Wednesday, July 30, 2008

short stories on love

I often feel like the woman at the well. Every relationship ends eventually, until the idea of marriage, after trying it five times, becomes too much of a chore. She turns cynical and merely lives together with her current man instead.

I also often think, that the men that pass through my life, go on to greater things. Behind every successful man was one woman in his past, and I am that woman. They move on, and I am still here, merely one of the many jewels in their crowns, but at least they are now kings or on their way there.

My love life is not a novel, but a collection of short stories, strung together by common themes. I make all my men feel insecure - my past, my mistakes, my charm. I neglect them while being in my own world, unable to pick up that phone just to check in. I am either too independent or too depressed. I am too much like a man in so many ways: I don't like to cuddle very much, I am not clingy, I cannot play my computer games and talk to you at the same time, I don't like to be disturbed at work, I give solutions to problems I listen to, and I like to zone out and be by myself sometimes.

My charm is very short-lived. For the past ten years men have fallen in love with me, and come alongside me, but we are unable to stick together because I do not have what it takes to be a sticker. I feel very special each time, but I know I would never be the last girlfriend, even though I know they would never forget me.

I don't like short stories. Beginning a new story again and again is tiring and I have less to give each time. Eventually I do end up loving that someone properly. But that story might end anyway.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

the thing about younger men

They are usually the one to say "I love you" first.
They are emotionally available.
They aim to please.
They don't see the mechanics of making love but rather the intimacy and pleasure of it.
They are more willing to cry.
They let you be the one to make them feel secure sometimes.
They allow you to inspire them, and gaze at you when you speak.
They believe in hugs, not reasoning and shouting.
They speak gently, not harshly.
They respect you.
They haven't given up on love.

Get yourself one today.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Winter Sleep by Olivia Lufkin

It keeps coming back to me
I remember this pain
It spreads across my eyes
Everything is dull

Everyone's smiling, they're smiling
It pushes me far far away
I can't understand
Everything is blue

Can you hear me out there?

Will you hold me now
Hold me now
My frozen heart
I'm gazing from the distance and
I feel everything pass through me
I can't be alone right now
Will you hold me now
Hold me now
My frozen heart
I'm lost in a deep winter sleep
I can't seem to find my way out alone
Can you wake me

I know when I let it in
It hides love from this moment
So I guard it close
I watch the moves it makes

But it gets me, but it gets me
I wish I could understand how I
Could make it disappear, make it disappear

Anyone out there hear me now?

Will you hold me now
Hold me now
My frozen heart
Kiss my lips and maybe you can take me to your world for now
I can't be alone right now
Will you hold me now Hold me now My frozen heart
Please make it all go away
Am I ever gonna feel myself again?
I hope I will

Sunday, July 27, 2008

falling in love sensibly

Is it actually possible to fall in love without visions of falling into fields of flowers, or of lights in the skies; or of feelings you get in a dream-like state, while quivering, and wanting to kiss the person madly?

I have only been in love like that twice in my life. It scares me to have to ever feel like that once again, probably because when that happens I end up losing the person in the end anyway. My fear of loss has penetrated me that much. While I am an emotive person, my steely exterior gives little away if I can help it, and I often look away and no longer into a person's eyes. I make humour out of everything and talk of serious issues looking into the distance. I am intimacy-phobic because I am phobic of loss and abandonment. I hardly want to quiver in a person's presence again.

Flowers, lights and quivers don't last anyway. Love is innately sensible. Right?

I can skip the falling in love madly part and go straight to loving a person madly. I lose the person usually anyway, but at least that way, it is easier to forget when he goes. I know that sounds really cynical but I am certainly no Jennifer Hudson in SATC wearing a LOVE keychain.

I don't dare to delve anymore into my emotions because it only opens the floodgates of pain that I have felt for twenty eight years of my life. I still feel fear being neglected and abandoned. I still feel regret for losing the only two people I ever fell in love with madly in my life, the flowers and lights and quivers I felt with them. Falling in love is a sad thing.

How am I supposed to fall in love senselessly if I think this way? Like my doc says, this is not the real me, I am not being authentic if I only think, and no longer feel. From today, I will try harder to let my tears come, and to let my heart go.

But I am so scared.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

friends... or not

It is nice to talk serious stuff with someone - philosophy, spirituality and the like - and not feel tired out by it. Intellectual conversations spiced with witty banter, yet with honesty and a lack of frivolity about life, these things in conversations make a friendship even more meaningful.

Group conversations tire me out more. I can talk with someone one-on-one for a much longer time. Recently most of the people I spend time with outside of the virtual world, i.e. Real Life, are my gaming buddies. They are mostly guys. I like talking to them in a group and one to one, one being more tiring than the other, but our common interest draws us together and it is more fun than it is pressurising to be with them, compared with other groups of friends.

