, with life and our own image and beliefs. It was perfect to talk to friends who knew exactly who I was and what I was like. We compared how different we each were compared to before. Especially on the topic of sex.

Maybe it comes down to being an Asian society, but we aren’t all open about talking about sex. And when we were younger, we didn’t really desire it. In fact all of us were good girls who just wanted to be… good girls grown up. Sex after marriage was a perfectly acceptable notion and we all KNEW we’d do that. It’s what we wanted. We wanted boyfriends and romance and dates and dirty dances, but we never so far as to want sex. Other girls did the partying and makeup and sexy wild thing.

Now, looking around the table , everyone admitted that sex was definitely on our minds and in our drive far more than we ever would have imagined, thinking back to our 17 year old selves. It was funny to recognize. But great to be able to say that out loud and see that it is a pretty common thread.

Despite all that, I realised I was actually the only one who had been with a man. One friend has been only with girls, and the other has only been with one guy at a stage in her life when she wasn’t ready to go all the way. Now it is the only thing she wants, to experience sex.

I felt a bit funny about that, being the most experienced. It was good in a sense because if I had to pick of the three, I’d pick my story. But I felt funny being the experienced one when I was the church-going girl who had turned down many guys because I only wanted sex-after-marriage with all the beauty and meaning of sex without ever trivialising it. The girls agreed that I was the holy moly one. How did I become the most experienced one?

Later, it came to me suddenly why it’s okay. At some point in my late teens I had decided that I wanted to stop over analyzing experiences and actually go out and EXPERIENCE. Through books and movies and other people, I admired all the experiences. One day I decided to put down my book and go out and feel what it’s like to experience things. Music and travelling and waitressing…all sorts of random things, big or small.

That’s how I became open. Even then, when it came to bedroom stuff I never did anything before I felt I was ready. I never had a bf for the sake of having a bf even though it sucked not to have a bf. I understood myself and what I needed in a partner and that’s a good thing.

I also remembered that I got tired of hearing “you’re perfect, i’d marry you, but right now i want a girlfriend. someone for fun, even if they’re wild n crazy”.  I decided I didn’t want to be collecting dust on the shelf as the perfect girl, the virgin that men can marry when they are done having fun and want to settle down. Why do I have to just sit there and wait like a prize, and what makes them deserve such a thing when they are out having fun? Nope.

Even then, I didn’t go bananas. Only when I was ready, with the right guy, I had the most beautiful first time anyone could want. And then I had kissed many a handsome  man because I figured I’d marry someone good-hearted and he could possibly be poor and not-so-handsome. So I embraced the opportunities to go for the sexy guys.

So looking at my friends and looking at myself, I’m the one who has had lots of interesting little pursuits, dramatic ones and guys handsome enough that I think “damn he hawt!” and my ego is very happy.

The girls look at me like my life is so exciting and I get to make out with all these hot guys. And sometimes more than make out. So instead of feeling bad about my experience, I am glad for it. That if I had to be single, I was single and having fun. That if I had to lay with someone, I got to lay with guys who hot. Take for example last weekend, he looked like Ryan Gosling. Not as built or tall, but cuter. Cuter! And he was really awesome company.

He happened right as I was calming down from the post-Rai frenzy, where I didn’t jump in his bed with any crazy motivations, but I talked abt my reservations and he talked openly abt his position, and it was okay and not-mad decision-making. And so that night was perfect. Great party, great guy, great chemistry, great night. And he looked as good in the morning.