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Ms. Gently
Random photoJust so the facts don’t get twisted, I didn’t run through anymore bases with Ms. Gently. After she devoured my mouth (and neck) for the rest of the night in a way quite contrary to her internet handle, we had to split up.
Her roommate was there, all our friends were there and there was no way we could’ve met up that night without everyone noticing. This wouldn’t matter at all in normal circumstances, but in Asian groups it's a big deal. You mess around with one girl in public and you have no shot with the others. You mess around with tons of girls in private and as long as you never spill evidence, you have a shot with everyone (even if everyone knows what’s going down). It’s the JFK rule. JFK was railing the shit out of bitches and everyone knew it, but if he publicly addressed it,
“poof!” there goes his reputation, his presidency, his wife and his entire image.
So we had to part ways.
Plus, we were sobering up. And though I obviously wouldn’t have minded continuing further, I was pretty sure she didn't find me that attractive, as she (like a lot
The JFK Rule
Don't publicize your shenanigans.
of Asian-American girls) has a white boy fetish.
I mentally penciled her into the K-Hunter Rotation at #4 as we all parted ways: She was hotter than the other three, but considering my chances of hitting anything more than a double (to say nothing of starting a relationship) were about as dim as complimentary keychain flashlight given away in the 90’s, I had to put her on the back end.
I can’t play meaningless games in my last season of college ball.
I mulled over Ms. Gently for a week.
I couldn’t pursue anything further with her, but she was the first single I’ve had in awhile and her ravenous destruction of my neck always left me with a wry smile in front of my mirror after my morning shower.
Can’t forget the scarf today.
I was generally upbeat due to the reinforcement that I still had “it”, but saddened by the knowledge that I still couldn’t form a relationship. This high-low turbulence of emotions quickly swept me through the week and then I was thrust into an even more chaotic situation.
It was J-ZN’s goodbye party on Saturday.
I
J-ZN's Goodbye Party
Awkward white people and asians with colorful hair was considering not going. I had ample excuses: I had a huge assignment, a test and a project all due on Monday. Which meant I couldn’t drink…and not drinking in a party is the closest to lame a person can get without losing a limb.
But this girl that I was once infatuated with (and who knows, maybe still infatuated with), is heading over to Belgium for a semester of exchange. Problem is, I’m graduating next semester…which means I’ll never see her again unless both of us somehow improve our long distance communication and have both the funds and tenacity to work out a meeting. So it was imperative I said my goodbyes.
It was J-ZN’s goodbye party but since she’s small, quiet and meek, and since it was being hosted at Teddy’s house, Teddy was basically the center of attention. Which is fine as I sat with J-ZN off to the side and talked about a bunch of random, serious things plaguing my life.
My current life is not something that brings up the mood so soon I found a drink in my hand to offset the depressing nature of my current status.
Maybe it
Asians at the Party
J-ZN's back and some random girl was this alcohol that swayed me into what I did next. Or maybe it was in the heat of the moment with the melodrama of saying goodbye to a girl I once loved. Or maybe it was my attempt to show a side of myself I never show. Or maybe it was to finally get a really sappy and sad story off of my chest.
Most likely it was a combination of these influences, with the former having the most impact. Whatever the reason, it was definitely not in character what happened next.
As I mentioned before, I was sitting alone with J-ZN off to the side and another girl joins our group.
Iron Face.
I have no idea how my standing is with Iron Face—I gave her a present from Seattle which she seemed happy about but I’m currently feuding with her best friend, S-Jess, which she is definitely not happy about.
Compounded to my unknown standing with her was my unease in sitting in a conversation with a girl I had once gone after and failed, and a girl I was currently pursuing. Iron Face didn’t know I had gone after J-ZN (in fact, most people don’t have a clue as it occurred during the summer). J-ZN doesn’t know I’m going after Iron Face. I had to be very careful in this awkward situation.
It didn’t help when Iron Face started off harshly by questioning character for my beef with S-Jess. I’m currently feuding with her because as usual, I made a racist joke, but this time I targeted Canadian women and she got pissed. Yeah, I know, stupid reason to lose a friend over. But my morals are solid: I never apologize for racist jokes (yes, I did reread this sentence). I especially don’t apologize when bitches laugh at all your racist jokes but get pissed at the one and only joke that directly targets them. I guess normal people don’t understand this concept though, and they try to call me out.
