Baby steps

I have this terrible habit of starting things that seem fun, but once I get into it, half the time I just don't feel like following through because I've simply become bored of it. Maybe this fickleness seeps into the way I interact with people. I'll get to know someone, but before I've completely gotten to know them, I'll just go off and find someone new to hang out with because I just like being around different people. It energizes me.

I've constantly pined for a boyfriend. My favorite genre of movie is the romantic comedy because all I want in life is love and the laughter and tears that accompany it. But whenever I sit down and really dwell on it, I doubt my ability to really commit to it. The idea of someone who always wants to be with you, who constantly thinks of you, who loves you, frankly, kind of scared me because I didn't know if I would be able to return the favor, with my unstable state of mind.

I told him that I've never been attached to anyone, that I don't know how to be attached to anyone. I only know how to be detached because otherwise, I can't survive the New York jungle and all the flaky people who inhabit it, who come and go in and out of my life as they see fit, not caring about how badly I want them to stay. Those are the only types of people I know, so I've adapted.

An excerpt from our phone call tonight:

Me: I'm on my bed now! It's so comfortable.

Him: I want to be on your bed too.

Me: Because it's so comfortable, right?

Him: No, because that's where you are right now.

I didn't let it show in my voice, but I started crying. I started crying because I wanted to be where he was right now too. I wanted to see him so much.

Then I realized that this is what real "like" is.

Maybe I can learn to commit.

Not to be that person, but really guys, idk how yall don't understand why I have low self-esteem when these are the kinds of comments I receive:

• "You look nothing like your Twitter photo. You actually look good in it."
• "I used to think she was pretty. Now I think she looks more like you."
• "Wow, she looks nothing like you! She's so pretty!"
• "There's actually a difference between the Chinese. For example, the Hong Kong-nese are the ugliest... Constance looks the most Hong Kong-nese."
• Getting killed in every MFK game that I was included in

Spiral of doom. I gorge on McNuggets every night, depressed about my life, only to get fatter and elicit more of these kinds of comments on me, leading me to gorge on more McNuggets, leading me to get fatter and elicit more of these comments.

I only have the one day, in Korean class, when I was paired up with Yohan for the assignment, and he told me how I looked good with my hair up, and how I look good in yellow, to hold onto as my thread of hope that someone will want me some day.

The 3 Times in My Life That I Ever Held Hands With Someone

1. 
It was the summer before I entered my freshman year of high school. I was volunteering at a convention away from home. It was nearing the end of the night, and one of the other volunteers whom I had been working with that day asked if I wanted to check out the rave with him (lolraves). I said sure because there was nothing better to do.

We went and danced and because I am forever awkward, every time he tried to get close to me, I maneuvered myself away. About 20 minutes in, I was bored and decided to check out what else was going on. He tagged along.

I didn't really know my way around, so the two of us just kind of wandered and talked about things. I can't really remember about what exactly because the next thing I knew, we were holding hands, and I immediately became flustered and probably remained incoherent the rest of the night.

I eventually tired out from gadding about in circles in an attempt to unwind this confusing knot I found myself in and told him I was calling it a night. He insisted on walking me back to my hotel room. When we reached my door, I said an abrupt good night, which prompted him to ask, "That's it?" To this day, I can't tell if his leaning in was a request for a kiss or his tendency to bob his head like a rooster in slow motion.

2.
It was the fall semester of my junior year of college - studying abroad at Yonsei. Cameron and I had just found out that Sookhee and other random people thought that we were actually going out, causing the two of us to have a hearty chuckle over the matter.

Later that night, we met up with Douglas's friends from home, and on cue, we immediately introduced ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend because while Camstance wasn't our name, trolling was our game. We kept up the schtick, along with the "I'm Mexican" bit, for a while until we gave it up, or slipped, whichever makes us sound like we knew what we were doing.

The rest of the night is a bit fuzzy from there (Alcohol/Good Decisions 2012), but suddenly I was aware of the fact that Cam and I were holding hands under the table, interlocking fingers and everything. Then, one of the girls noticed and raised an eyebrow in doubt of our previous admission of relationship. I immediately unlaced our hands out of awkwardness and refused to say a word about it.

3.
It was the spring semester of my junior year of college, aka last semester. Will had recently moved to New York in search of a job, and he reached out asking if I wanted to meet up. This was during my lack-of-friends awareness, pre-therapy time, so I was eager to hang out with anyone who was willing to keep me on board when they cast their net.

