coffee chat

it's been so long since I've had a real crush. the sense of giddy "can't stop thinking about it" feeling reminds me of school girls doodling names on notebooks. thanks to a side project, my office crush - let's call him Folgers since he's an all american coffee guy - and I see each other almost every day. the strange thing is that I can't completely put my finger on why I like him, yet I can totally see myself with him. in fact, the very first time we met, I was much more interested in another guy in the group and didn't give Folgers a second thought. but like i said, my favorite thing about meeting people is that in that moment, there's no way to tell what role they are going to play in your life.

I've heard people say that men and women can't be friends unless there was some initial attraction one way or the other. not sure if I completely believe that... to me, evaluating guys is a lot like shopping. there's a huge inventory that I hate and would never consider wearing, there's a small handful of items that I absolutely must have, then everything else falls into a grey area that warrants trying on.

with guys, for those that don't fall into the majority "just friends" category immediately, it takes me a while to decide where they fall. the grey area is like a no-man's land, with both parties trying to assess the situation and simultaneously wondering what the other is thinking. just this weekend I hung out with someone who has been in the grey area for a while - we get dinner and hang out alone, we play tennis, we text. after some time, he's finally fallen across the threshold into the friend zone since he's not quite compelling enough (pros: tall, works at a cool start up. cons: pale, not funny). I'm not sure whether he's placed me in a category yet, so now I'm walking on eggshells trying to be his friend, but worried that I'm leading him on.

all this to say - it might be a similarly long journey before I can see where Folgers falls despite my gut wanting to put him into the "absolutely must have" category. so far - pros: manly, great sense of humor, smells nice, hardworking; cons: not thaat cute.  for a girl who lacks patience, it's going to be difficult to play this right.

chai heart coffee

fresh meat

today I felt so gross and uninspired in my outfit. normally i wouldn't give two shits but then I remembered we just got a whole bunch of new analysts... i guess it's partly my cougar instincts kicking in but more so my desire not to get shown up by pretty younger girls in the office. ha ha.

and I have a new office crush! pretty exciting. we'll see if anything happens before I go out of the country though.  this wouldn't be the first time I've been associated with someone at the office (or the second..or third...or...good thing it's a big office).

love letters of great men

carrie is to big as chai tea is to earl grey. we talk about how happy we were then and somehow it makes us more happy now.  i guess i'll never stop loving him, and him me.

i wonder if that's normal for two people who aren't together and know that it's not right to be together...

choose your own [real life] adventure

the passing of time has always been elusive to me – I can never remember whether it was spring or fall, whether I was 18 or 23, whether it was last weekend or three months ago. what my life lacks is markers – something to measure not just the passage of small increments of time, but to denote segments of my life.  some people use seasons (what’s that? it’s 65 degrees in SF every day), others use sporting events (despite my love of tennis I still can’t tell you when the US Open is versus Wimbledon), and the lucky ones get to measure life in semesters and vacations.

I guess what I use are boys…seasons of love, if you will. but I'm starting to realize that putting so much emphasis on boys has really been detracting from time that should be spent on...me. 

here’s the deal. 2011 has been a tumultuous year – I’ve never felt so lost yet had so many options in front of me…my quarter life crisis has been like a choose your own adventure book where every choice is difficult because there is so much on the line. boys have been the distracting options thrown in to delay making any real decision that contributes to progress. 

just imagine:  

it stormed like crazy last night and a giant tree has fallen over, blocking your passage to the golden city where david beckham lives, unicorns exist, and you love your job.  going around the tree is not an option for some reason you will never know, but you can:

1. Dig a tunnel under the tree (7 days)
2. Chop your way through the freaking tree (4.5 days, but you need to make an axe somehow…)
3. Make out with the hot guy traveling with you (as long as you want)
4. Have an orgy with some hot body contestants who live in the tree (well, how much stamina do you have??)

