That Cute Guy I Met in China

Can I call this one a crush? I seem to have too many crushes--- the last one I had fizzled out way too quickly and we barely talk except for occasional banter. Anyway here's how I met this cute guy I obsessively stared at in China.

So he came into work about a week after I started, and I realized he was technically above me in work rank despite us both being under the same supervisor. That sucked, because he looked like he was barely older than me and because of how workplace hierarchy is expressed it made it looked like were a generation apart. Not that I don't respect him for his work but it sorta feels like having to call a 10 year old "uncle", because your grandfather couldn't keep it in his pants in his later years. Well the situation isn't anything similar to that but I hope you understand the sentiment I'm expressing. 

Then later on it turns out he's actually way older than me, so I guess I should just get over it.

So we barely talked for about a week and I kind of paid no attention to him because I was still getting semi-harassed by the cute girls at work and the "come-to-toilet-with-me" guy, but because everyone else was bothering me I realized HE was the only person I wanted to be around, for the fact that he wouldn't talk to me. I moved my work closer to him and we both shared a pleasant silence (at least I thought it was a pleasant silence, because I welcomed silence at that point). Then because we shared work spaces he started asking me to run errands for him--- "can you take these files to X department" and "can you refill my cup with hot water". I don't know if people normally get offended by these tasks or see them as "belittling", but for me it was like "k sure" because I spend most of my time at work playing on my phone anyway. 

Naturally we start talking a bit after that, because neither of us are anti-social and I'm pleasant enough to converse with unless you decide to investigate the details of my personal matters. Now that I'm finally seeing this person as a person for the first time, and not just another piece of furniture in a space where I can find silence, I start committing every little thing I clock about him into my memory. See I notice a lot of things about a lot of people, like how someone has worn the same shirt last Wednesday or how someone sounds entirely different when they're emulating polite laughter. I think we call that general observation, and most of the time it just filters into your subconscious and forms your impression of a person. 

For me... I took it to the next level.

I realized this guy didn't smile a lot, but when he did smile it was always genuine, which means he doesn't try too hard to be a social butterfly. You take people like me, for example--- I practice smiling in front of the mirror... the "I'm interested" to "I'm politely declining" smile all have their little nuances, and I see it as a compulsory social etiquette. The other thing is, when you fuck up people are less likely to be pissed at you, because "you always smile but you're not-smiling now, which means you MUST know you've done something wrong and acknowledge how sorry you are". Anyway, it also means this guy is easier to befriend, because he's genuine about his feelings and you don't have to go through a million twisted lanes to get to know him.

Then I noticed how he wore a new shirt every day and how they were never creased or crinkled. That only means 2 things: either he REALLY cares about appearances or he has a wife who irons his shirts for him. I would've guessed wife, because even I have my lazy days where I just pull a jumper over my crinkled shirt and straighten my collar a few times... but then I noticed he also wore a different pair of shoes every day, which suggests he dresses to his mood and maybe he does just care about appearances... on goes my list of observations....

...types gently, probably doesn't play video games or is really bad at them.

...wears 2 different Swiss watches... is financially stable, then. Likes wearing the watch loose.

...eats slowly, doesn't talk while eating... likely raised in a well-off family that really stressed table manners.

The list goes on, and at one point I finally realized I was being creepy as fuck and acting really abnormal. I was like "yeah ok I probably like this guy, but this is kind of getting out of hand and I'm thinking about him way too often. I need to fucking stop."

Well I would stop if I knew what boundaries were, except I clearly have problems keeping boundaries (read: getting harassed by cute girls from work) so I get his contact details and he seems waaaay more talkative online and answered way too fast for the way he typed... At one point I was like "wow is he flirting with me" but uh look today I found out he has a wife so I was right about him having a wife who probs irons his shirts for him, and there ended my fantasy.

And you're just like "yeah fucking cool story, Vane, 0/10 would not read again".

About that great time I had in China

I left my grandmother's after about a week. It wasn't that I just couldn't stand her giving me a dose of communist anecdotes daily (well tbh I did get fed up with that), it was because I had to start work. Now for confidentiality reasons I can't actually talk too much about work, other than work is mostly boring and work is just work. I can, however, go into great detail about this guy who I work with who I think is really cute, and this other guy from work who annoyed me quite a bit, and invited me to go to the bathroom with him this other time.

So I show up to work, introduce myself to everyone and every single male in the room proceeds to ignore me while all the girls fawn over my cute accent. Sounds like your typical workplace, right. Well, I think girls are cute, so having the girls' attention felt pretty good overall. Then the girls became obsessed with the fact that I was fluent in English, and gave me their contact details so I could "teach them English". So for my audience out there who are interested in women- this is apparently how you get the chicks. Then the guy who eventually annoyed me came over, and I think he was trying to join the conversation but failed miserably, because the attention came back to me, and he just sorta sat in the corner making occasional remarks. I'm like 65% sure that he's jealous of the attention I'm receiving, or maybe he's just trying to be friendly I really wouldn't know.

