Six Dates and Counting....

Here is the story I wrote recently.....one of my New Year's Resolutions is to freelance and write more so this is part of it...perhaps I will attempt to write an e-book or try to get an actual story published versus an article or write a screenplay....we'll see....I'm trying to research the chick lit genre further.

Six Dates and Counting….

Kerry Lee, the cute but not hot Asian American gal, had been having a fascinating conversation on the Internet with a guy she was about to meet. It just happened to be her day off and she actually had time to curl her hair. Decked out in a leopard print top, black jeans and her cowboy boots from Target, she opened the back door to The Branch, her neighborhood bar, and strolled in.

Just for a split second, a thought crossed her mind. “Could he be the one?” He was definitely cute and she thought: “Is this Bobby Lee-look alike from Mad TV really the same guy online making her laugh hysterically while also having a semi-intellectual conversation with her about Asian Americans at the same time?” No, she couldn’t have such crazy thoughts about him being the one, but she was still blown away nevertheless.

It had been four years since her last boyfriend and she really didn’t know what to think about guys and dating anymore. Apparently she was about to learn about some of the changes to the dating game when people hit their 30s.

“Wow, you look beautiful,” Danny Kim said. Danny was Korean-American originally from Los Angeles and had moved to Arizona to start his own fast food joint in west Phoenix.

Kerry immediately thought: Smooth talker. Possibly full of shit.

“You said not to dress up….” Danny reminded her as they sat down. Danny was wearing a baseball cap, jeans and skater shoes of some sort. Lord, Kerry, said to herself, I really haven’t changed at all. Even though she was 31 and here she was talking to a 32-year-old, she was still looking at someone she may have dated 10 years ago. Two of her boyfriends back in her late teens and early 20s had been skaters.

But for whatever reason, Kerry was smitten. When the server came by, she immediately ordered a beer because she was NERVOUS. When was the last time she was nervous about a guy? Nervous about work. Nervous about networking. Nervous about a job interview. But not nervous about guys in general.

Kerry gripped the pint glass as they chatted. She felt her heart start to race. If you asked her why she was attracted to Danny, she couldn’t explain it. But all she knew was he looked better than his photos online and she wanted to hang out again.

***

Kerry and Danny’s relationship was progressing for several months until the day Danny joked about “beating, pushing, shoving” Kerry. Kerry was stressed out in general. The contract for her job had not been renewed. She needed to look for a new job. That last class in grad school was gnawing at her. Kerry had already called Danny out on his view of women when they first met. “But I love women.” She had occasionally been irritated by his dark sense of humor. Laughing at domestic violence, even admitting at one point that he didn’t really read books written by female authors and making sexist and racist comments that she found unacceptable. Kerry was done. She knew that this was something she could not live with permanently.

Meanwhile, Danny’s fast food restaurant was crumbling. He also started looking for work. Danny eventually landed a job in the entertainment industry in L.A. and moved home with his parents to start paying off his debt.

Kerry was not heart broken but the break up still hurt. She tuned out the rest of the world of her friends and peers who were all settling down into domesticity. Kerry was convinced she wanted to work on her career and date randomly.

She forced herself back into the dating world after Danny moved. She really didn’t want to be in a relationship again for various reasons. However, Kerry needed to get over Danny. For whatever reason, it was easier said than done.

She just wished that she could get rid of the memories of Danny. Three months after the break up she was entirely sick of thinking about him. He was negative, fat, smoked too much, snored too loud, ate too much and she knew in her heart that he was not the right guy. But something kept tugging at her. Was it loneliness or perhaps longing to be with a guy? He was everything she wanted superficially. Hilarious, could talk to anyone, could probably handle himself in most situations that Kerry would encounter and he’d be fine, he was responsible and dependable, he could fix things around house, fix the car and he could talk about Asian American issues, one of Kerry’s interests.

Why did she still feel sore? The break up felt like an annoying mosquito bite that wouldn’t go away. After going to two parties on Halloween weekend, it reminded her of the fact that last Halloween Danny had messaged her online about her “sexy” judge costume that she wore to a party last year that was actually her friend’s college graduation gown. Sadly, her and Danny never made it to any major holidays but perhaps that was a good thing.

The day of Halloween, Kerry was driving home on the freeway from her new job as an English teacher at an inner city high school when she felt the hot tears rolling down her cheeks. Sigh. She was still moping. She hated that. Moping. She still couldn’t fully focus on anything. Her thoughts still drifted to Danny. The cute chubby Korean-American boy that caused her to think about if she really wanted to reproduce. Much of this came from him bringing it up – not her. Sometimes she even felt stressed out about the fact she needed to decide yes or no about having a kid. Kerry totally loved Danny as much as she could in the few months they were together but at this point in Kerry’s life she had been hurt enough personally and professionally that it was hard to dive head first into the relationship.

***

After six dates, she had to report back to her friend, Teresa.

“Hey, grrrlllll, how’s the dating scene?” Teresa asked in her high-pitched Valley girl voice. Teresa was always chipper and always had something to say about dating.

“Details, details, Kerry, I want details.”

“Well, let’s see, hmmm, six dates,” Kerry said.

“Six dates,” Teresa shrieked. “Six dates and you haven’t called me!!”

