What had transpired before this was to my "male intuition" was that she seemed to be giving me a "I'm not interested" type feedback but, that was contrary to what I had heard as a feedback from IJL that Johanna said I did not need to change the way that I am and that she wouldn't mind seeing me again. I was right, and I'm saying this with a smile and without any hurt or animosity because of the after the fact that I had found out.
So I do admit that my dating resume is thin but it's a slow and painful process of learning what works and what doesn't, so I thought. So the invitation to the Picasso art Museum didn't materialize and so she Johanna had suggested coffe in 2 very brief sentence, again an indication of "I'm not really interested". So then on the day of the coffee, she gets pulled into a last minute meeting and has to cancel, and in the response, no offer for another day / to reschedule. Oookay I told myself, we'll try again. So this time I counter offer with my exotic menu of items for dinner at my place. Bad idea... datre #2 and already dinner at the guy's palce = fail.
Johanna replies in a the fashinable short 2 sentence that the menu is overwhelming, and counter offered with another coffee meetup. I went out for coffee with Johanna. That was when I found out that her feedback was as above and there was a but... but he looks a lot like my brother and I don't think I am comfortable with that, or so she claims to have said as a feedback. So we had a good laugh about the whole lost in translation that I was thinking I still had a chance while she was probably thinking why I'm still trying so hard when she already indicated a no to IJL and was hoping that they'd tell me it's a no go.
I did ask IJL and their feedback was that yes she did say that I looked like her brother but it was in a good way. They suggested that perhaps she wasn't sure at that time with the feedback and wanted to see if indeed I'd be too much like her brother. Anyways, to each their own, not necessarily some things would sail other people's boat so I'd let it go. I did tell Johanna that in future, depending on an individual's personality it's ok to say "No I'm not interested" rather than play the cold shoulder game and hints. I know I take rejections well, it's part of this whole dating game thing.
Anyways, so we'll see. I'll be on vacation so it'll be good to relax and chill out. Especially after working 10 days straight...
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Seattle dating scene be damned... else Roy be damned
Hmm two things... either I need to change my expectations and be more patient with Seattle girls when it comes to dating and not over doing it / thinking too much about it and just enjoy any dates if it happens, else these pacific Northwest girl really really need to change the whole damned Seattle Freeze in them. Here's what / why I'm torn, some people say just enjoy the date and be yourself, that's definitely credible and being unpretentious and people will get to know you for who you are, but at the same time I'm reading all these dating tips saying that you need to ask subtle questions which will then slowly reveal the true nature of the other person.
Call me unsophisticated and an engineer, I don't do gray most of the time unfortunately. I deal in 1's and 0's, black or white mostly. I definitely do understand there is a proper time for proper questions when it comes to dating, so as not to scare a potential mate away but by God, I'm not a Psychology major... and I don't really do what the interviewers do, for example: "Tell me more about yourself" is a fucking trick question to see if you're going to ramble about your hobbies and where your buttock pimple is, but a question about your professional side. Note to self: assassinate whomever who came up with this "Tell me more about yourself" question.
Reason for such a big statement / soap box action is due to another possible unenthusiastic potential date. I feel as if I'm doing a lot to show that I'm not your typical PNW guy with a passive aggressive demeanor (and I'm not for crying out loud, I'm from Malaysia and an ISTJ, though more ESTJ these days). I try hard to keep communications prompt and in detail and yet all I get is a lackluster / mundane / demure / nonchalant reply. W T F is all I can say. Perhaps I'm overdoing it, perhaps I'm indeed a hyper and overwhelming type personality at times and trust me I always try to see things from both points of views, so I don't think I'm doing it too wrongly per se. I think I'm imposing / expecting the other party to reciprocate with at least some enthusiasm, which some people have the same train of thought, else it's the whole social ineptness typical of the pacific north west.
Anyways, I'm gonna play it cool, lesson learnt deal in gray Roy... deal in gray and 0.5. You are who you are and you cannot expect others to do / behave like you else the world would be a boringly good predictable world. I guess I'm just tired of courtship and the whole cat and mouse game and perhaps I'm thinking like a PNW guy that I'm a great catch. I don't doubt myself, but I definitely need to let nature take it's course.
Need to go borrow a dating for dummies book and read it, then perhaps I'll be a better dater and have more success. We'll see. For now I'm definitely gonna take my time and "treat others and they would treat you". If you're nonchalant, 2 can play at the game.
Call me unsophisticated and an engineer, I don't do gray most of the time unfortunately. I deal in 1's and 0's, black or white mostly. I definitely do understand there is a proper time for proper questions when it comes to dating, so as not to scare a potential mate away but by God, I'm not a Psychology major... and I don't really do what the interviewers do, for example: "Tell me more about yourself" is a fucking trick question to see if you're going to ramble about your hobbies and where your buttock pimple is, but a question about your professional side. Note to self: assassinate whomever who came up with this "Tell me more about yourself" question.
