Sometimes, life likes to throw people a hand of cards that other people can't help but gawk at. Some have told me, and I'm starting to believe, that my life in 2012 has been something of a story worth telling. I've decided to share it with MHOH in pieces. This thread will be a collection of them.

That being said, if you care at all to preserve any idea that I'm a decent human being.. you may want to go pick up a kids book and read that while listening to the song that never ends. BUT WE ALL KNOW YOU'LL READ ANYWAY.

PART 1: viewtopic.php?p=142892#p142892

Part 1

Ripples On the Water

Less than a year ago, I was sure where my life was going. There were clear-cut goals and there was someone to share the fruit with. Many of you may know I was in a very serious relationship; she calls it 遠恋, we call it a long-distance relationship. She was to be my wife.

That was our plan, anyway, but life had a few other ideas for our future that I couldn't quite plan for.

From January until May, we kept on that road. I was heading toward a Computing Science degree. It was a far cry from what I originally went to school for, Linguistics, but it was a sacrifice I'd made in order to ensure more stability for the two of us in the future. We were happy in our relationship born of an 8 year friendship ripe with history and care. It felt like I'd been handed happiness I'd only ever seen in movies, but events weren't quite nice enough to allow us to stay an item and in the end I let go of her hand.

Time for a little reflection.

Regal, whom you all know, came to Canada for 6 months starting in January. He moved into a place fairly far from mine, at first, and then to a place barely 5 minutes from my own not much later. He and I got much closer in those 6 months than we ever were previously, I think, and I'm quite glad to have had him around for the time he was here.

He and I created a game. "Created", though, isn't the correct word. This game has existed for a long time in many different forms. Perhaps it's more accurate to say we adopted it. There was only one rule: Never bring someone into the game who is already an acquaintance. It was simple: see a girl, give her a 1-10 score based on attractiveness. 0 for extra emphasis on dislike.

We played it everywhere. It became a daily thing - play it while browsing the internet, on the bus, walking through the mall, sitting at a cafe, watching a movie, anything. It became such a big part of our day that we could simply say a number and we'd know what was happening.

We got so good at it that if he said a number, I'd be able to figure out who he's talking about even in a crowd and vice versa. We could even start rating girls for the other person because we got so familiar with eachother's types. Obviously, then, this game also lead me to a very deep understanding of what it is I look for in women.

But like all things, this game had a beginning. And the rule wasn't always there.

Enter BBT Girl. BBT Girl is someone who works at a little Asian drink shop in the mall here, and as far as I am concerned she is a beacon of perfection. This statement, however, isn't as powerful as one might guess as my idea of a perfect 10 is far different from what many people would call a perfect 10. Regal and I would pass by this shop nearly every day for months and I would always be completely blown away by her beauty.

.. And nobody else agreed with me. Everyone was always confused.

One day, he asked me what I would give her on a scale of 1-10. I answered, without even thinking, "10!". And then our game was born.

BBT Girl and I wouldn't speak until just barely before Regal went back to his mound of dirt over the pond.

Next is Parasol Girl. Parasol Girl is someone that I met about a year before Regal ever showed up, but only tenuously spoke to on Facebook for that period of time. I met her at a wedding - a wedding of people that I haven't seen since the wedding day. She left early because that day was a relentlessly sunny day and even with the clothing she was wearing, she was still literally dying. Parasol Girl has a sun allergy. She also received a 10 on our scale, but Regal would never meet her. He did, however, attest to her having "good bone structure", which may or may not have been him simply finding one good thing about her where the rest was probably a 0.

BBT Girl and Parasol Girl were affectionately named that way and referred to in that way by me when speaking with Regal. Other (minor) characters in this part of the story, some lacking in affectionate nicknames at the time, are henceforth to be known as Jubeat Girl, Arcade Girl, and Work Girl. Their stories will tie in eventually, so they needn't be properly introduced at this time.

Regal had the (probably detested) privilege to sit witness to a series of events that would unfold into what I'll call The End of the Beginning, and it would be a mess so great that even the messiest of children would think twice before playing around in.

Interesting read so far. Looking forward to the next part(s).

Part 2

The End of the Beginning

Trust, as I have experienced it, doesn't seem to be something that is simply gained or earned. It must also be maintained. It was this realization coming far too late that ultimately ruined any hope of living out the plans the two of us had with each other.

