Maybe there is still a chance to have it all

One of my girlfriends is visiting NY for meetings and she asked me to help her to pick up her wedding gown from Vera Wang the day before. I am so happy for her. You know there are times when you say “good for you” you actually feel “gosh it’s so unfair I cannot believe she is getting this while I didn’t!” But that kind of feeling is not in my dictionary anymore. I am lucky to be surrounded by both guys and girls who are as ambitious, capable, observant, insightful and FUN as myself (sorry I’m complimenting myself again), if not more, and they complement me as a human being, and they inspire me every day to give back more with passion and love.

Ultimately it’s not about a competition after all. It’s about inviting someone to join the life journey with you, to learn, to share, to enjoy; or sometimes, just to sit quietly together while looking out of the window, and maybe laugh, and sing.

 

Treat people right, any people

 

When I was in Hong Kong I went to this Portuguese restaurant once and ordered some baked pork and rice dish. I asked the waiter some standard question on what kind of sauce he recommends, how long it will take, and how big the portion is etc. Apparently he was relatively new and he couldn’t answer half of the questions. I got very impatient. I unintentionally raised my voice and I was at the edge of asking to be served by another waiter. He was embarrassed obviously, and my friend who went with me gave me a very disturbed stare, which I couldn’t quite figure out why at the moment. 

So what are you looking for in a long term relationship?

I watched a few episodes of the TV drama “Never say goodbye 说好不分手” these days in Hong Kong. It’s astonishingly touching. I remember one comparison pretty clearly when one of the lead guys commented on his relationship with two distinctive girls in a very interesting way:

• The relationship I had with A is like playing video games. There’s always another challenge waiting for me. It’s fun and engaging, it keeps me going. The best part is, you have multiple chances with one challenge, and you can even restart if it’s “game over”.
• The relationship I had with B is like doing a surgery. I have to be extra careful every second. The more I care about the patient the more nervous and intense it becomes. It gets tiring to be honest, because as a surgeon you have but one shot. If you screw this up you don’t have another chance.

This simple but very insightful comparison and analogy made me reflect deeply on how human beings interact and leave impressions on each other. Then I started thinking about relationships in general, and all the wonderful girlfriends of mine who are still single, and all the charming guy friends of mine who are still confused about what the hell all the girls are thinking. But the fact is: the girls are not less confused, and probably only more.

I am in no position to categorize myself as a relationship expert because I am simply not, but I know one thing that I am actually good at: to state the obvious but in a unique way that would make sense to all of you no matter where you are coming from. I used to tell myself: the first step to achieve anything in life is to decide what you want. So what I am trying to do here is really just to share some observations and understandings on how to make a smarter decision on what you should be looking for in a long term relationship.

What if your boyfriend/girlfriend is attracted to someone else?

Dear Danye,

I have read your blog about being attracted to someone else while in a relationship and it was really helpful. The thing is, I am in a multi-year relationship with someone 9 years older than me (I am in my early 20s). I can say we get along well because we share the same intellectual and maturity level despite the age gap. My boyfriend recently admitted that he is attracted to this girl who is one of his employees (he is a manager).

Well, this was not the first time it happened but this time seems to be more serious than before. Unlike the previous situation we had, he admitted to this girl that he likes her though the girl, being in a relationship herself, said that she only sees my boyfriend as a big brother. Despite this, I can still sense that there is something else going on. They would usually go out drinking with the rest of their team and the two of them would always sit beside each other even after I told my guy to at least try to fight the feeling if he still wants work things out between the two of them. Even if he told me that it wasn’t anything serious, I can’t help but get jealous and hurt with the thought of him spending more time with this girl than me. He works overtime everyday (which he always did even before we met) and after work, they would spend the rest of the day drinking. He would usually come home an hour before I am supposed to leave for work so we don’t get to spend much time with each other anymore.

I don’t know how to deal with it anymore. We have tried to talk about it but he kept on saying that he doesn’t understand himself either. He said that he still loves me but his answers to my questions show that he is not sure of his feelings anymore. I have been trying to think things over and decide whether to continue trying to work things out with him or just give up the relationship. He met this girl a little over a month ago. Please help.

Thank you – Lhen

Yes so I wrote about how to deal with a situation where you’re in a relationship but attracted to someone else, and also the situation where you are attracted to someone else who already has a boyfriend and girlfriend. I thought I was done with this, thanks God. Now I realized you are facing the challenge of exactly the third possibility: What if your boyfriend/girlfriend is attracted to someone else?