Reason for such a big statement / soap box action is due to another possible unenthusiastic potential date. I feel as if I'm doing a lot to show that I'm not your typical PNW guy with a passive aggressive demeanor (and I'm not for crying out loud, I'm from Malaysia and an ISTJ, though more ESTJ these days). I try hard to keep communications prompt and in detail and yet all I get is a lackluster / mundane / demure / nonchalant reply. W T F is all I can say. Perhaps I'm overdoing it, perhaps I'm indeed a hyper and overwhelming type personality at times and trust me I always try to see things from both points of views, so I don't think I'm doing it too wrongly per se. I think I'm imposing / expecting the other party to reciprocate with at least some enthusiasm, which some people have the same train of thought, else it's the whole social ineptness typical of the pacific north west.
Anyways, I'm gonna play it cool, lesson learnt deal in gray Roy... deal in gray and 0.5. You are who you are and you cannot expect others to do / behave like you else the world would be a boringly good predictable world. I guess I'm just tired of courtship and the whole cat and mouse game and perhaps I'm thinking like a PNW guy that I'm a great catch. I don't doubt myself, but I definitely need to let nature take it's course.
Need to go borrow a dating for dummies book and read it, then perhaps I'll be a better dater and have more success. We'll see. For now I'm definitely gonna take my time and "treat others and they would treat you". If you're nonchalant, 2 can play at the game.
So much to tell so little time
Wow where to start... ok biking first. So my bicycling partner and I have achieve twice around Lake Washington. Ride 1 was 58 miles long, Sept 4th starting from Warren G. Magnuson Park. you won't believe the sights that you'll see circling around lake Washington.
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_04_Lake_Washington_Bicycling/
Next one was Sept 25th, and blah this time I crashed, with my new bike, what a bummer, had to bring it into REI to true out the back wheel but other than that it's golden. Ohh and we saw a Lamborghini in Bellevue... typical I guess since the East Side is higher class and more effluent:
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_25_lake_Washington_bicycling_part_deux/
Just a heads up I'm grouping them by topics, not so much chronological order. On my to do list: hiking, and so I did it on sept 19th:
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_19_Bridal_Veil_Hike/
But have not done camping. It's now already Winter and I have yet to get a snow shoe / skiing / snowboarding session in. Sigh. No chain tires, don't know how to put them on... darn it. I'll prob car pool with others who are more experienced. I have driven in snow in Missouri which did not require snow chains / traction tires...
Sept 10th was the Salsa lesson, learnt the truth that I definitely do have 2 left feet, else maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. I'll still give dancing a try though it's not my forte.
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_10_Salsa_Lesson/
By this time already I was dating Lucy... a whole different saga / twilight zone experience / stuff that you'd think would only happen on soap operas... not the good things but the bad things especially after the breakup.
So Lucy is originally from China, she came with her parents in 1994 so completed her high school and college in Seattle Wa and you'd think someone who has been in the US this long would have acclimated / adapted to life here. We met from a few meetup.com events and story goes that she's looking for 6 feet tall, good in bed, earns a ton of money and the list goes on.
So she "interviewed" me and decided to give me a try. I, at that time was unfortunately getting jaded and tired of the whole dating scene in Seattle and I really should have followed my gut to not give up, persevere and not lower my expectation / compromise, and thought ok I'll give her a try and see how things would go. I already knew there will be quite a lost in translation because I know I am not as traditional as Lucy was, in short she's definitely more Chinese than I'll ever be. She's always talking about Astrology. It's not my forte, it's not something I believe in and not something which I am against, just neutral about it. Come to think about it, it's kinda funny, she's a Christian and as far as I recall, I think they do not condone astrology.
So anyways we dated and we had 3 incidents of her jealousy and controlling ways surfacing.
I came to the US in 1999 and have adapted to the lifestyle and cultural norms here, eg: having lady friends and guy friends and having lunch with them as friends is perfectly fine / normal unless I am really showing signs of cheating or infidelity.
So it was strike 3, first we did have a fight because she was jealous of me and my bicycling partner who happens to be a girl. She is Indian by ethnicity but born and raised here in the US and I met her and have been close friends ever since, back in June 2010. So Lucy was having the PMS time of the month and was accusing me of hanging out too much with my biking buddy because I aways gave a ride for my bicycling buddy after our bicycling events (10 miles get fit biking) in meetup.com. Lucy has met her before at these biking events that I organize.