But J-ZN quickly told Iron Face, “Gen is actually a nice guy inside.”
Its funny. This girl rejected me. By email no less.
And we were only dating for a few weeks.
Yet she’s one of the few people in Montreal (or rather, the world) that truly knows me. I learned of a similar situation recently. When Sake Bomb first met me, she absolutely hated me and she complained about me to J-ZN back in May. However, J-ZN, instead of agreeing with her best friend, defended me (relentlessly, according to Sake Bomb). Coming from a meek Asian girl, that’s a huge deal.
I guess even though she rejected me, she knows what I’m about. She knows the real me.
And ultimately, this was the tipping factor. Besides my best friends Teddy and D-German, no one has actively defended me in Montreal. Of course, no one has any reason to defend me as I can counteract any hit, I exude confidence and I clearly deserve to be called out, as I’m visibly offensive.
But this girl actually took the time to look through all of that and form an opinion untainted by outside views. And I wanted to thank her by validating her understanding of me.
So when Iron Face still seemed dubious that I could actually be nice, or fall in love, or have a heart, I started telling the two a story.
I have never told this story to anyone…not to Teddy, not to D-German, not to any of my ex-girlfriends, not to my childhood friends from NYC, not to Maddy, not to Muffin Girl, I haven’t even told my brother, father, sister or mother.
Some people know bits and pieces. Others can guess and infer parts of the story.
But this story has never been told. I’ve never mentioned one hint, one clue or even one shred of indication that something like this happened.
I’ve never told this story.
It starts like any other innocuous story from the past.
I was in 8th grade, last year of middle school.
I lived in my lower middle class neighborhood of the Lower East Side, but my school was in the supremely wealthy Upper East Side of Manhattan, a good 60 or so blocks away. To get to school, I would board the M15 bus everyday at 14th street, ride for 40 minutes and get off at 79th street.
And everyday, for three straight years, I saw this same girl taking the ride with me. She got on sometime before me and got off at 67th street. She was one of the constants of my commute. She was in a different seat, or on especially crowded days, she was standing. But everyday, she would be there without fail.
Finally, in my last and final year, we started talking. This was before Gen the Ridiculous Drinker/Womanizer, before the Depth Chart, before Osaka capsule hotels, before GTAing cop cars, before any of this crap. I was a shy, quiet kid who only spoke when spoken to.
So if she hadn’t asked me for a pencil on that day, we probably would’ve never ended up talking and easily gone our separate ways.
But she did ask because she needed to finish her homework in the bus but she had forgotten her pencil case at home.
From then on, we started sitting next to each other everyday on the bus and talked about everything eighth graders talk about: movies, songs, sports, rumors, high school…and we gradually became close friends.
But our morning meetings couldn’t last forever.
I was a year older and graduating middle school. My new high school was in the opposite direction, near the Financial Center. So on our last morning commute together, we exchanged cell phone numbers and promises to keep in touch.
I’m atrocious at keeping in touch with people, but I kept in contact with her. Mostly because I was shy and quiet and high school was large and intimidating. My acclimation into high school wasn’t helped by two towers exploding close to a 100 meters away from my school and completely throwing my freshmen year into pandemonium.
With high school not completely working out, I found myself calling her often and meeting her and generally remaining good friends. She was stressed with high school entrance exams, family matters, the whole works and she found herself calling me. We basically supported each other.
Fast forward two years.
I was doing better. Though I was still quiet to a degree, I was able to talk to people and I made humorous comments in class when the time called for it. I had a bunch of friends. I was involved in many things. I had good grades. I was playing sports. I wasn’t popular by any means, but I wasn’t rock bottom either.
Throughout these two years, we had amazingly been keeping contact. Though I had tons of friends in my high school, I wasn’t really close with any of them. I couldn’t tell them about the real stuff happening to me, my emotions, my innermost feelings. So I would always dial her up. And she the same to me as she also had a rough time transitioning to high school and an even rougher time integrating as she was really shy.
We met close to once a week, every week. Hanging out, walking around, talking now about the random things high schoolers talk about: movies, songs, sports, rumors and university.
It was on one of these days that I finally asked her out. In true Asian Kokuhaku fashion, it had taken me over 6 years since I had first met her to tell her my feelings and it all just tumbled out in one gigantic ball of emotions as we sat on a park bench near city hall.
