December.
Has descended.
Another year that has been a flash in pan, a mixed bag, a disappointed dream. No deaths, one heartbreak, two indifferent break-ups, a confounding crush later…what? What can I say for myself, what can I show for myself?
A few inches up that Sisyphysian hill, I am alive and happy and well. That is significant; entropy happens, gravity and gravitas are against me. No, I have not gotten as far as I hoped this year, but as I have been saying since I was fifteen: “I aim for the stars; and if I only hit the moon, well that works too.” That, plus no compunctions and no regrets, have served me quite well. If only I adhered to them better.
The advent of December means the decision of whether I will visit the US over Christmas and American New Year. Already, last night, in orange clockwork, the nightmares arrived.
They come in two versions: One has me back in high school, the Mom playing all jealous and manipulative, killing off my pets out of negligence and/or malice, trying to control my life and turning me into her that age: insecure, manipulative, slutty cheerleader. The other has her trying to do to me what she did to my Gege: take over my life, have me declared insane, force me to live with her, which would also drive me to suicide.
The month also brings bitter anniversaries: My Gege’s death, on Boxing Day; and both getting together with and the first break-up from Jifu. I wish these things did not continue to define me, but such are ghosts.
And now add to that my first meeting Yaya. No regrets there: I loved, I tried, I was….I believed in him too much, but believing too much in the people I love is a fatal flaw I am willing to embrace in myself.
I have had an eventful week. A flurry of events and assignments. Fighting off the guy who would steal my job. Meeting and planning with Brilly and Beany what I anticipate will be a fabulous, defining project.
Yet my brain remains foolishly preoccupied with a certain boy. The aforementioned Ah Ren. I am so baffled by him. I have no idea how to read:
1. foreigners
2. americans
3. white boys
I only know how to read Shanghainese. You would think I would have picked up a clue from Franzi, Bjoston, and the many other hunxie’s I’ve hung with and flung with over the years. Nah: the only generalization I will venture is that they are not so half/half as neither/nor.
Ah Ren either likes me but is being cautious and non-committal, or dislikes me and is being polite. Possibly half/half, and/or neither/nor.
Leave the door open? Close it? Make a move? Get bored and wander off? Hell, I really like him, but don’t know how much I like him, whether it is enough to overcome my reservations. The hairy American foreigner white boy factor is disconcerting enough: he kinda looks like my dead brother.
Yet he is wonderful and intriguing and the very rare possible kindred spirit. I cringe from the cliché of writer+photographer (which is like 90% of you my friends and readers, yikes). His surface is “too boring and innocuous and quiet for [me]” the gossip and gut inform; but the rare moments I scratch that cautious surface I catch glimpses of someone brilliant and wonderful and complicated and fascinating.
It is awkward between us. Is this because he likes me? Or because he doesn’t, but knows I like him, and thus the awkward?
My suspicion is that he is, as I suspected, hooking up with aforementioned gallery girl, and/or someone else in our circle, but they’re not serious and he…likes me but is not ready to shift off onto either side of that line with me. I’m leaning that direction as it seems the most explanatorily logical. But I could be completely wrong. My instincts suck even within familiar territory, let alone laowai Americans.
Thus, I resort to the defaults, of declaring to myself I don’t like fluffy foreigners anyhow, and trying to obsess about other crushes. Is this immature, or practical, or both? Or neither/nor? Ah Ren is appealing enough that it requires quite the zapper; what I have on option are an adorable Shanghainese DJ, and that longstanding, recently revived Cali-Canto. Both are more my type, more attractive, more age-appropriate, more comfortable of fits than Ah Ren – but I really do like Ah Ren, and probably my awkwards are the self-defeatings
I toy with waxing blunt, over the antiseptic neutrality of email, and just declaring all, all these contradictions and conflictions. The other inclination is to just ignore him indefinitely, unless or until he takes some initiative. I’ve already quite stuck my neck out in his regard, only for it to grow cold and icy in the isolated breeze. Or, no, he’s draped a scarf on said exposed neck, but refrained from the hoped for nibblage. I guess…gestures of friendship?
“White boys are soooo ambiguous!” Trixie SMSes, commiserating. She has just discarded a crush on Ah Ren’s sidekick, after he blew her off. Dude. Totally. Yet: if someone feels like he might must maybe might be a kindred spirit, he is worth the risk of humiliating myself, making an ass of myself over. Aim for the stars, baby, no matter how hard and flat I fall. No regrets, no excuses.
