On Smoke and Mirrors
Today I had a long-ish chat conversation with my Da Jie Jie (big sister), who’s currently in Germany. Gosh I miss her.
Anyways, I told her about some of the goings-on as of late. Nothing really much is going on, but she dispensed some wisdom about dating and relationships. Among the principles she passed on to me:
- Let him do the chasing, you the choosing
- Just don’t pursue it too directly, and see what the guys do in return. As soon as you start to do something,
it will be hindered. - At least wait a couple of days. Be cool and calm, you are a busy woman and have lots of people pursuing after you [to which I said, "this is news to me!"]
- If it is meant to happen, it will happen. But if you hurry it and press too hard, it will break.
Hers is a perspective that mixes feminist independence with traditional notions of gender roles, with a twist of general female entitlement. While I appreciated her heartfelt advice very much, I felt more than a bit uncomfortable with some of these ideas. I mean, I’m a straight-forward and fairly transparent person – so the notion of feigning false popularity and especially of deliberately delaying responses in order to put on a face of “oh I’m busy and have little time for you – work to squeeze yourself into my schedule if you can” doesn’t sit well with me.
Then again, I understand the part about pressing too hard and breaking things prematurely. No guy wants to feel pressure about anything — especially not about relationships. So I get that. But… this whole dating things is just a strange business. It almost seems to be about making someone want what they can maybe-but-not-definitely have, then keeping it just within an extended arm’s grasp – in order to keep things interesting. I don’t know. That’s not really how I do things.
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Anyways, in other totally random news, I discovered a Taiwanese boy band called Fahrenheit. They are amazing! Check out their music videos on Youtube.