She didn’t attempt to unravel my jumbled confessional. She turned, clasped both sides of my face with her mittens and kissed me.
I won’t call what we had love, because it seemed we were both riding each other in hard times with the hormones of puberty pushing us along. But it was close enough. And we were a couple.
We walked around holding hands. We went on dates. We furtively kissed in public. We fought and quickly made up.
Like naïve high schoolers, we made plans together for the future.
It was the best time of our lives.
And then her parents found out about us. They forbade her to see me.
For a week, she avoided me until I was finally frustrated out of my wits. I cornered her by calling up her friend and together trapping her outside of her school.
After much angry prodding from my side, she finally told me.
I was dumbfounded. I was shocked. I collapsed into a chair.
I finally managed to squeak out a timid question.
“Why?”
She hesitated. She asked her friend to leave.
“Because you’re Japanese,” she whispered.
I didn’t understand. I couldn’t comprehend.
“Japanese?! What the fuck does being Japanese have to do with anything?!”
It was here that she burst into tears. But I wasn’t going to let go.
I jumped out of my chair.
“What the fuck are you talking about?!”
“Speak up, motherfucker! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Talk!”
She finally screamed back with equal gusto through her tears.
“It’s because I’m Korean! My family is Korean! And you’re Japanese!”
She ran off.
I sat. Speechless.
I was too shocked to do anything, but I knew the love of my life was disappearing. So as much as I wanted to sit and contemplate and be sad and lonely, I ran out after her.
I ran out, looked left and right. FUCK. Where the fuck was she?
I turned to her friend. “Which way did she fucking go?”
“She was crying when she left, you shouldn’t hurt her, she’s a good—“
I shoved her against the wall. Hard.
“Where did she fucking go?!”
She faltered and hesitatingly pointed right. I started running.
Thankfully, she had run straight. And thankfully, I’m fast. I caught up with her and almost tackled her into a hug. She tried squirming out but I held fast.
Her head suddenly slumped on my shoulder. We stood that way for a while and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening talking with cooler heads.
When we finally parted ways home, we left sullen but agreed. We would break up. It was for the better.
My life was horrendous after that.
Left to my own devices at night, or if I spent a minute just contemplating, I became a complete wreck. I distracted myself by being the clown of the class, running in many social circles, and not showing an ounce of sadness on my wry features.
Problems at home, at school, in life, were spiraling out of control as I had no one to talk to. I started confiding in other people, teachers, friends, even my brother, but it wasn’t the same.
My life got even more messed up when random girls started asking me out. I rejected every single one of them, which created even more sadness and confusion around me. It also led to the reputation of Gen being “hard to get”, prompting even more girls asking me out and creating even more trouble.
It was from the unlikeliest of sources where reprieve came.
A call from her friend, the same friend I had slammed against a wall, rang into my life. I gradually started letting out all the shit I had buried since that day and I started pouring my heart out to her friend. She told me to meet her the next day.
I went to the coffee shop she had specified, and then stopped dead in my tracks. It was the friend. But sitting next to her was the girl. My ex-girlfriend.
She made to leave but the friend jerked her back down.
“Look, I don’t know why you guys broke up—and I won’t ask—but its obvious you guys still love each other. Why don’t you admit it and get back together?”
She had her head down.
I knew she wouldn’t speak, so I had to take over.
“We know we love each other.”
I stopped momentarily, hoping she would take up where I left off. She kept her head straight down, trying not to look up.
I quickly finished, “I love her. I know she loves me. But we can’t get back together. I’m grateful you tried this hard to get us back, but we can’t. Sorry.”
I quickly turned to leave.
The friend was about to ask why, but she knew better. Resigned, she swiftly asked, “At least keep talking to each other. You need each other to at least talk to. You’re both going crazy. Promise me this!”
I quickly promised her at the door and left before I had to see my ex-girlfriend break down.
We kept the promise.
We eventually started talking again. Small conversations about nothing, then gradually we returned to the point of telling each other everything.
We talked almost everynight.
We met a few times to discuss things that couldn’t be discussed over phone.
Before we knew it, we were full on dating again.
It was amazing, and a little exciting for both of us as we were sneakily dating underneath everyone’s noses.
But apparently we weren’t sneaky enough.
Her parents found out again. This time they didn’t hold back. I never got the full details, but it was most likely horrendous.
