ESL

By now it should be apparent that I am slightly obsessed with foreign men. This results in some rather interesting text exchanges.

Friday Feb 25th:
12:21am Habibi: Hello my love!!!
Me: Hi
H: You will stay my love forever
Me: What's up?
H:Where are you come to see now
H: Habibati are you in the bed?
Me: No out on the LES with my friend.
H: I'm home I can't sleep
Me: My friend just ran out out and left me alone at this pizzeria
H: I wait for you take cap I pay for it

My friend L and I had gone out earlier in the evening to watch a Japanese folk singer from Astoria play at Pianos. After the show,the guys from the band came over and gave us free drink tickets because they said we seemed like the only people who were really into it. Then we met these crazy guys who grabbed us and started dancing with us. They bought us more drinks. Needless to say we ended up wasted at a pizza place in the LES. That's where my friend got into a fight with the guy at the counter who swore she ordered 2 slices and she swore she only ordered one. She stormed out in a rage and left me there drunk and confused with my pizza. That's when Habibi started contacting me. Meanwhile this other guy sat down next to me and we preceded to have a 45 minute long conversation about race relations and black men dating white women (he was black). Habibi was calling and texting me the whole time. In the end he drove into town and swooped me up in his minivan. Then the other guy started texting me, "You are cool. We should hang out sometime. XO". Habibi took me to his place fed me chocolate, climbed in the shower with me, washed my hair for me and put me to bed. I was wearing a vintage dress he had given me from his store and my stockings had a hole in them. The next day he pulled out a new pair of tights and gave them to me. He can be really cool sometimes.

Tonight as I write this its snowing/raining outside. I texted Habibi earlier to see if he wanted to hang out.
I just got this message from him:
'I'm staying home very bloomy wether' (I think he means 'gloomy'...)
Oh, all of this makes me laugh. Not in a mean way, its just funny to me.

The good times never end - or do they?!

I've spent my whole life surrounded
and I've spent my whole life alone
I wonder why I never wonder why
The easiest things are so hard
I just want, I just want love
I just want, I just want love
I just want, I just want love
I just want something
Something for nothing
Something, something for nothing

I'm a beggar and I'm a chooser
I'm accused, I'm an accuser
But nothing's unconditional

I hold the whole world accused
I've only got myself to blame
I wonder why, I never wonder why
The easiest things are so hard

-Unconditional, The Bravery

Sometimes I feel the urge to warn my younger friends about the perils of perpetual singlehood. That they might fall into the vacuous hole of endless city nights - drunken revelry, dead end jobs, meaningless sex, trippin' around 3rd world countries - until one day they wake up a decade or more later wondering what the hell happened. But its fun. Hell yeah, its fun! Too much fun. That's the problem. I have made a career out of avoiding responsibility, conjuring up casual romances and 'exploring my opportunities'. While I don't believe in regret - I think its a wasted emotion, if I knew then what I knew now (forgive me for this horrible cliche), I might have have slowed down a little, taken things a little more seriously.

But I keep my mouth shut. Everyone staggers through life and eventually finds their own way. Such are the perils of the modern age. We are free but its so easy to get lost.

Fate

I watched the Adjustment Bureau tonight. Its all about fate versus free will. Without totally giving away the end, the movie basically suggests that if you fight hard enough for something that you truly desire you can break out of the web of preordained fate. Put another way, 'Fortune favors the brave'.

As I walked home through the soft spring night, I started thinking about why I came to New York. I came here to change my destiny, to shake up fate. I felt like my life was stale, monotonous, whirling in a slow motion circle of vacuous wasted time and loneliness. So I came here. Now I am walking down these dark Brooklyn streets, the moon shining on the brownstones and though I have come so far, I still feel the same tug of inertia. It still feels like I am going to be alone forever. That's the worst of it. I have tried so hard, god knows, I have tried. I've fought to change, to grow, to take chances, to try different things. I have given so many guys chances each time thinking maybe I could find love with this person. And yet every time it eludes me. People say stop trying and it will find you. I've given up too. Nothing changes. I've never felt so powerless about anything in my life. Nothing I do, or feel or think or pray for can possibly seem to shake the pattern of my solitary life.

Pick Up Lines

I was out at a bar last night with a bunch of girl friends. A lone guy lingering near the end of the bar approached me.

Him: "You're really pretty."
Me: "Thanks."
Him: "Would you like to hook up?"
Me: Incredulous, "WHAT?!!! NOOOOOOO!"
Him: "Why not?"
Me: "You don't even know me! You have barely even spoken to me!"
Him: "Well, Adam didn't have to speak to Eve."

At this point I just started roaring with laughter and turned away. I told all my friends and everyone was dying. The guy quickly exited the bar.

Really?! Is this what's its come to these days?! You don't even know my name and you are gonna approach me and ask me if I'd like to hook up with you? And the Adam and Eve thing is just ridiculous. I can't believe it!

'Feminism' and its Discontents

I must admit that the average middle class white guy from this country holds little appeal for me. The accomplished 30 something white mothers I observe in my neighborhood rushing around with their jogging strollers and yoga mats, clad in expensive athletic wear, valiantly struggling to get back to their 'pre-baby' weight - all while holding down a lucrative, full time professional job, attempting to maintain a loving and passionate friendship with their husband, be the best mother they can be, in addition to setting aside time for weekends away and cocktails with 'the girls', do not inspire me. They seem overworked, stressed and exhausted, with too many people to please.

My otherwise liberal friends gasp in horror when I tell them I am dating a Muslim guy. But to me it makes sense. I feel oppressed by the tyrannical beauty and success standards impressed upon me by my supposedly open-minded, educated middle class white peers. In fact, it is in such company that I feel like the biggest, fattest failure. I know the Muslim world is not known for its enlightened attitude toward women (and that's an understatement in certain countries!). However, I feel compelled in the spirit of open-mindedness , cultural curiosity and (waning) optimism to check it out. Realistically any man attached to a religious dogma of any sort (whether it be Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc) will probably not be for me. But just because a man is white and educated doesn't mean he's not a sexist pig and just because a man is a Muslim doesn't make him a de facto misogynist.

Today's modern woman is expected to be everything to everyone - loving mother, sexy spouse, affectionate companion, capable career woman, faithful daughter, supportive friend, all while looking amazing doing it. By god, you'd better not get fat! I'm sorry but there are some serious issues here. If this is enlightenment, then count me out. While I have zero desire to return to the restrictiveness of the 1950's, there has to be a more compassionate way. The unlovely truth is that we still live in a capitalist, patriarchal society - throwing ourselves into a Darwinian rat race of social ascendence and punishing ourselves over our bodies is not liberation - its enslavement.