Lucy was saying why I don't charge my biking buddy $ for the trips that I make and I understood where she was coming from, but appalled at the same time. From my understanding here in N. America, if you volunteer / give someone a short ride, not like a super long trip or car pool, you're not obligated to compensate / ask for gas $. Another thing we argued about was splitting of dinner / meals eaten out check... she claims that the guy should pay all and I kind of disagreed because it is really equal opportunity my core values / beliefs is that I'm ok to pay most of the time but every other check / bill should prob be split once in a while.
So then comes incident #2, no fight but I went out to diner to meet Wayne, an engineer whom I met from the Seattle LinkedIn professional networking event and he was interested in finding out more about my master's thesis which I did on Biomass Gasification and by this time already I was sharing the full details of my Google calendar with Lucy so she and I can see what each other is doing to be able to plan our time together. So that night we did have a bowling meetup event but I marked it as a maybe and definitely this dinner meet with Wayne would be more important in my books.
So the dinner was about 2.5 hrs or longer than expected since we had such a good time talking about renewable energy and she started calling my phone. I ignored the call because I felt that it was kind of rude to pick up the call since I was talking with Wayne, but i promptly called her back once I was done.
Here comes the fun part and you can laugh because I laughed also... so she calls Wayne... since I had the dinner place detail and phone (for my records) ... so it's kind of like the scenario where you don't know if you wan to laugh or cry or get angry... I mean think of it this way, what if it were a million dollar business deal and your spouse or significant other called up the potential client to check up on you? Oh my God... so unprofessional and uncalled for. So when I got a chance to call her I apologized for ignoring her call but I asked her what's up.
So she says hey did you actually go to dinner with Wayne? and I said yes why..? And she said she called him up and a girl picked up the phone. So I asked her what number did you dial to reach Wayne... and she told me the number and she screwed up the last digit and so it happen to go to a girl's phone LOL!!! So I guess it added fuel to her jealousy, insecurity, suspicions et al. Anyways so then this one we didn't argue abt it.
So anyways I had lunch with my biking buddy and again Lucy goes on a jealousy tirade about it (almost making a scene at the Indian restaurant where Lucy & I were having dinner together) and so I told her give me 24 hrs let me think about the whole situation, in my heart already I was about 70%+ pretty sure this is not going to work out, but I did consult with my parents since they are a little bit more old fashioned / traditional and know how Chinese people normally think of the situation. Reason being that this won't work is that I'm new in Seattle and will continue to meet girls and guys and my biking buddy will not be the last of her jealousy issues.
Talk to my parents and they were actually on her side, I was a little shocked but I respected their opinions because their reasoning was that Lucy being traditional, and age 31, in the Chinese culture it's "almost too late to get married to have kids" and hence she's being like a protective mother hen and will not let me go and will not let any other female near me. She actually told me that ever since she started dating me, she has not gone out to lunch with her guy friends, and hence expects me to do the same vice versa, and even if I wanted to go out to lunch with a lady friend, I have to ask her permission.... wow W T F .. :D
In the end I told her ok it's not gonna work out between you and me and we really should split. So after that she started going psycho on my and will intermittently send a nice / regular txt message, then shortly some crazy accusation type txt that I was cheating on her bla bla, pretty much harassing me. I was this close to filing a do not contact / restraining order and finally she came to her senses and left me alone. Phew. Talk about drama, and you'd think that this happens in soap operas only.
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_04_Lake_Washington_Bicycling/
Next one was Sept 25th, and blah this time I crashed, with my new bike, what a bummer, had to bring it into REI to true out the back wheel but other than that it's golden. Ohh and we saw a Lamborghini in Bellevue... typical I guess since the East Side is higher class and more effluent:
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_25_lake_Washington_bicycling_part_deux/
Just a heads up I'm grouping them by topics, not so much chronological order. On my to do list: hiking, and so I did it on sept 19th:
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_19_Bridal_Veil_Hike/
But have not done camping. It's now already Winter and I have yet to get a snow shoe / skiing / snowboarding session in. Sigh. No chain tires, don't know how to put them on... darn it. I'll prob car pool with others who are more experienced. I have driven in snow in Missouri which did not require snow chains / traction tires...
Sept 10th was the Salsa lesson, learnt the truth that I definitely do have 2 left feet, else maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. I'll still give dancing a try though it's not my forte.
http://s783.photobucket.com/albums/yy114/zieglarnatta2/2010_09_10_Salsa_Lesson/
By this time already I was dating Lucy... a whole different saga / twilight zone experience / stuff that you'd think would only happen on soap operas... not the good things but the bad things especially after the breakup.
So Lucy is originally from China, she came with her parents in 1994 so completed her high school and college in Seattle Wa and you'd think someone who has been in the US this long would have acclimated / adapted to life here. We met from a few meetup.com events and story goes that she's looking for 6 feet tall, good in bed, earns a ton of money and the list goes on.