Their ultimatum: break up or leave the house.
She called me, stock cold, the next morning. “My parents found out again. We’re breaking up forever.”
Trying to deal with the whirlwind of emotions dropping down, I managed to squeak out a meek, “Ok.”
She was still cold, but I could hear a small quiver in her voice.
“Gen, don’t be sad like last time. Find a new girlfriend. Please. Ask anyone, just find a new girlfriend. Tell me when you do.”
Before I could respond, I was listening to a dead tone.
I was walking from the subway station to school when I got the call. I was destroyed, trudging aimlessly towards school.
Someone elbowed me in the ribs. “Why the long face, Gen?”
I ignored her. I really didn’t want to talk.
“Come on, Gen. What’s wrong?”
What’s wrong, bitch? I just got dumped over a call with the girl I love because her motherfucking parents can’t deal with my race. Fuck off before I deck you!
I cocked my head up, “What?! I’m perfectly fine, bitch! There’s nothing wrong with me!”
The girl was taken aback. She was one of the many sorta, kinda friends I had in high school. She was one of the many girls who had tried to ask me out but I had quickly rejected.
I sighed.
“Let’s go on a date.”
She stopped, as if not believing her ears.
“Wait…what?”
I hadn’t stopped for her. “Don’t you understand? I asked you out on a date.”
She squealed and ran up to me, hugging my right arm and chattering on and on. “Oh, I knew you liked me deep inside, I knew you didn’t mean it when you rejected me, oh I can’t wait until I tell everyone, oh man, where do you wanna go for this date, I like Chinese food, but that’s not really a romantic first date right? How about…”
I tuned out and surreptitiously texted with my left hand.
i did what u asked.
i hope ur happy with this It vibrated in my pocket a second later.
thanks I took a deep breath, plastered a smile onto my face and turned to my new date.
“Hey, you said you liked Chinese? I know an amazing restaurant, I’ll take you there tonight!”
I tried calling her that night, but no one picked up.
I tried calling her the next night, but no one picked up.
I tried calling her everynight for a week. Not once did she pick up.
Exasperated, I called her friend.
“I was hoping you would know…she hasn’t been in school for a week.”
I hung up.
The next day, I tried calling one last time. No one answered.
I snuck out of school, mustered up all my courage, Google mapped her address and took the long subway ride to her house.
I rang the doorbell. It immediately opened to a worried lady.
She threw some random Hangul at me. Perplexed, I tried introducing myself.
“Um, my name is Gen. I was wondering if your daughter was here.”
Realization hit and she started shrieking incoherently in Korean. And then suddenly a man who was presumably the father came sprinting out.
Without any pretense, he pushed aside his wife and threw a wild right.
I could’ve easily ducked and countered but I stood still and waited for it to hit. It slammed me to the ground.
He spent a good twenty minutes working me over as I lay in the fetal position. He finally spit on me and stomped back in, dragging his wife in with him.
I lay there for a good ten minutes, trying to catch my breath and trying to figure out what was going on.
The front door creaked open and I tensed for the next round of hits.
But the footsteps went by me. I peeked up.
A guy. Younger than the father, probably the older brother she talked about occasionally.
I watched him from my low position as he checked the mailbox. With his back still turned, he lit a cigarette.
“She hasn’t come home in a week.”
His voice hardened, “Now get the fuck out of here.”
I never heard from her again, her friend never heard from her again and if her family had ever heard from her again, they certainly wouldn’t go out of their way to tell me. That text message was the last contact she had with anyone.
From that day onwards, I just started dating girls for the straight sex, no love. I wasn’t going to fall in love again and fuck shit up. If I distanced myself emotionally from girls, I could deal with them.
I started getting louder, funnier, crazier and more popular. I started dating bitches left and right and got ridiculously cocky with the experience.
Gone was my shyness, my quiet demeanor, my seriousness. In place was a cocky son of a gun with a swagger with a waiting list of girls (the high school predecessor to the 5-man rotation) waiting for me to finish the current girl.
It didn’t help a year later when alcohol, drugs and extreme partying entered into play in university. Not only was I big man on campus, girls were even easier than high school. Japan brought out even more of this ridiculousness as I had a steady stream of girls, booze and money fueling my fun.