What I learned about Relationships from Yale (and NYC)

Okay, hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! I had a great dinner at Koi with M the birthday girl and one of the guys was gentleman enough to bring a rose to each of the girls, very nice gesture I have to say! And then we went out to drinks at Stone Rose at the Time Warner Building. Again another cool spot in NY, you have to check it out next time you want a romantic yet low-key spot, with a lot of space, unique drinks and a great view!

Anyway, I have to admit that originally I plan to write on “What has Yale taught me about sex”! But I realized I am yet to be that aggressive and I don’t want to scare away some of my younger readers and I am pretty sure I’m not an expert on that subject anyway! But if that’s something you’re interested in reading please give me a shout in the comment or something.

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So let me get back to what I actually want to talk about today: What I learned about relationships at Yale and in the US?

1. Be an independent person first

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It took me a long time to realize how much truth lies in this simple idea: If you are not a happy person single, you will not be a happy person in a relationship. I’m not sure about you but I was raised up in an environment with this whole idea of “we are born to be incomplete and we spend our whole life trying to find someone to complete and to heal us”. After I came to Yale and the US, I realized it was a lie. Why? Because this idea leads us to the trap of being too demanding.

Best of 2010, and Preview of 2011

I have kept blogs in a variety of places before and this is the first and only time the website sent me a stats summary with such details for the bygone year. For the constant thrive to optimize user experience and the degree of dedication, I want to first thank WordPress for offering me, and many other bloggers in this world, an intimate place to pursue our passions, to share our curiosities, and to develop a legacy. 

I also want to take the opportunity to appreciate every one of you who has stopped by my blog over the past year. For those who have commented on my posts, cheered for me on my facebook walls, left a message to me on LinkedIn and Gtalk, followed me on Google Reader, or mentioned my blog to me face-to-face, I want to thank you for being my constant motivation and inspiration. Your encouragement means the world to me.

Started in mid-April 2010, the blog had 70 new posts and was viewed about 21,000 times over the course of 2010. Not bad for the first year I have to say. Thanks for sharing this with me.

Here are my Top Posts of the Year:

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10. This is the kind of email I WILL respond to!

This was an introduction email on career opportunity that I have been waiting for. As I know most people are still struggling on how to effectively network and communicate, I figured it was a good idea to share the email and my interpretation with you. 

At some point, you just need to stop trying

It probably happened to you too. I once had a crush on this guy who is from an entirely different background and I knew by my heart that there is no way this would ever work out in the long run. But I was very attracted. He was into me as well, for a while I guess. But I am sure he went through the same thinking process and decided “he likes me, but he does not love me”, which is a very powerful rejection to me and I was really sad for a good period of time.

I probably did something crazy, or at least I cried and I couldn’t let go. But eventually it doesn’t bother me anymore. Life goes on and then one day I realized: it is great that he was so straightforward with me that he simply was never in love with me. I was lucky in a sense that I didn’t waste my time, and it would have been even harder to let him go should I not knew I was not that special to him in the first place.

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But there are many people who are much more subtle than that. You never get a straightforward or honest rejection but you don’t exactly feel he’s that into you either. So you kept trying and kept your hope high, until maybe one day you saw him at a dessert shop with another girl feeding each other ice cream. The realization is hard but if that’s a sign convincing enough to let you stop trying, perhaps it would well worth it.

不如乖乖做一只小绵羊吧

I am going to write in Chinese periodically and I hope that you won’t mind. Sorry if you don’t really read Chinese, maybe you can use google translate? I promise this will not happen often, but sometimes I just REALLY want to write in Chinese! 🙂 Today is one of those days, apparently.

我很多年想不清楚一个问题

如果你是一个有些强势的女人，那似乎很容易让男人觉得有吸引力，不过然后交往起来男人又觉得有压力； 再之后开始矛盾重重，这个怎么办呢？ 

后来我的一个好朋友一语道破天机：是么？你为什么不能乖乖做你的小绵羊呢？ 

是啊。如果说强势是一种性格，倒不如说是一种姿态。没有谁会一直强势的（我不相信有完全不会温柔的女人），也没有那个必要。可是一个姿态做久了，容易变成习惯，习惯了之后就变得麻痹。所以你以为你根本没有强势的时候别人也觉得你很强势了。 

Can we just have a normal conversation?

A few days ago I updated my facebook status to “Sometimes I don’t understand why people just can’t carry on some normal conversation”, and I got the following comments from my lovely friends: 

• Because normal conversation is boring. (Really? Why I thought this is the best and ONLY way to really get to know anybody at all?)
• How normal are you talking about, define normal? (Right, nowadays everyone needs a definition to be on the same page about almost everything)
• I don’t know what a normal conversation is. I just can’t comprehend! (Knowing the person who wrote this, that totally makes sense! Kidding, I like people who can make fun of themselves. Not being too serious about yourself is the only way you can be serious about WHAT YOU DO)
• Because there is a shadow in everybody’s mind. Or they are just not that into you (Good point, and probably true)

But since when do you need to be into someone at all to simply start a conversation? Is this really about the post-dating age where attraction is not identified by being asked on a dinner + movie date, but hided in multiple incidents of “do you want to come along to this happy hour thing?” or “my friend is having a birthday you’re welcome to join?”

