weird dreams

Dream #1, two nights ago

I'm lying in bed with my roommate. (My roommate is male, American, white, 5'7"ish, nice average-looking guy) We're being affectionate and snuggling, and he keeps leaning in close to kiss me on the lips. I always turn away so that he gets the cheek. Finally I give in, and we make out. He's a good kisser, but I keep thinking of what to say to Broadway. I also keep pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming this, and am disappointed when I realize that I am fully awake and not dreaming (ironic, since it was a dream after all). I wanted it to be a dream so that I wouldn't have actually done anything to have to confess to Broadway.

Dream #2, last night

I'm back to college at a reunion of sorts with a group of close college buddies, including the Ex and his now wife. Broadway did not come with me. In the afternoon, with everyone else gone somewhere else, the Ex and I start talking to each other, and it's a very frank and intimate conversation about our relationship, where we've been, and where we are now. He said that he and I had a better relationship than he and current wife. This completely surprised me because I assumed our relationship would pale in comparison with his current one, and it made me mad because I couldn't understand why he would marry her after just a couple of years of dating if he doesn't even love her that much.

This confession brings us closer, and we end up snuggling in bed, naked, but in the giant hotel suite that our group all got together. Someone comes back to the suite and catches us laying together naked and I jump out of bed covering myself with a sheet. His wife comes back too and realizes what happened and storms back to their room crying. He and I look at each other, and I ask, "That's bad, huh? Does she know who I am?" And he says that she definitely knows me, and that I've always been a contentious part of their relationship.

He then leaves to go console her, leaving me to wonder what I should say to Broadway.

I don't know what these dreams mean. Am I lonely? Am I horny? Do I just want someone to snuggle in bed with?

Does this mean that I'm still somehow holding out hope for the Ex? I really don't think I am. What does this say about how I feel about Broadway?

In both dreams, I had the same feeling of dread, guilt, disappointment of "wow, I can't believe I did that, what do I tell Broadway now?"

It's definitely in line with my daydreams about being with other men. I love Broadway to no end. He provides me with all the care that I want and need and would do anything for me, but he's not particularly passionate. Or rather, I'm not particularly passionate about him in bed. We have so much emotional connection, but only minimal physical connection. I fantasize a lot but of course never act on the fantasies because I know how much that would ruin Broadway.

I sometimes fantasize about having an open relationship where we're both free to physically explore with other people but come home and have each other at the end of the day. I don't think I will care that much about the girls he explores with, and part of that is because I know he probably won't see that many other women, if any, whereas I would definitely have fun with a bunch of men.

So I don't know what those dreams mean. I am not attracted to my roommate in the least bit, and I definitely think I am completely over the Ex. And I don't want to hurt Broadway anymore.

ugh disgusted

I wrote this my second week in Beijing but forgot to post it. So keep in mind that when I say "Friday," I really mean Friday-three-weeks-ago.

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Friday, I got an email from this guy asking if I wanted to get some drinks with him and some friends. I met him last Tuesday at our college's young alumni mixer event. There were five or six of us at the event who live in the same neighborhood, including him and me, so we exchanged emails to stay in touch. Several group emails went around, and off of those, he replied to me to ask about Friday night drinks. I found it a bit strange that he would single me out, but I didn't think too much of it.

When I first met him at the alumni mixer, he was there very obviously with a Chinese girl. He held her coat out for her, talked to her closely, basically looked like he was dating her. I am indeed heeding Broadway's repeated advice to be more skeptical of boys' motives and generally assume they are evil, but when someone like this guy has a girlfriend already, I am definitely not as on-guard.

So Friday night, I met up with him and his (male) friend around 10:30. Looking back, I should have realized fairly early on that he was trying to hit on me. But in typical friendly fashion, I denied it and chalked it all up to "just friends going out together." (Broadway would gester wildly at my utter lack of awareness right about now).

To make a long story short, I was completely annoyed by the end of the night at this guy's ridiculous attitude, repeated antics, and multiple ill-concealed ploys to get in my pants. Several things happened:

1) Several random girls came up to his friend to talk to him at the bars, but no one came up to him. He turned to me several times to say something along the lines of "You're the only one who I'm paying attention to, and look how scared these girls are of you." Oh puhlease. He's just upset that he's not getting as much attention as he usually does as a tall white guy at a Chinese bar.

2) He obviously thinks he is a total hunk and God's gift to women and acts like the stereotypical (and despicable) fearless foreigner-in-China. Whenever he introduces himself to women, he says, "Hi, I'm Blah, the good-looking one." Every single time, without fail, and you know that he is only half joking. This arrogant attitude persisted throughout the night. He bragged about his muscles (again, only half jokingly), and make me feel his flexed arms as a (half) joke. Ugh ugh ugh, puhlease.