Or, at least, that's the way I reason what happened.

New Years came and went. Long distance doesn't really leave a whole lot of room for spending big holidays together - it's a fact that both people have to know before even considering getting into such a relationship. We knew it well. I believe we actually rang in the New Year playing League of Legends together. I remember that our first game of 2012 was with me playing Nocturne and her playing Annie.

There was a thread on the LoL forums that day - "Describe how you rang in the new year in 3 words". My answer was:



Somehow, it was a satisfying way to spend the new year when we couldn't otherwise have anything to do with each other. There's also something at least slightly cute about playing video games with your SO.

Our New Years resolution was to begin sending each other mail every couple of weeks. Handwritten. We had a notebook we picked out that we would write in and then send back and forth. We did it for about four months, but only got halfway through the book.

Valentine's Day came by. She sent me some fairly cute chocolates, one of which was a specially designed chocolate bar loaded with things she knew I liked - and an edible nameplate on it with a cute message I'm not going to share I sent her a box of Godiva chocolates, a couple little random gifts (one of which was a forgotten one from Christmas), and the notebook. It got to her late due to a problem with the postal service.

Next major event on the chopping block is my birthday in March, but before that we need to backtrack a little bit.

Regal arrived in Canada. Around when he got here, I started playing a new rhythm game called Jubeat. It's a 16 button game based on, as usual, reaction speed and pattern recognition. On Regal's first trip to the arcade with me, we played a whole bunch of different rhythm games and the one he liked the most was Jubeat, so we started playing it together.

We sucked.

Hard.

But it was our daily routine for a little while - it quickly became apparent that my idea of a fun time was vastly different from his, and we quickly had to find other things to do. He simply couldn't handle the dark cavern of a hole in the wall that the arcade is for much longer than an hour or two.

So that's how it went. For the first few months of the year that is all I would do - play Jubeat, get drinks from BBT Girl's shop, then go home and play LoL with my other half. That is.. when I wasn't at school.

I introduced Regal to a friend of mine, previously dubbed Work Girl (because I worked with her in my old city years back), and the two of them got fairly close. The three of us became all that existed in my social circle for quite some time, and I saw nothing wrong with it.

And then March came.

March was the month where trust and love would be tested. My other half, Sayuri, realized she wasn't very content with the social life she had. We had a three hour time difference between us and she really enjoyed falling asleep on the phone with me, so she would always follow my sleep schedule - this meant she would be up until 3am or so her time every day, and then be awake at nearly lunch time. Then she'd have school. After her school is usually when I would be wrapping up my evening and be heading home soon, so she would often not have a lot of time to do anything else.

Although, to be fair, she did this on her own. I never told her I wanted her to be home for me every night; on the contrary, I always encouraged her to go out and have fun with the friends she still has before she ends up alienating them.

In March, she started doing that.

She began exercising frequently - picked up jogging and tennis, and picked up new friends along the way. I cheered her on every step of the way - obviously, it's not very healthy for someone's life to completely revolve around someone else. However, she ended up taking it to opposite extremes.

I became a background character. She'd never be home anymore, respond to me much less frequently, even spend all of her time talking with one specific guy that she was honest enough to tell me about. Our history was 7 years strong, so I kept supporting her and trusting her all the while cracks were beginning to form in our relationship. Neglect begets bitterness.

But I kept quiet about it for a while. Instead of stirring up copious amounts of sh*t, I decided to take it upon myself to better myself. Improve my entire character in order to be an even better husband for her one day.

I did a lot of introspection, recalling some very specific events in the past, three of which I will recount for you:

1. Bus Girl.

Bus girl is a girl I saw one time on a bus for about 3 minutes two years ago. She had really, really bad acne AND silver braces, so she was essentially the clear cut definition of "not attractice", but she still caught my attention and took home a 10.

When she smiled, it was like the rest of the world lost all of its meaning. She had the most beautiful smile I have ever seen in my life, and all I wanted to do was let her know what I thought. I can't imagine she gets that kind of thing very often.

However, I'd noticed she is a high school student at a private school nearby. They have special uniforms. As such, I couldn't easily approach her as a 23 year old male. My idea was to write on a piece of paper, quite simply, "You have a really beautiful smile." No name, no phone number, nothing. Just an honest compliment.

But I failed to do so.

