It occurs to me that even on the most mundane of days, I am living a life of comfort and ease. Sometimes, it is worthwhile to take a moment and embrace the goodness that surrounds me. I am a lucky man, indeed.
First up was the trek to Hideaway Bar for the Wednesday feeding. I made stops at Shamboli’s Pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts along the way.
With the feeding mission accomplished, it was time to plan my next move. Initially, I considered doing the Arizona floating bar since it was practically next door. But I noted it was going to be dark soon, and for me, it is the bay views that make the floating experience worthwhile. I’ll come back when I can start earlier.
Swan joined me at Oasis when her church service was over. When we were ready to move on, I planned to introduce her to the Green Room, but alas, all the good seats were taken. So we went next door to Wet Spot instead. I had some coupons from last week’s SOB to expend and elected to use the “buy a lady drink, get a customer drink” ticket. As usual, I was buying lady drinks for my waitress Irene and my old pal Aine, who is Swan’s bestie when we visit. I got two beers for every round of lady drinks, so it was a pretty good deal for everyone.
I also had a coupon for a free blow job shooter and Irene volunteered to be the recipient.
I ordered some finger foods from the Sit-n-Bull waitress for the girls to share (I had a 15% discount coupon to use).
Everything was fine when we first got home. I sat on the couch with Swan and turned on the TV to watch some “Shameless.” And then something happened.
Not sure how this will resolve itself. I took a long walk this morning to think things over, and I’m still not clear on how to proceed. I’m definitely reminded that I despise the drama that seems to be inherent in relationships. Perhaps I’m better off alone.
UPDATE: We talked. She thought I was mad and so she was giving me “space.” I told her that doesn’t work with me and that it is better to talk it through at the time. Perhaps we have learned our lesson.
I hope Swan was telling the truth, and not hiding her own issues, when she said she thought you were mad.
I’ve ranted about this before, but Asian people have an annoying tendency not to share the most important things, and this dovetails with the equally annoying Asian tendency to presume to do your thinking for you. I didn’t learn about my Korean uncle’s terminal liver cancer until he was at the end stage. Another more distant relative, something like a great aunt, developed stomach cancer when she was at a grandmotherly age (this was back in 1986), and the doc told the relatives, but not her, about her condition. Then the relatives chose not to say anything to my great aunt, who eventually died in agony without knowing why. More mundane examples of this sort of non-communicativeness about important matters abound (sometimes, even the simple utterance of “I love you” is impossible). It’s frustrating as hell and the unnecessary cause of so much strife and conflict.
In fact, this unwillingness or inability to convey the important stuff reminds me of that rule for moviemaking: never write a story in which the problems can be solved by a cell phone, i.e., if the characters in the story can solve a problem simply by communicating, the story’s probably no good (there are exceptions to this rule, of course). That’s how powerful and essential communication is. Communication is key for all relationships no matter the culture, but Asians apparently didn’t get the memo.
What makes this even more bitterly hilarious is that this weird Asian tendency toward indirection is utterly contradicted by how loudly rude and direct Asians can be with each other (and with foreigners). It’s almost as if an entire continent of people figured out the best psychological strategies for interacting harmoniously, then consciously decided to do exactly the opposite thing. Why? Just to fuck with each other. It’s like what Agent Smith tells Morpheus in The Matrix: humans actually crave conflict, difficulty, and misery. When the machines tried to create a utopia to occupy the humans’ minds, the humans went crazy because they could see how fake it was.
Upshot: drama is part and parcel of relationships, like it or not. Just be sure the relationship doesn’t curdle into what Dane Cook calls a “relationshit.”
Just wait until you truly experience the dreaded Filipina “tampo.”
I too abhor drama and have contemplated making a t-shirt that says “Bawal dito ang tampo” — Tampo is forbidden here.
If you know, you know. Or you will….
Drain, I’ve seen it firsthand and heard many tampo horror stories. Then again, some guys say the period of silent treatment is like a vacation. I think your t-shirt idea might trigger a tampo outbreak! I like it, though!
Kevin, reading your comment brought to mind this quote from Stephen King:
When you are dealing with cultural communication issues it is more difficult to unravel. Drain Snake mentioned “tampo” in his comment, an aspect of Filipina culture that many Western men find unfathomable.
Anyway, the issue with Swan wasn’t quite in the tampo realm. Once we talked (I had to make the first approach), she said she thought I was mad and was giving me space. Hmm, I guess she thought I was tampo. Anyway, hopefully, we both learned something and can avoid future misunderstandings of this nature.
I won’t stick around for the “relationshit” to hit the fan!
“Tampo” sounded, at first, like Philippinglish for “temper.”
Tampo tantrum rings true…