obvious choice here  - 4.  haha just joking. but you get the point. it’s time to stop screwing around and get myself back on track. 

who knew the real life version would be so much scarier?

strangers again

yesterday I was dumped by someone 3 years younger than me. do you know how crappy that feels?! probably not, because no girl in her right mind should date a guy 3 years younger for obvious reasons. what came between us in the end? both number 1 (as you can tell) and number 2 from my previous post.

breve gave me the dignity of telling me in person that it wasn't working. and I agreed - I agreed that things had been rocky (when he tells you he filed your one-liner email into his "to do when i get back from vacation" folder, you know something's up), I agreed that he wanted more (too much) space, I agreed when he said he didn't see it going long-term and didn't want to waste my time, and I even agreed when he said he felt like if we tried to put band-aids on the relationship he would probably end up "using" me (mmm...guilty).  I knew all this, so why didn't I say it first?  why didn't I pull the trigger? and if I had, would I still be feeling so crappy?

the worst part about being dumped in a non-defined relationship is the doubt that's left. questions that you shouldn't be asking yourself but you do anyway, like - did he actually care about me? how much of it was "real"? did I do something wrong? could I have done something differently? am I crazy????

i'm amazed at how difficult it is to find two people so compatible that they want to spend even part of their lives together. when you start a relationship without the benefit of mutual friends or a prior friendship, it's really hard to care about someone else's problems. just like with new friends, in new relationships, it's easy to get along when you know someone at the surface level and all that matters is having fun. after a few months you start living the stressors in each other's lives, and you have to decide if you care enough to take on that burden.

so here we are - strangers again, our lives now not so different from when we met at that start up party. how interesting that someone can step into your life and get to know so much about you - your happiness, your quirks, your setbacks - as your lives revolve around each other...and then in the next moment you don't know if you'll ever see that person again. what a strange and empty feeling.

but even more mysterious is the feeling I get when I meet someone for the first time - not knowing in that instant how our lives will be intertwined - if we will be friends, lovers, or just people who never see each other again.

strangers again, by Wong Fu Productions

honeymoon's over

i don't think it's any surprise that my poor blog has been neglected for the last 3 weeks while my head was in the clouds hanging out with Breve. we've shared a lot of laughs but I think it's safe to say that the honeymoon is over. I guess all couples hit a point where the blinders come off, and as each reveals more about themself to the other, the faults that were cute before become obvious incompatibilities, and the question emerges: how much compromise (sacrifice) are you willing to make?

Breve has a lot of awesome qualities that I'm looking for - he's super smart and funny, very cute (he's left many broken hearts in the world of nerds), and tall. but there are two big things that stand in the way of him becoming my "boyfriend":
(i'm totally living on the edge here because there is a very real risk that he's going to do some ninja programmer thing and find my blog, but I just can't help myself.)

1. His age.  In my last post I claimed I'd gotten over this, but there really are some things that can only come with time.  It must also be that all nerds lack social/emotional intelligence to some degree, and Breve exhibits the deficiencies in a way that makes him seem really immature - like having a 30 year old woman take him clothes shopping and refusing to wear sunscreen.
2. His need for alone time. A lot of it. But he is willing to spend that time with one thing - his computer. I simply don't understand the concept of choosing to spend time in a virtual world over spending time in reality. to be fair everyone gets in that mood where they just want to be alone, but this is a little extreme...i.e. staying up all night just to get enough alone time.

i'm starting to find it hard to take this seriously.  am I just wasting my time?  I still like him a lot but I feel my perception of the relationship evolving.  for now I'll give it a little more time before I start reading through my okcupid inbox again...

nope, not there anymore.

flowchart

okcupid emailed me today with a "flowchart to my heart", for people to see if they have a shot at dating me.  pretty interesting, but it's funny/surprising that the answer to the question "Which makes for a better relationship?" puts you on such different paths.

click the image for an enlarged view into the dating mind of chai.

born this way

I should have known. not only have I liked boys from a very young age, but I've always shown signs of being a natural cougar. case in point: in elementary school, i was a second grader in a combo 1st + 2nd grade class, and hung out with a first grader, Zack, alllll the time. I guess by little kid standards he was as close to a boyfriend as guys could get at that time, given their cooties and all.

