Although, in hindsight, it took me a long time to come to terms with that fact. I went to a high school full of very thin people, living in a country that was extremely image conscious. Being slightly "big boned," (on a side note, what the fuck does that mean. My pediatrician always avoided the term fat. I was fat. I had a gut. Saying I was "husky" or "big boned" was like giving me nutrasweet and telling me its sugar) I was always self conscious of my size. By big boned, I mean I was probably two of the girls in my class. While in the US, my size would have probably been celebrated by the fact that I was mildly athletic and probably could have been a decent football player. In Korea, I was, for lack of better words, a fat guy in a sea of skinny people.
To add to this, whenever my loving and wonderful mother calls me on her now (read previous blog called 'The Lies We Tell') weekly phone call, her first question is, "how is your weight control going?" Of course, I always lie and say it's going great.
Anyways, needless to say, it took me a little while to finally get over my issues with size. Eventually, I've learned to embrace what you have in life, or change it. Subsequently, I've lost give or take forty pounds in the past couple of months. I'm not as much sure as if I've been doing this for self image- I have lost a lot of weight in the past and gained it back, mostly out of self loathing- or the fact that the clothes that I had weren't fitting me anymore and I am subsequently too poor and embarrassed to buy an entirely new wardrobe.
Anyways, the only reason I divulge these terribly honest and frankly a little embarrassing facts, is…actually, I'm not sure if there was a reason. But their kind of funny, looking back at them.
I'm a big zero for three this summer when it comes to dating. Three different girls, three different types of rejections. Although it would be funny for me to dwell into the details of each rejection and explain the semantics of each situation…..actually it would be funny.
Girl number 1
I had known of girl number 1 since high school, which was promising, because we shared a similar background in a sense. Sometimes, I have a hard time relating to the typical high school experience in the US- I guess because my high school experience was so not typical. Anyways, since we had gone to the same high school, there was a commonality there which I thought would be a good basis for things.
She would be what I would term as a late bloomer. In fact, despite the size of my high school being barely under a massive four hundred (380 actually, I think. There were like 76 students in my graduating class) students, I hardly recall any interaction with Girl number 1. I believe the word that I am looking for is wall flower. Anyways, about a year ago, former wallflower Girl number 1 walks back into my world. And she has bloomed significantly since I last saw here. I would go into further detail, however I find that describing how big her boobs were now compared to then is distasteful.
Anyways, I got her number that night. Went out for dinner. It kind of fizzled after that. Stayed in contact, saw her once in a blue moon, and then a couple months ago, went out for ice cream, which turned into dinner and drinks and then sitting by the river just talking. I thought that was a go ahead to ask her to go out on another date. Unfortunately, she is leaving for law school at the end of the summer and cited that for the reason to not get involved with anyone.
I still insist I'm much more fun than law school.
Girl number 2
Now I've know girl number 2 for nearly four years now. We both were involved the literary magazine at my former university. She was an incoming freshman and I was, well, let's just say I was well along the road of my college career, a long winding road with many a side trails and pit stops. Anyways, we always watched movies together. I am somewhat artsy and I can appreciate good cinematography when I see it.
Needless to say, when I first met Girl number 2, she was significantly younger than me and because of that, didn't think it was necessarily appropriate to pursue a relationship with her.
Skip to four years later and now she is going into her senior year of college. Girl number 2 goes to Italy for the summer. She calls me from Italy. Twice. I really don't think much of the phone calls, but the thought still lingers in my head somewhat. I start to see Girl number 2 as maybe something more than just a movie companion. Eagerly, I await her return from Italy and I help her move into her new apartment. We go out for beers that night. Despite there being an obvious lack of chemistry between us and I still find it in my drunken self (this was after eight or nine beers and I was teetering on the dark side of the force) to ask her if she was attracted to me. She paused for a moment.
"I don't think I can see us being anything past friends. I hope this doesn't hurt you." I said it didn't. I lie. I lie a lot sometimes.
Girl number 3
I've known Girl number 3 for about the same amount of time that I've known Girl number 2. She's not nearly as young as Girl number 2, which is always a plus, but she was carrying a lot of emotional baggage (she has a kid and a psycho ex-boyfriend) and had her own issues (she told me that she was bipolar). Despite this, she was a redhead (which I have a thing for) and had a lot of freckles (which I find cute). We had just kind of got back in touch after a long period of prolonged not talking. Pregnancy and taking care of a kid kind of takes you out of the social world for a little while.
Anyways, a more recent wrinkle in a friendship was that we had started meeting up and having beers together. By recent, I mean that we had just done it two times before. I enjoyed her company and she enjoyed mine. Nothing really flirtatious, although over chat, over conversations were borderline flirtatious. I like hanging out with her because she was just as big of a lush as I was and she smoked. I am a part time smoker. I am not a full time smoker because I intend to quit. However, in a world full of non smokers, nothing makes you feel guiltier than lighting up a cigarette and getting the look like "you're killing me and yourself and I hate you for that" that non-smoker often give. That guilt is lifted when smoking around a smoker. And let me tell you, nothing goes better with throwing back beers than cancer sticks.
Most recently we went out. Had few too many beers. We were vibing and I felt like there was chemistry between us. Admitting, I got handsy- although I never really trying to cop a feel or let my hands wander somewhere inappropriate. Mostly like little backrubs and such. I think I might have pecked her shoulder at some point in the night. It gets hazy. Anyways, it was not like these actions were unwelcome by her or reciprocated at some way shape or form. Nothing happened, of course. I walked her back to her car and she drove home.
A few days afterwards, we talk. "I was very uncomfortable that night." I believe those were her exact words. I, being the nice person I usually am, said I was sorry.
I did forgot to ask her when she felt uncomfortable. Was it when she was telling me about how she was having sex with the portly older man that sweat on her that she met on match.com? Or when she declared that she was just a sexual person? Or just when I kissed her on the cheek good night.
So 0-3 this summer. I've come up with five logical explanations.
- I am ugly.
- The girls I meet are blind, deaf and stupid.
- Law school really sucks
- I need to stop asking out friends
- I am attracted to the wrong type of girl.
As far as I know 1 and 2 are not true. 3 is most definitely true. 4 and 5 probably are true, but I'm not sure what I can really do about it.
But at least I know I'm not ugly. I think. Just big boned.
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