But I’m a walking contradiction. Despite all this sex, I always look for a long term relationship and my goal in life is to get married early. Why? Because of the insecurity I developed for love from this inexperience.
I need to lock a girl, and by extension, love, down.
Both J-ZN and Iron Face were speechless.
Whatever they were expecting certainly wasn’t the rush of emotions I just let out.
I sat with bated breath. Like I said, I have never told the story so I was more than nervous about the reception such a strong story would have. I was especially nervous because I barely knew the two of them. Besides two weeks of dating in May, I rarely speak to J-ZN about anything of merit. Besides a 1 hour date set up by a drinking game, I haven’t spoken to Iron Face outside of class.
J-ZN was the first to speak, trying to formulate her thoughts from the staggering story, “I didn’t know…something like this happened…I…wait, is this why you’ve been changing since we were- ”
She glanced, realizing that Iron Face was sitting next to her.
“-I mean, you’ve definitely gotten changed this term…I just thought it was because of stuff that happened back in May…But thanks for your story.”
I nodded back, but my mind was running back to May.
Had I really changed?
Somewhere near the end of my junior year of university (around the time I started seeing J-ZN in the post-Chiaki era), the sobering experience of Texas and my infatuation with HKW in the fall, my exterior started chipping away. I didn’t notice it at first, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it…were it not for this blog. Sometime around the Calgary-Montana Trip Day 10, my writing had started changing. I still had the poetic jab, jab, jab style of blog writing and the humorous cultural references embedded into similies and metaphors, but I was talking more about feelings, emotions and reflectance rather than outlandish situations.
This change in writing cemented three things. My life has become more boring as I have no crazy stories to tell, my emotions are taking a front seat in my life, and from these two former thoughts, my character is definitely changing.
Lately, everyone is noticing it.
My readers comment on the swing in content in this blog, Teddy has called me out for my meekness and a lot of my friends say that I’ve “calmed down” and “gotten nicer”.
Problem is, everyone misses the old me.
My readers find the older posts hilarious, entertaining and outlandish. My current entries are good for “a 50-year old, thrice divorced, retired CEO to read in front of a fireplace” according to one of my readers (its true, I find my older entries a better read even though the writing is shoddy).
Teddy obviously yearns for the old us (as do I). At every party, we rehash all the same stories from the summer of 07. We’ve got no new stories where we absolutely tear apart a city.
And my friends definitely want the wild Gen back. My rez friends obviously want the Japanese Tank of lore who destroyed the freshmen year dorms like no one else. My current batch of friends find me bland like all their other friends and want the Gen who was annoying, crazy and arrogant to return. In fact, I’ve received boatloads of emoticon sprinkled Bookface messages inquiring about my physical and mental health (“Are you ok? You’re not acting normally!”).
And lastly, I want to keep my image of the arrogant New York City asshole that everyone loves to hate and hates to love. But recently its been hard to keep up.
Yes, I’ve definitely changed.
This is apparent just by the girls I chase. I have three rules: don’t fuck with relationships, don’t fuck with love and don’t fuck with guys. I also had an unspoken fourth rule developed from this story, don’t fuck with K-Girls (ever wonder why I didn’t go after Sky Blue a few months prior?).
Obviously, I’ve broken this fourth rule like the fourth wall as I’ve currently stocked my depth chart with four Korean pitchers. I guess that’s the sign I’ve been looking for. I’m finally done burying this atrocious and heart wrenching story from the past and I’m trying to move on.
Maybe that was the reason I finally told this story. I had finally gotten over it.
It was with this conclusion that Iron Face finally spoke.
She turned to me.
「現の事見直した」
(I’ve changed my image of you/I’ve reevaluated you)
It was a simple line, but the simplicity made me realize I had hit home with my story.
It was on this note that other (drunken) people noticed our little corner and we were forcibly folded back into the party.
There was no mention of the story afterwards, not even on the long, 40 minute trek when I walked Iron Face back to her apartment at 4am in the morning.
But as we said our goodbyes at her doorstep, she hugged me.
“I really did see a new Gen tonight…And thanks for walking me home…”
She paused, as if struggling to form her thoughts into words.
I patiently waited for her to formulate her ideas, but I wasn’t expecting what came next.
“…Can I buy you a coffee or something tomorrow?”
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yakyu otaku
T.J. Smith
Peerless subtlety.
This is the best thing you've ever written.