I've finally decided to stop fighting my innate cougarness, and it's been about a month now since I started dating PNB #1 - who from now on I'll refer to as Breve since he fits the half-and-half profile. though we're still in the initial treacherous stages when anything can happen and anyone can change their mind with no obligation to the other, we've at least established that 1) we're dating and 2) we're not dating anyone else.

how did Breve go from PNB to PB?  it was a combination of me getting over the fact that he's younger to see his personality (though still not totally over it...some of his friends still have acne, wtf), his persistence (ironically he took my genuine disinterest as a sign of playing hard to get and tried even harder), and situational factors (I was getting sick of the weirdos on okcupid and the douchebags in real life). so far so good...let's see where it goes.

on another note, I have seen Stash 2 weekends in a row now - once while with Breve (at Mayes...I resurrected it from the dead since I thought Breve would fit in with the young crowd). Stash always spots me first, and in the proceeding texts he has apologized for being a dick and invited me over to his place. oh did I mention that I didn't even notice that I received his multiple texts both times until I got home with Breve? boom.

so that's the 3 week update in one post. well except for one more thing...
the 100th anniversary of Bay to Breakers happened on May 15 with as much debauchery and crazy costumes/nakedness as always, even amidst the police threats of stricter regulations and drunk tents. it's the 2nd year in a row that I've ended the day with just me and some guy I didn't know at a Mexican restaurant. but I totally upgraded this year - last year's guy was a chubby, stoned 21 year old who I made out with.  this year's was a private equity older guy (still chubby though), who I managed to dodge make-out attempts from.  yea, B2B is definitely one of those things you have to do a few times to get it right.

mine would say COUGAR

farewell, beloved mayes

alex trebek: Oyster house by day, meat market by night
chai: What is Mayes?

for the last two years, fivespice and I have been regulars at the “club” on polk that makes you feel like Nemo in a shark tank the moment you step through the door. but after one fateful encounter where we arrived too sober, we saw mayes for the hot, grimy, YOUNG joint it really is and struck it from our nightlife list forever.

before we put to rest the place that generated countless crazy nights of sweat transfer, hipsters who lasso you with skull scarves, hapas who pretend not to recognize you after hitting on you last time, and douchebags who play beer pong wearing “Stanford Beirut” t-shirts, fivespice and I have some words of wisdom to share.

allow us to present...

the undeniable signs that you just made out with a 19-year-old 
(yes, we speak from first-hand experience, unfortunately)

1. they dance like no one’s watching...on stage [yea, you know that stage at mayes that is 2 feet wide with a mirror. have you ever seen 5 guys excitedly dancing together on it? we have.]
2. their kisses are less sweet, more slobbery [um, barf]
3. they grab your ass like it's their first time [because it is]
4. they don’t try to go home with you [by now you’ve already made out with them, gotten your ass grabbed, gave them your number, so what’s stopping them from trying to get you in bed? it might be their virginity.]

RIP, mayes.

you've been warned.

well played, roomie

setting: in the elevator, on our way to a club on Saturday night

players: 

• chai - yours truly
• tazo - chai's roommate; blood alcohol level > legal limit 
• Americano - a male friend with whom I once had a sleepover (not widely known); tazo and americano are meeting for the first time 
• Americano's roommate (male)

tazo to americano: So how do you two know each other? (referring to americano's roommate)
americano: We're just friends with benefits (joking) 
tazo: Oh, I was referring to you and your roommate.


ZINGG!!!!

chai: -__-
americano: LOL
americano's roommate: O_O

um, i need this awkward turtle plush, stat