We decided to just chill in his apartment in Brooklyn because going out to drink could get pricey, so I brought tequila. We chatted as if we were old pals (we weren't) and took some shots for the sole purpose of taking shots (Alcohol/Good Decisions 2016). The Mexican sting ended up being a little too much after the fifth shot, so he tossed me a beer.

Eventually we ran out of things to say (it took 20 minutes), so Will suggested we watch a movie. When we could find nothing good on HBO, we skimmed through the torrented collection on his laptop. He was a little too upset that I had never seen Kung Fu Panda, so I just submitted to the idea of watching anything that wouldn't require me to fake conversation for another 2 hours. He decided that watching on his bed would be more comfortable. I couldn't agree more because I innocently + lazily love beds, so we nestled in, but not close.

I couldn't feel the tequila before, but now I couldn't keep my laughter in. Everything on the screen was just, so, funny. 5 minutes in, and I think I was just laughing at movement. 1 minute after that I realized our hands, cold from clutching chilled beer bottles for 10 awkward conversational minutes, were providing each other with warmth. And here I thought that holding hands in bed during movies was just a thing of the movies.


Guys' hands have a sinister way of sliding their fingers into yours, like 5 snakes in the grass. (Or 10 snakes hugging? Is my serpentine imagery failing?)

But the moment I realize that our fingers are intertwined, I feel warm and safe and, most of all, loved, just for a second, before I decide that I feel too uncomfortable with this manual intimacy. Or any form of intimacy as a matter of fact.

Is it sad that in my head, I push all the bases up one and consider "holding hands" homeplate?

Sometimes I hold hands with myself in bed at night just to feel something because I'm an asexual vagina.
— conzjiang (@conzjiang) November 6, 2012

Some day.

I always talk about how much I hate my life, but then I realize how lucky I've been and how much worse I could have had it.

One of the things I'm most thankful for is this almost-car-accident death I would've gotten into 4 years ago, but instead, the traffic lights turned red and I was the only car to make a U-turn at the time and was lucky enough not to hit the brick wall that was right in front of me. For real, guys, I accidentally stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake when I was making a U-turn, and there was a brick wall there, and I barely swerved in time. A normal person would've died in that situation.

Today, I was walking in 2-inch heels, and it's a given that I can't walk in heels, so when I was walking down the steps of Pace University, I slipped. A normal person would've fallen and broken her leg, but I caught myself and barely sprained my ankle. I've never broken a bone in my life, in spite of my incredible clumsiness.

Then, just now, I got home from a late night of clubbing and couldn't find my phone anywhere. I couldn't remember where the hell I put it and realized I must have left it in the taxi. A normal person would've forever lost the phone in the taxi and would've never gotten it back. But for some reason, Lillian noticed my phone in the dark seat next to her when I left and took it with her. What are the chances?

I always feel so sorry for myself for my sad, sad life, but then I realize that I actually don't have it all that bad. Especially since there have been so many instances when I should've just died, but I didn't. Obviously, I'm still here because I should be. It's not my time yet. Fuck you for thinking it's stupid that I believe in fate.

Tonight, Lillian, in the 4-year-long relationship, cried her heart out because she still didn't feel wanted.

The thing is, I understood everything she was going through, even though she probably didn't believe a word I said.

Look at me. I look like a man with long hair. That's all I see ever. I hate everyone's pity and lies telling me "omg no that's not true." I know I'm not pretty. I've lived with that for 21 years and learned to accept it and just hope someone, some day, will like me for who I am.

Whenever I tell other girls that guys never like me, they always say that they do. The thing is, they like me as a friend because I get along with them, but they never like me as a girl. I know this just sounds like an excuse, but there's no reason they would still hang out with me and no reason they would say things like "Dude, you're way too crazy for guys to like you" if they didn't like me as a friend. A guy who liked you probably wouldn't say that. A guy who was your friend probably would.

Not that I've wanted every guy I've befriended to like me. I just wish those few that I had serendipitously come to "like" liked me back. I wish some guy had sometime "liked" me at all.

I don't know what it feels like to be wanted.

Part 2

Part 1 comes first.

But during all of yesterday, the whole time I kept using the events of the day to prove that I could survive without him. That I didn't need him to have fun and enjoy myself.

But when I'm letting him define my needs, what is that saying about me, about him?

He may not have been my better half, but sometimes I feel like he was my other half.