So she "interviewed" me and decided to give me a try. I, at that time was unfortunately getting jaded and tired of the whole dating scene in Seattle and I really should have followed my gut to not give up, persevere and not lower my expectation / compromise, and thought ok I'll give her a try and see how things would go. I already knew there will be quite a lost in translation because I know I am not as traditional as Lucy was, in short she's definitely more Chinese than I'll ever be. She's always talking about Astrology. It's not my forte, it's not something I believe in and not something which I am against, just neutral about it. Come to think about it, it's kinda funny, she's a Christian and as far as I recall, I think they do not condone astrology.
So anyways we dated and we had 3 incidents of her jealousy and controlling ways surfacing.
I came to the US in 1999 and have adapted to the lifestyle and cultural norms here, eg: having lady friends and guy friends and having lunch with them as friends is perfectly fine / normal unless I am really showing signs of cheating or infidelity.
So it was strike 3, first we did have a fight because she was jealous of me and my bicycling partner who happens to be a girl. She is Indian by ethnicity but born and raised here in the US and I met her and have been close friends ever since, back in June 2010. So Lucy was having the PMS time of the month and was accusing me of hanging out too much with my biking buddy because I aways gave a ride for my bicycling buddy after our bicycling events (10 miles get fit biking) in meetup.com. Lucy has met her before at these biking events that I organize.
Lucy was saying why I don't charge my biking buddy $ for the trips that I make and I understood where she was coming from, but appalled at the same time. From my understanding here in N. America, if you volunteer / give someone a short ride, not like a super long trip or car pool, you're not obligated to compensate / ask for gas $. Another thing we argued about was splitting of dinner / meals eaten out check... she claims that the guy should pay all and I kind of disagreed because it is really equal opportunity my core values / beliefs is that I'm ok to pay most of the time but every other check / bill should prob be split once in a while.
So then comes incident #2, no fight but I went out to diner to meet Wayne, an engineer whom I met from the Seattle LinkedIn professional networking event and he was interested in finding out more about my master's thesis which I did on Biomass Gasification and by this time already I was sharing the full details of my Google calendar with Lucy so she and I can see what each other is doing to be able to plan our time together. So that night we did have a bowling meetup event but I marked it as a maybe and definitely this dinner meet with Wayne would be more important in my books.
So the dinner was about 2.5 hrs or longer than expected since we had such a good time talking about renewable energy and she started calling my phone. I ignored the call because I felt that it was kind of rude to pick up the call since I was talking with Wayne, but i promptly called her back once I was done.
Here comes the fun part and you can laugh because I laughed also... so she calls Wayne... since I had the dinner place detail and phone (for my records) ... so it's kind of like the scenario where you don't know if you wan to laugh or cry or get angry... I mean think of it this way, what if it were a million dollar business deal and your spouse or significant other called up the potential client to check up on you? Oh my God... so unprofessional and uncalled for. So when I got a chance to call her I apologized for ignoring her call but I asked her what's up.
So she says hey did you actually go to dinner with Wayne? and I said yes why..? And she said she called him up and a girl picked up the phone. So I asked her what number did you dial to reach Wayne... and she told me the number and she screwed up the last digit and so it happen to go to a girl's phone LOL!!! So I guess it added fuel to her jealousy, insecurity, suspicions et al. Anyways so then this one we didn't argue abt it.
So anyways I had lunch with my biking buddy and again Lucy goes on a jealousy tirade about it (almost making a scene at the Indian restaurant where Lucy & I were having dinner together) and so I told her give me 24 hrs let me think about the whole situation, in my heart already I was about 70%+ pretty sure this is not going to work out, but I did consult with my parents since they are a little bit more old fashioned / traditional and know how Chinese people normally think of the situation. Reason being that this won't work is that I'm new in Seattle and will continue to meet girls and guys and my biking buddy will not be the last of her jealousy issues.
Talk to my parents and they were actually on her side, I was a little shocked but I respected their opinions because their reasoning was that Lucy being traditional, and age 31, in the Chinese culture it's "almost too late to get married to have kids" and hence she's being like a protective mother hen and will not let me go and will not let any other female near me. She actually told me that ever since she started dating me, she has not gone out to lunch with her guy friends, and hence expects me to do the same vice versa, and even if I wanted to go out to lunch with a lady friend, I have to ask her permission.... wow W T F .. :D
In the end I told her ok it's not gonna work out between you and me and we really should split. So after that she started going psycho on my and will intermittently send a nice / regular txt message, then shortly some crazy accusation type txt that I was cheating on her bla bla, pretty much harassing me. I was this close to filing a do not contact / restraining order and finally she came to her senses and left me alone. Phew. Talk about drama, and you'd think that this happens in soap operas only.
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