After my questionable adventure relating to my adopted credo for 2006 ( from The Shiyan Underground Expanded ) and some other recent events, I have decided that my credo for 2006, and really the rest of my life, should be “Stick With It”.
I should also revisit and analyse the implications of my life’s philosophy “Anything Is Possible”, but that is deep thought reserved for another time.
Back to “Do It Now” though, more than the annoying habbit of procrastinating, is my fickle mind. I often decide to do something, only to change my mind again later. Sure, we all do it, but I think I’m more worried about those issues which influence my life in a serious way. Those big deals to which I have committed.
Currently very prominent in my life, is my on-going Soap Opera with Lara. In the last episode, we went to a club with the rest of the crew from The Restaurant and I almost got involved in (was the cause of) a cat-fight.
Whilst dancing with Lara, slightly seperated from the rest of the group on a particularly crowded dance floor, from nowhere a girl approached me and handed me a note. The note said something to the effect of ‘nice to see you, would like to meet you, do you have some time for me’. Bold, I admit.
But for all practical purposes it may as well have read “I SPELL TROUBLE”. While I was trying to explain to the girl ‘thanks, but I’m with my girlfriend’, Lara got pissed off and stomped through the crowd to join her friends.
I allowed just a moment of using as basic English as I could, whilst employing all the Chinese I know, to get rid of this girl in a polite way. But a combination of poor English, worse Chinese, loud music and, perhaps, her persistance, caused me to finally just ignore the girl and re-join Lara and co. However, it was just a moment too long and Lara was boiling, pushing me away as I tried to approach her.
I do not take kindly to being pushed and pulled, two things that happen to me frustratingly frequent here in China.
So after numerous attempts to talk to her, I left the dance area to sit down. One of Lara’s friends came over and said ‘talk to her, she’s crying’, or something to that effect (speaking Chinese, what do I know). So I went and, with urgency, explained to her in Chinese “I didn’t want to talk to that girl, I told her I was with my girlfriend”.
Unfortunetally, limited grammar and vocabularly conspired against me at just that moment, and what I ended up saying was “I didn’t want to talk to that girl, I told her she was my girlfriend”.
Lara, of course, at that moment didn’t have the desire to excuse my poor language or allow for mistakes, and heard me say that that girl was my girlfriend.
She went blood-red and asked for her cellphone which I was carrying. And her lipstick, and her keys. A gesture meaning “off with my head”. I gave it to her… and left. I’m to old for shit like that, I thought, as I walked into the cold night, direction home.
I wanted to switch off my phone, because I knew, if not Lara, at least one of her crew would call me. It was so trivial, the whole incident, aggrevated by poor communication, so I thought leaving was just making a non-verbal statement and left my phone on. I was 100 meters down when Lara phoned. “You where”, she asked. I explained where I was. “Come here” she said before she hung up. I melt when she makes statements of need. So I went.
She stood there, eyes watery, chewing the inside of her cheek, like I’ve noticed she does when she’s in emotional distress. We had a brief chat and I calmly restated what I had said before, this time minding my language. So she said “I heard you wrong”. “Maybe I said it wrong”, I offered. Then I opened my thick down-jacket and invited her in, her standing there in a thin shirt, for a hug. She let me pull her closer for a hug.
So, we went back inside and continued dancing. We warmed up to each other after a moment and we did the two-together type dancing again, which was fun.
But afterwards, as the club closed and the group went outside, I was handed my jacket, said good-bye to in a short, abrupt manner, and was just as abruptly segregated from the group.
Now I’ve said before I would take it as it comes. I didn’t ponder this behaviour too much. Ok, I’m lying, I didn’t sleep last night because of thiking about it too much.
This afternoon, having some fries at KFC with Candy and 4Stones, I asked them whether this is normal behaviour for Chinese women. They both confirmed that yes, it is.
But with Lara and I, apparently, there are all sorts of additional dynamics involved. Ie. not wanting to come across as easy, not wanting the relationship to move too fast, being shy, being discreet, wanting to be proved to about intent, sincerety, perseverance, you name it. Sure, common to all relationships to a certain extent, but with a different M.O. in another culture and language. Sigh.
Candy’s sound advice was: if you want it… stick with it.
Stick with it. Sure.