Then over the next week or so, I'm still trying to get to know everyone but the girls from work have randomly become personal-space-invaders, and started asking me these really private and personal questions I didn't want to answer. Well, maybe for the girls they're neither private nor personal, but for me it was just something I was uncomfortable disclosing. So yeah there's that. However I was really terrible at turning them down and maintaining personal boundaries, because the girls would buy me food and whatever, and they'd sort of sit next to me and make conversation casually. Then the guy who I found annoying from before would just join in and start probing me the way the girls did, except he didn't have the cute-girl aura around him so I just ended up finding him really annoying.

Now that I think back, yeah he was just trying to be friendly with me. Actually one time when I had lunch with him he said "has anyone told you, you're really cute" and I was just busy stuffing food into my mouth going "yeah man I get that all the time". That was probably him  flirting- and it just whoosh'd right over me. Then somehow all of this accumulated into the incident where he insisted I accompany him to the toilet, and I was understandably freaked out--- it's not like I wouldn't have used the toilet while he was there, but having an INVITATION to go to the toilet is a completely different matter. I knows girls do that kind of thing, but I didn't think he needed company or escort, and he wouldn't articulate why I needed to go with him. I was trying to figure out whether "go to the toilet" was an euphemism for "let's have sex" but I didn't think we knew each other that well and it was kind of... WEIRD.

Well here's all I have to say about the guy I found mildly annoying- actually that's a really mean label. If this was high school I'd think he had a crush on me. I actually have to go to work now, so I'll talk about how I basically stared at this one guy for ages on end and made creepy observations another time. Ta.

I'm Alive

No, I didn't quit blogging. It was mostly because I had insane difficulties getting past the Great-Firewall-of-China, and when I did get through, blogging for an hour or two wasn't high on my priorities list. Did I mention I went to China before I disappeared? I probably forgot to, I can't remember.

So, catch up from the last time I blogged- I had my final exam, and it was absolutely abysmal. I'm almost certain I failed, and I came out of the exam room heavily traumatized. In the end I just prayed that all the other assessments I had went alright, and made up for how poorly I did in that one particular exam. If I have to repeat the semester I might go mad, because I hate dermatology and ophthalmology THAT much. It's not that I think they're unimportant or whatever- God knows how much I appreciate having good skin- but goddamn it's just not something I feel like I can do. Studying the subject just... doesn't interest me. I don't even read something and think, "huh, that's cool"--- it's really more of a "kill me now" reaction every time I'm forced to read a related textbook.

After my final exam, I packed all my luggage and left for my parents' house the next day. That's because I'm moving residences again, and I had to drag all the luggage back. The day after I flew out of Australia to China. That was to visit my totally-not-demented-but-definitely-crazy grandmother. It was an absolute NIGHTMARE of an experience for me, visiting her. Her impression of me seems to have stagnated at the time I was 8, and you can imagine how I felt when she interrogated me on whether I had bowel movements in the morning, because apparently I only used the toilet very shortly. Well firstly, the place where grandma lives in humid as hell, and because she refuses to move out of the government-assigned-housing that my parents once lived in, the toilets she had was less than 2 square meters and you had to squat over a pit to take a shit. I'm sure most people can understand why I didn't want to stay long in a small-confined stinky toilet pit, in a town with 40 degree humid weather.

Oh yeah- the weather. I was sweating constantly, dehydrating myself- it was really disgusting being soaked in your own sweat 24/7. I mean I tolerate it at the gym, because I shower almost immediately after, and it's sort of okay. This is just a whole different level of unpleasant.

Then grandma herself, right. She has this insane obsession with Chairman Mao. She's not religious but if she was, Chairman Mao would replace Jesus. Apparently Mao has no flaws and freed everyone in China and now we live in a glorious new age of wealth and prosperity. I guess it's good for grandma to live in her delusions... it'd shatter her to walk out the street and see the conditions people lived in, and the poverty people have to endure. It was really painful for me though, to endure her delusions and sort of play-along with them... grandma's old, after all. I think she'd be happier if she continued to believe in what she believed in. Reality is too cruel.

Not that I'll stop complaining about China. If I get lung cancer in the future, I blame the air pollution in China. I felt like I could hardly breathe- the sky was grey from the smog, everyone I passed by had a cigarette in their hands or smelled of cigarettes--- then when they opened their mouth they'd look super-sinister with their nicotine-stained teeth and absolutely horrid breath. Then there's the shitty traffic where there is a complete disregard of traffic laws. Apparently a red light means "go if you can" and sometimes I don't even know why they bother with traffic lights. Pedestrians share the same path with MOTORCYCLISTS and too often people riding electric bikes will creep up behind me (those things are silent) and I feel like I've experienced way too many near-misses for my liking. I know a golden quote from one of the Hangover movies is "BUT DID YOU DIE", except I really didn't appreciated when I applied myself to the same context.

From what I've said you might gather I didn't have the most wonderful time in China--- but surprisingly, I think I had the time of my life. More to come in the next post- I'm too jet-lagged to keep blogging.