And just talk to me

I thought it would mean something beautiful, like as if you can read my mind; but then I realized it means much more, if I can always speak my mind. You started feeling me, before knowing me.

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But I wish you could stop for one second, and just talk to me.

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Attracted to someone who already has a girlfriend (boyfriend)

Previously I wrote a post on what to do if you are already in a relationship but are attracted to someone else, which surprisingly came consistently on top of my “most searched post” list. Then I realized recently that a more intriguing situation is: what if you are attracted to someone who already has a boyfriend or girlfriend? 

The fact is, and I feel you, this can be devastating. Yet again, there is almost nothing you can do.

 

But you might want to run through the following exercise to make yourself feel better and to understand what you should do your next step. For the interest of time, I am going to write from a girl’s perspective, but the rules should apply to both. 

• Is he attracted to you at all?

This is the first question you should ask yourself, because if the answer is a NO you will save yourself a lot of trouble. It is your freedom and right to like someone secretly and be happy about it, until one day you wake up and suddenly realized you’re over him. But that’s it. There is no hope and no future. He will NOT like you back JUST BECAUSE you’re good to him. So why don’t you save yourself some time? 

Already in a relationship but attracted to someone else

I am writing this for all of those who are very much in love with their current significant others but are still occasionally attracted to other people. First let’s be clear with the fact that you do love your boyfriend or girlfriend, and that may exactly be the reason why you are confused. You almost freaked out because you are all of a sudden attracted to someone else, and you started asking yourself: what’s wrong with me?

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The fact is: it’s normal. It has happened and is happening to many other people just like you, and it is NOT a commitment problem. Chances are you will get over your crush pretty soon, though for some people it might be a little bit tough and you might want to run through the following exercises to figure things out:

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Distinguish Attraction and Love

You can be attracted to many people for different reasons, and a lot of the attractions may be very strong at the beginning. The problem about attraction is though: you started to have strong feelings for someone even without knowing him/her at all, which means the strong feelings END when you actually get to know him/her. Very few people in this world will keep you attracted consistently, and along the way, the initial feelings of attraction will probably turn into a more intimate and subtle feeling of closeness and comfort, and that is something much more precious, and that is something we call “Love”.

Dating in New York: Did you set your bars too high?

There are a lot of single men in New York. Good looking, well-educated, capable, fun, and single. You know what we have more in New York? Good looking, well-educated, capable, fun and single WOMEN.

There are many reasons and even theories developed surrounding why it is the case as it is today. But it all comes down to this question: what do you want to get out of your dating life and/or your relationship?

If you consider these factors separately, it is obviously not that hard to find someone who is 25-32, who went to a top 20 university (just think about how many Ivy leaguers there are in the city), who has a 100+ paying job, who is at least 5’9, who knows how to play an instrument, whose parents are not separated, etc…

The hard part is: you want a combination of everything above, and there are 48 other items on your extended list.

I Am Woman

No surprise: Sex and city II did not receive good reviews. Yet, I liked that movie. Because I get it, and it makes sense to me. There are a few moments that really touched my heart too, for example when Carrie asked Big “are we enough?” and Big’s answer was “we’re too much”. But the significance about this movie is that it all comes down to the idea of being a strong woman. 

“I am strong, I am invincible”, probably the lyric from I Am Woman said it better than anyone else. But how?

To be Honest: after you settle down in a stable relationship, or even after you’re married, you might still be attracted to someone else. This is normal. It takes time, courage, and sometimes even exactly that someone else along the way to make you fully realize how precious your relationship actually is, what you really want, and here your heart belongs. Carrie told Big about the kiss with Eden after all. I guess she wants to be honest with Big, but she needs to be honest with herself.

If you are uncertain about your relationship right now…

1. Rule of thumb: Only get into a relationship when it makes you happy. If you start to feel sad, irritated, disturbed, paranoid or painful, which often outweigh your happiness, you may as well stop.

2. Bottom line, you need to love yourself and protect yourself. So do not lose yourself no matter how much you may be in love. And if the person needs you to lose yourself to be in the relationship, he is probably not the right one anyway.

3. A good relationship cannot be established just by your own effort. It demands devotion, effort, compromise from both sides. If you are the only one making all the effort and compromises from the beginning, you will be the only one doing those for the rest of the relationship.