3) At one point Friday night, our ages came up. I said that I already gave him clues to my age since I told him I graduated in 2004. He did some mental math and asked, "27?" I nodded and then asked how old he was. His friend offered, "Didn't you graduate in 2006?" To which he answered, "Well technically 2005. It's complicated, I'll tell you later." Going off of 2005, I asked if he was 26, and he nodded.

So, why is it complicated which year he graduated in? Turns out, thanks to Facebook the next morning, he is only 23 and graduated in 2007. I never thought I would actually meet one of those young guys who lie about their ages to older women in bars. That's absolutely disgusting that he would claim to be 26 just so he would appear more attractive to me. (It's also an sad indicator that I am old. Sigh)

At the end of the night, he insisted that we all take a cab back together. I'm hesitant, and he is very insistent. Okay sure whatever, we are going in the same direction. In the cab, I give the driver directions and ask him to drop me off first. He immediately corrects the driver, "Oh, we all live very close together. Just drop us all off at this-this-this address."

Then to me, he says, "We're going to watch a movie at our place. You should come up."

Uhh ... Puhlease. NO THANKS. At this point, I'm so pissed that he re-directed the driver to drop us all off at his apartment. We do live fairly close to each other, so the cab had already passed mine so it was too late to get dropped off first.

I snickered at the suggestion of a movie and said, "No thanks, I'll just walk home."

After the cab dropped us off, his friend wanted to go to the 7-11 to get a snack. It's on the way to my place, so he then decided to come along since we're all walking, and I think to myself, "When will this guy ever go away and this night be over????"

When we get to the 7-11, his friend veered off, and I kept walking to go home. HE FOLLOWED ME. WHAT????? He claimed he wants to walk me home.

Really? I was so incredibly skeptical of anything he said at this point and swore that he was trying to walk me home to create an opportunity for me to ask him to come up to my apartment.

Seriously, where did this guy come from? He is so full of himself.

Fine, if he wants to walk the extra block, he can do whatever he wants. As we walked, he asked about my roommates, and I told him that I live with two guys.

He replied, feigning concern, "Oh really? I don't know how I feel about you living with other guys."

I snapped back, "What is it to you?" and kept walking.

When we got to my apartment, he actually respectfully said goodnight, at a distance, turned around and walked off.

What an asshole. I couldn't believe it. I feel dirty just thinking about the whole thing.

ahh, facebook

In an interesting twist of fate, the newly updated Facebook privacy settings revealed a bunch of pictures that I was dying to see, but had no way of accessing previously. The Ex got engaged last year around this time, and I got all kinds of upset. Then, I found out over the summer that despite an original plan to have a fall wedding in 2009, they got married in April instead, preceding a move to a far away place.

At the time, I did pause and think, "Huh, so he didn't think to tell me," but didn't give it much more thought than that. More than anything, I just wanted to see pictures of their wedding because 1) I love to go through other people's wedding pictures, and 2) I'am a secret stalker at heart.

The Ex had hidden all of his photos on Facebook, and of course I wasn't friends with his wife, so even though I knew there were photos of their wedding on facebook, I couldn't see any.

Enter Facebook's new privacy settings ... Not only are the Ex's tagged photos now newly visible, but I can also see his wife's wall and photos. I think this is because she and I are friends of friends.

I do feel a little creepy doing this, stalking their wedding pictures, but looking at them made me really really happy. Their wedding was simple, sweet, and very low-key. It made me really happy that the Ex found a girl who is totally real and down-to-earth, not a poofy-white-wedding-dress princess who's had her wedding planned since she was daddy's little girl on a pony at 8. Compared to how I was the years that the Ex and I were together, it's not hard to see why he would be so much happier with New Girl.

And I am totally okay with that. The Ex was not the right person for me. I am actually very down-to-earth at heart, too, but somehow got too caught up in wealth and status and appearances during the later years of college. The Ex only knew he was unhappy with that aspect of me, but didn't know that it wasn't actually representative of me as a person. Instead, he found the right person in New Girl and was immediately drawn to her cheery unpretentious personality.

As for me, I found the right person in Broadway who is able to bring out the best parts of me. He helped me to find the real me, the (relatively) easy-going, happy-go-lucky me who is happy and secure without (many) material possessions. And that is what the right relationship should do. I can't believe that I hadn't yet even realized this a year ago. I probably wouldn't have been as upset over the Ex's engagement.

So, back to the Facebook pictures. I'm not sure how long I'll continue to be able to see both of their photo albums and tagged pictures. Did they already update their privacy settings to include "friends of friends?" Or is the "friend of friend" visibility simply the default, and they haven't changed anything yet?

Of course, I hope the pictures continue to be visible, especially so I can keep up with other pictures of them in the future in far away place. But either way, I'm happy to have gotten a glimpse.

I'm even happier at my reaction to them. I honestly smiled a few times at how happy they looked at their wedding. Yay!