2. Skytrain Girl

Skytrain Girl is another person I saw only briefly on the Skytrain (think subway, but 25-30 feet in the air). She was wearing a multi-pastel-colored sweater with long wavy hair. She stood about 10 feet away from me against the door on the opposite side of the train.

She caught my eye, as pretty girls usually do, so I was giving her a good look. She noticed me, so I smiled at her and looked away. When I looked back, she had started mouthing the words to whatever song she was listening to on her ipod, and now I was absolutely captivated. She was really into it. So now I was straight up staring at her in an interested sort of way. She looked at me, noticed, so I smiled again and didn't look away. She looked straight down and blushed. A few moments later she looked back up and started singing again.

When the Skytrain got to Metrotown station (one of the 2 busiest Skytrain stops in the area), both of us got off the train. She looked back at me one last time, smiling, before stepping off into the crowd. I stepped off, as well, but lost her in the crowd.

3. BBT Girl

This girl, whom I have already mentioned, has been my number 1 for nearly a year now. And she still works in the mall. She is the only memory I came up with that represents something I can still fix - she is someone I see very, very frequently but never make any effort to talk to.. when I so obviously want her in my life on some level.

The three of these, plus others I thought back on, fueled a desire in me to fix one major problem: I chronically let opportunities pass by me. To quote from a film,



.. Which is something I now strongly believe in.

And so I began working on that problem. .. But not yet.

My birthday came. Sayuri gave me no gifts on my birthday, opting to simply send me a text saying Happy Birthday, even though we'd agreed to Skype eachother that day because, technically, that's all I really wanted. But she didn't give me that.

Instead, she gave me a million text messages about a guy she'd just met while hanging out with her brother. A boy who, oddly enough, shared my first name. After a while of this, I told her: "It's my birthday. You're spending it with another guy, while sending your boyfriend text messages about that guy."

She realized she'd made a mistake and came home, so I forgave her.

Barely a couple of weeks later, she was talking with a friend of hers who she considered a bit of a nuisance, and didn't want to be bothered about her relationship. So when asked how her boyfriend was doing, her reply was simple:

"He is not my boyfriend. He is my life-partner. We support each other."

Cute.

But still a denial of our relationship.

Which is something that, following the stunt on my birthday, I could not forgive.

And so, only a couple of days later, I began my trip toward self-improvement with the first logical step:

Talk to BBT Girl.

And then the troubles began.

The way things went with Sayuri are strikingly similar to a relationship I had quite some time ago. =(

They are far from over :3

This is where things start to get complicated and interesting.

Well, her behavior sounds about as I would expect.

Part 3

Under the Weight of Options

This whole period of time was vastly dominated by my (admittedly physical, but also intellectually thirst-quenching) attraction to BBT Girl, but in all actuality what was really happening was me starting myself on a long self-destructive path that resulted in two things: breaking the bank, and filling my life with loads of pretty girls with which to take aim at.

Around this time I started playing a game that I've long since forgotten the name of, but it was a fairly uninspired Korean MMO that I played with the sole intention of getting closer to Parasol Girl, as seeing her anywhere but outside a purely digital world was nigh impossible thanks to her oh-so-interest-inducing sun allergy. Damaged girls are just so delicious.. or something.

The game was interesting in that in order to play it, nothing really had to happen. I could leave the game in AFK mode while I go out all day every day and I would gain XP for each minute that I am standing around in XP-land. I reached max level, something many people thought I would never do, simply by leaving my computer on. But I never left the AFK area - the extent of my gaming was doing my best to make people in the guild laugh every so often that I happened to be at my computer with nothing to do.

But it went well. She talked to me a lot, and I managed to get her to hang out with me a couple of times when the weather permitted. Regal wanted to meet her, but I was all like NAH NONE OF THAT sh*t, SHE'S MY NUT AND I'M NOT SHARING WITH OTHER SQUIRRELS. Mainly because at one point I kinda felt he'd taken a friend of mine.

I introduced him to Work Girl shortly after he moved here. She and I have been friends for quite some time, since I worked for Pizza Hut back in 2006, and we dated once way back then. She's.. a bit of a bigger girl, but right on the boundary of undate-able. She uses it to her advantage, though, and ends up looking oh so adorable.. when her clothes are still on.

