Shanghai Vixen

Position open: Mr. Vixen. Auditions ongoing.

I’ve had enough of angsting over mediocre men. I shall go out, hunt, recruit, but ultimately THEY need to be convincing me. I’m a great gal with a great life; smart and successful, loving and beloved, sweet and sarcastic. I’m a great friend and a great girlfriend, and will make a great partner and parent.

I make a bad narcissus. I sell myself short. It is a fundamental structural flaw in my romantic paradigm. I pick a single recipient of affection and am rendered at the mercy of his moods.

It’s not a gender role, to pursue versus be pursued, thing. It’s practical: once you’re invested and involved, it’s another matter, but until then it’s an audition for the most appropriate candidate. But it should be more an interview than head (*dirty*) hunting: if they don’t want the gig, no matter how good of one it is, it’s their problem, not mine.

A gray winter gloom hung over Shanghai this morning, making the forklifting of myself out of bed even creakier than usual. A flu turned head cold that has vascillated through my system for a month returned with new phlemmy vengeance yesterday morning, repayment for my tiring myself out on the party I threw the night before.

I like staying home over Chunjie, Chinese New Year. Quiet puttering about the house, catching up on cleaning and errands and emails, mellow hang-outs with friends. There’s not much I can do work-wise this week, with all offices closed and their staffers far flung to their native provinces, so it privides a rare moment to be still.

The party two days ago was a big success, only extra work since I departed from my usual cocktails only format and cooked up a storm, with people rambling in starting in the afternoon. I actually am a pretty good cook, and concoct the bulk of my meals at home, mostly out of fresh produce from one of the three wet markets in my neighborhood. However, I do not come off as a particularly domestic woman, my Cancerian core is hidden under the public face of the gadfly. So, it was nice to show off: my pumkin and feta pasta, my stuffed mushrooms and peppers and zucchini, my crustless quiche, and my salad…and I didn’t have a chance to make one of my excellent soups or curries.

Good crowd of about twenty people, mostly Shanghainese, including filmmakers, a rock star, a government cultural organizer, an art historian, an interior designer, a professional socialite, a photography curator…fun, food and many martinis were had by all.

My fuck buddy Gym Boy also showed up briefly, and although there was little language issue with the Sinophone crowd, he was intimidated and fled. My gay friends backslapped me for having a hot stud in waiting.

On Chinese New Year’s eve, right after I had run a bath and was deliciously plotting all the reading I’d get done that night, Gym Boy called suggesting we go to Longhua for the ringing in of the New Year. Not in the actual temple, that’s too expensive, but the area around it is known to be very lively.

He picked me up, dried my hair for me, and we headed over. It was actually pretty disappointing, very schlocky, cheaply commercial, and not at all the old style temple fair it reportedly used to be. Gym Boy bought us the ribbons to write our wishes on toss on the fortune tree. There were four: one each for health/longevity, work/money, love/family and luck. The first two were easy for me; the latter two stumped me. I still have them in a pouch on my desk.

Luck - that’s the thing with luck, it’s not for what you hope for or expect but what you chance upon. Otherwise, it’s not luck, right? It is more what La Turqa calls “gifts from the universe”. Surprise me, universe!

Love…I suspected Gym Boy was writing on his that I would finally cave and marry him. Sigh. What could I write? I didn’t want to write Net Boy while out on a date with Gym Boy, and I don’t even know if Net Boy is who and what I really want.

Because I don’t know who or what I want; I’ve never been opportunistic in love, I’m not out for a financial windfall. All I know is a vague outline: someone on my mental and emotional wavelength, someone I can really talk to, someone whose company I enjoy as much as my own, someone who “gets” me. Someone who fits me. The rest - looks, background, profession - are comparatively insignificant. Surprise me, universe?

“So, what WAS that?” I puzzle as I stalk the final half-block home. After the latest Hmm Net Boy has walked me most of the way home only to disperse suddenly into a taxi.

It was a six or seven hour coffee session; I missed the gym, and dinner. It is rare for me to have so much to talk about with someone, and afterwards the idea pings continue, the threads and jams that we didn’t get to as our riff rambled on.

On the first non-date, we discussed at length child-rearing. On this second non-date, we explored marriage and our respective aversion to traditional models thereof. Compromises, the challenges of being cultural hybrids, the sticky messes of our respective personal baggage claims.

Net Boy is a rare kindred spirit. A person I could spend endless hours rambling and dissecting and non-sequitoring with. On one hand, this is the sort of budding friendship I treasure too much to risk with the romantic aspect; on the other, he is too strong and striking a possibility for me to walk away from.

He initially reminded me of Yaya, the American man-boy in Shanghai, and of similar provenance. As I know him more, though, he seems like elements of Kazza but mostly a male, more angsty…me.

Our rambling conversations are these waltzes through intense emotional terrain set to a soundtrack of intellectual jazz riffs. Synchronized, synchopated.

Something is there, but flighty and frightened by…by what? My own fear, of another Yaya-type loss, of destroying a friendship I cherish. I do fear his baggage also, but have gotten over that; what terrifies me more is the opposite, that he feels too perfect (for all his imperfections), that my sensation of a “fit” is illusory. That I will fall for him and he will reject me and break my heart.

As for what’s going on in his head, I’m at a loss. I think I am being pretty obvious, but I do oblivious better than obvious, perhaps. Perhaps these long coffees are cautious explorations of healing hearts, risk assessing. Perhaps I am overanalyzing, looking for meaning where none exists.

Its a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.

And you read your emily dickinson,
And I my robert frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what weve lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.

Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
Youre a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.