This past week, I've spent much longer hours lying in bed in the morning aka afternoon looking for excuses to stay on my phone, so I wouldn't have to get out of bed. I tell myself it's because my bed is so so comfortable, but I think it's really because I don't have anything to get out of bed for. 

I keep justifying to myself that what I'm doing is right, is best for me, but if it's actually the right thing to do, why would I constantly need all this justification?

By completely ignoring him, I was proving to him that I could live without him, but I think most importantly, I was proving it to myself.

I completely failed on my part though because I basically spent the past week reading and watching and writing and talking about break-ups. 

I admit, I do kind of miss him, but going back would just be asking for more abuse. I gave him this hiatus because slightly and secretly, I was hoping he would try to win me back, because then I could actually see that this friendship was for real, but instead, he spent the week talking shit about me behind my back to my most loyal trustee, so of course I know it happened.

The last time I cut myself off from someone was in Korea with Cameron and them because I was just ashamed of myself and didn't want to face them. Instead of saying I was crazy and leaving me be though, they wouldn't relent and kept trying to woo me out of my seclusion. They kept asking Patrick if I was okay and if he could talk me into going back to them. They even bought me Taco Bell, the ultimate symbol of our friendship, and left it outside my door for me to find.

Now when I have that show of real, true friendship to compare with this instance of seeming betrayal, I don't know what to do with myself. If I do choose to go back, in the back of my mind, I will always know that this isn't for real, that it's just out of pity or convenience. We can't ever repatch this friendship again and it really is all my fault.

One of the games I was playing on my iPod yesterday has all these levels of puzzles you have to solve. One of them is a sliding puzzle, where you slide the tiles and try to get the wires to match up. They get increasingly difficult with each level, so half of the pieces are really tricky. Sometimes you think two wires are supposed to go together because they fit together so well, but once you start putting the rest of the puzzle together, you realize that it's wrong, that the wires actually go somewhere else.

So maybe in this sliding puzzle of life, I'm currently being fooled that we two pieces of a wire go together. 

But I don't know for sure yet. I have to keep fiddling around with the other pieces to see.

the horror

When I watch Girls, I roll my eyes at Hannah in my head whenever she's with Adam because he's obviously just using her, but she just keeps going back, and why doesn't she just stop. Then I realize that I do the same exact thing.

I think we all just take whatever we can get in terms of love. When I say love, I don't mean like a ~*boyfriend*~, but just anyone, who loves us. We all secretly kind of want someone to want us in some way, to choose us, so when we don't have the best options, we just stick with what we can get, in spite of the idiocy of the situation.

HONESTY:
I just never feel like I have choices because I just always carry this sense of insecurity about me. I keep feeling that I'm not pretty enough for people to want to be around me, to befriend me, but at the same time, I like who I am and don't see anything wrong with me.

I've also somehow created this image that I hate intimacy, and I'm actually seen as the girl who isn't going to sleep over, who isn't going to cuddle, who's just going to let it in and let it out (Sorry for the crudeness). Maybe that's why guys sleep with me. I somehow exude intimacy-loathing, so they can expect no aftermath. It's not that I hate intimacy though; it's that I'm uncomfortable with it. I don't know how to deal with it because I've just never liked anyone enough to be comfortable with being so close with someone, to want to be so close with someone.

Maybe I do want someone with whom to cuddle some day, but I don't know whom, and I don't know know when.

The other day, Patrick and I were wandering around Times Square. This lady was pushing a stroller toward us, and suddenly, a freaky bloody skeleton thing popped out of it right in front of us. We both screamed for our lives, instinctively grabbed each other for safety, and hastily walked away. We walked like that for a bit, arm-in-arm, when I suddenly became aware of it and forcefully pulled out of the clutch-hold. Even though I love Patrick, I couldn't even walk arm-in-arm with him. It was freaking me out.

I think once I have choices, I'll stop all of this meaningless sleeping-around. I realize both Patrick and I just feel so lonely, despite the fact that we have each other. I don't say this in a depressing, self-pitying manner, but we've grown so close because we're the only two who understands how the other feels. We've gotten to the point where we don't even care about what kind of people we involve ourselves with, regardless of the circumstances, just as long as it's someone who wants to be with us.

Why is it so hard to make friends in this city? Because that's all we really want.

Maybe I should go to a party by myself and scare myself into meeting people. People don't seem to meet anyone anymore.