Sometimes it gets unclear; Platonic relationships are hard to define, with so many male species of friends in my circle now. So many seemingly implied actions, mixed with emotional (and recreational) intimacy, it is hard to interpret if they want friendship only, or more. I love my girlfriends because our intimacy has no such barriers, but of course, my girlfriends are high-end achievers in their careers and very busy, so it is not often we have bonding sessions of intimacy. Hence most of my emotional intimacy is derived from my more available friends now, unfortunately male. So the lines get a bit unclear.

Especially in this day and age. What actions imply an intention to create a more-than-friends relationship? Times are cheap; even after two friends, say, have sex together, it could be nothing more than just a recreational activity that two friends indulge in together. Things get confusing and I hardly want to be a part of such grey activity. But even other things can get misconstrued: sentences such as "I like talking to you," "I can't sleep without hearing your voice first," "You have beautiful eyes," and other seemingly unclear intimate statements that wouldn't be unclear if it were a girlfriend. What do you mean when you say such things to a sex that you might be attracted to?

Especially with men, not boys. Boys lay their feelings on the line more easily; I could get more success with asking, "Are you in love with me?" and things turn black or white far sooner. Men don't let their emotions betray their actions, acting calculatedly and are far more able to see woods for the trees. Which makes me just another tree - nothing special really. That aside, with men it is far harder to guess their intentions because very little emotion is on display and these emotions may or may not be authentic of love or similar. They play the girl-game like a chess event. With this generation of men I really am not sure sometimes and I cannot really ask for fear of losing a friend.

So the game of implications and implications continue on. Is it just me?

Platonic friendships were easier when I was younger. I was one of the guys, and I knew that, and they knew that. Times then were more black and white: physical contact that buddies do not indulge in, simply implies interest in a more-than-friends connection. This connection is clear, it is a love relationship with intention to eventually marry. No such things as fuck-buddies, flings or just-for-now relationships. While I am still very boyish, it is sometimes harder to been seen as just one of the boys nowadays. The rules have changed, and I am older and I guess more womanly no matter how many male-traits I still have. (Fats perhaps?)

In the past it was classic knowledge to not lead someone on if you are not interested the way he is. You don't invite a guy back to your place for coffee because coffee means sex, so unless that isn't your intention you don't extend that kind of invitation. I don't think such courtesies are very relevant nowadays. Maybe because people are lonelier now, they like the company and attention even if they don't want to love the other person back now, or ever. They want to fill the gaps and voids in their lives. Love has become impossible to them and hence activities of love indulged with someone passable, will suffice. We live in cheap times. I admit I have fallen.

Thus I have framed this poem up in my room to remind me:

Be not afraid,
You should never be
abandoned.
- Neglected
Fearful of loss
For loss brings
gain - in love
gain - brings loss
in dignity.
You are greater -
than you - imagine
I love you all the
same - he should
too.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

i know what i want for my 29th birthday...

embracing my curves

I guess the reality is that I have to learn to embrace my new curvy self (thank you pre-pre-menopause). I am becoming pear-shaped. I look like one of those nudes in French paintings, those that are muses for famous artists, full of fat globules everywhere but still seductively lounge on European sofas for their artists to paint them.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

waiting

I am hoping to get into British Council's CELTA course - basically a professional certificate course like TOEFL, TESOL etc. - but it is all a waiting game right now. Application is in, but I might not necessarily be called down for a selection interview, or I might not even get through the interview! This course intake in August is the last for this year.

My plan is to go to Batam, Indonesia, as a start of my new career. Other doors might open up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. But everything is a waiting game right now. Patience, my mother would say.

I don't feel very keen on a lot of other things right now, yet I know I need to stay occupied. But my concentration span is not great and daytimes are not really times of my peak performance. I sleep most afternoons and come alive at night.

I don't feel melancholic enough to write much either, uninspired that I am. I try to turn my creativity into playing and singing on my guitars. I try to spend time with people. I try to watch dramas online, go for gigs, watch films. I am reading Sense and Sensibility. I game when I need to. And then I sleep whenever I can.

I can visualise my heart racing when I am back in the flow of this world. I am not sure if I can still think and act and be the person I used to be when I need to be. I fear I might act like I have ADHD, unable to concentrate and stressed out with too much stimuli.

A beer would be good right now.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

What should I write?

There is a lot I have inside me that have no words to. Pulling and tugging that come to nothing. I want to shout all about nothing. Like a deflated air bag inside of me, leaving only its skin, wrinkled like my face is getting. All you can sense in words are anger and anguish at face value.

I still cannot really answer that question: what will make me happy.

The answer is still nil.