The two of them hung out quite frequently, without the company of yours truly, often inviting me once it was too late to bother. This, really, was my own fault though as at the time I had started getting quite obsessed with a new rhythm game called Jubeat. This was part of my routine even after it had stopped being a part of Regal's.

Regal got interested, before his eventual departure from said routine, in Arcade Girl - the token girl who works in an area traditionally vastly dominated by males. You know the type. Everyone knows her, she loves/hates the attention, gets asked out more times in a day than most guys will ask people out in their lifetimes.. etc. He eventually asked her out but that whole endeavor kinda tumbled into a massive snowball of inevitable and comical failure. Also it exploded on impact.

Buuut after she and he got to talking, it quickly ended up being her mostly talking about me. Because she and I had a bit of a comical history as well - we believed, quite earnestly, that we mutually hated eachother even though we'd barely shared more than five words with eachother in all the years we've seen eachother around.

I used to play ITG quite a lot, and back then there was two things that top tier players such as myself did in order to improve our performance on the machine: pour a little bit of water on the floor and step on it with our shoes to make our feet stick, or use baby powder on the buttons to make them easier to slide on. Which one we did depended on our preferred style - I was of the former variety. One day I used a little too much water and it left a fairly sizable puddle on the floor, which Arcade Girl eventually noticed and snapped at me for. Maybe she was, well, bleeding from her vagina or something. "You know.. usually people apologize when they leave a mess."

I did apologize after that, but that's another matter.

Then, while playing Jubeat with Regal one day (well over a year later), Arcade Girl walks by while my coat is hanging on the speaker of the Jubeat machine and she knocks it over. She looks back, assumes it belongs to the girl playing, and continues walking without apology. I walk over and pick up my coat, which she notices, and immediately feels bad because she thinks she just made our completely non-verbal and entirely unconfirmed hatred run even deeper.

It was around this time, or a little before, that she and Regal started talking. Apparently I was a big subject; she wondered out loud why and how she'd pissed me off so much and why I hated her and blahblahblah ::girl problems::, and Regal was awesome enough to pass on both these stories and his wonderfully comical dismay that I was the subject of discussion when he wanted to take her out on a lovely dinner that eventually ends in coitus or some other slightly more romantic rendition of an impossible future.

Eventually, I'd had enough fun listening to it and decided to step in. I asked for her phone number (from Regal), and sent her a question:

"Do you believe in unicorns?"

".. no"

"How about pokemon?"

".. no"

"Well, maybe nyan cat?"

".. no."

"Well, all three of these are just as imaginary as the hatred you seem to think exists."

And then we became friends. But just the two of us - Regal and Work Girl, Arcade Girl and I, and I bounced back and forth whenever I could.

Regal later (or somewhere in this area) moved to a place much closer to mine and lived with a rather pretty Chinese girl, which to my understanding did end in coitus. And in a trainwreck of embarrassment when I hit on her before learning she is a good 20 years older than me. Not that Regal minded, apparently.

With this, though, the groundwork is laid for you all to enjoy seeing how my entire life turned into a massive fiery ball of failure that failed so hard it eventually crossed over to the other side and became win once again.

Man, I'm really not so 1-dimensional as you make me seem ^^;

Are we enemies? Is that what this is? xD


...

Insofar as I took a friend of yours, she was totally hanging out with me to get at/to you. I felt mildly used, once or twice, insofar as I cared.


I admit I remember a lot of it slightly differently. For me it was generally defined by, and I remember it as being composed of, the good times, stuff like:

Hanging out waiting for the bus on 49th or at Metro, having bitter conversations about transit in Vancouver.
The whole deal we threw together for your birthday.
Pizza and movies.
Our Japanese buddy being kind of unsettling, and/or irritating.
Arguing about whether the abundance of hipsters on Commercial ruined the street or improved it (it improved it, for serious).
Pitchers of Asahi on the Guu terrace.
Spotting 10's.
Hanging out with Emily, Koko, Lance, Steve.
Skytrain! o//


We took some Korean classes at night school too, which I am still trying to forget xD

...and she was like, 31 or 32. Which is almost a shame, really, in retrospect. I found that out quite late on, though, so think what you will, but regardless of that she had bigger problems than her age. Like the secret daughter she had. Eesh. >.<;

Then again, as I recall, you did much worse.




I am curious as to whether this narrative will ever continue?

I've considered it, but time isn't really on my side right now ><