“Hold your horses, chick-ee, I’ve been busy with my new job teaching crazy teenagers the wonders of the English language, which is the best form of birth control, I tell ya, networking, working on my book, committee work for the Phoenix Organization of Writers, going to the gym to keep up this hot piece of ass and lord knows what else, oh, stupid crap with my house,” Kerry said.

“Tell me about more about these guys, where are they from, white guys? Asian? Mexican? I need more,” Teresa said.

“Six guys, one Korean American, two white guys, one half white, half Korean, one Egyptian who moved here when he was 17, one half Puerto Rican, half Native American from all over the U.S.,” Kerry said.

“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Teresa added.

After the break up, Kerry hopped back onto the Internet and reposted her profile. Shortly thereafter, a Korean American boy from Mesa contacted her. It turned out he was friends with Kerry’s piano teacher’s daughter from first grade. They went out. He reminded her too much of a previous boyfriend, a stereotypical geeky Chinese American boy who worked in IT and loved video games. Plus, it had only been a month after the break up and she just wasn’t ready.

Then came Ben, the half white, half Korean kid from Peoria.

“Ooohh, he sounds hot, you know those half Asian types are the best,” Teresa chimed in.

“You just wait until I tell you about this piece of work,” Kerry snapped.

What was it with these Korean American men? The Korean American population in Phoenix consisted of five people. And she had already met half of them online. At this point, Kerry was done with Korean food and anything related to Korea for the next five years.

On the phone, while discussing where they should meet, Ben made the statement, “Mill Avenue, Mill Avenue, Mill Avenue is in Mesa.” Kerry wanted to say Ben: “Anyone who has lived in Phoenix for more than three weeks knows that Mill Avenue is in Tempe!” That should have been clue number one.

Once Kerry and Ben actually met at a natural history museum in Mesa, it just went downhill from there. Ben looked cute in his photos but he looked okay in person. Then they started talking and walking through the museum. While they looked at pictures of stalactites in caves, Ben proceeded to tell Kerry within 30 minutes of meeting that he went AWOL from the military after Sept. 11 because he disagreed with what was going on in the military and just left one day. He said he was discharged from the military and then he came back to Phoenix to live with his parents. This meant he’d been living with his parents for the last eight years and is now a 29-year-old server at Red Robin!

After they moved into the astronomy room of the museum, Kerry decided that she was entirely bored. But since she made the trip out to downtown Mesa, she was going to make it worth it by walking around downtown. They walked into an antiques store and she listened to more of Ben’s mumbo jumbo. Ben tried to justify why he was living at home and talked about his other friends who were also 29 and living at home. Then, he talked about how disrespectful they were to their parents. The kicker was when Kerry told Ben she needed to leave. Ben, shamelessly asked, “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“What’s that?” Kerry asked.

“Can I get a ride to Mill Avenue?” Kerry gave Ben a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t drive…..” Ben said.

“How did you get here?” Kerry asked

“Oh, my mom, dropped me off,” Ben said slowly.

“Your mom dropped you off?? Wait…you can’t drive?! I’m confused.”

“Well, I got a DUI, my license is suspended.”

“Wait, hold on, how many DUIs do you have?” Kerry was relying on information she had picked up from her days as a crime reporter where she had gone on several DUI ride-a-longs with the police department.

“This is my second one. I was on my way home….”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Kerry cut him short. “Get in the car….”

“Drunks are always on their way home,” Kerry muttered under her breath. Luckily, Kerry was in a good mood that day. It was Ben’s lucky day—Kerry would have ripped him into shreds for wasting her time had she been PMSing.

“Oh, gawd,” Teresa said five times. “Wow. Unbelievable.”

“Yeah, I was pretty amused. I mean I know that there’s this stereotype that half Asian kids are ridiculously beautiful and intelligent. Well, talk about having ‘the worst of both worlds,’” Kerry said.

“Seriously, so much for those hot hapas,” Teresa laughed. “Okay, tell me more.”

“So, apparently since I have a master’s degree and technically I have two of them, I do, in fact, get some educated guys after you weed through all of the garbage on those free online dating Web sites. I’m not paying for any of that stuff—yet. And I’m not asking for any PhDs but apparently they’re seeking me out,” Kerry said. “Having been in academia for a few years now and after living with a few PhD students, I’ll be frank, I don’t get terribly excited about people with PhDs. Having a college degree or at least some college is great. Anything beyond that I could care less about.”

First came the white PhD student from Vermont who was studying clinical psychology at the local university and the recent PhD graduate in bioengineering who just moved to Phoenix from Pennsylvania.

“I’m going to have to get on my soap box about some of these guys. The average white guy is incredibly boring to me. The average white guy watches football, plays one pick-up sport, has five friends he drinks beer with on weekends, has been out of the country once to Cancun, went to college at some large state university, blah, blah, blah,” Kerry said. “I just went out with two white guys. In terms of education, they were above average. And don’t accuse me of not going out with white guys. Nothing was really wrong with them but I just didn’t connect with either of them. I’ll be the first to tell you I am hard to impress. Just because you’re white doesn’t mean I’m going to kiss the ground you walk on. Heck no. I dated a white, artsy-fartsy, pot-smoking musician for six months when I was living in Tucson in my mid-20s and he was cool but the sex was, well, boring and I also hooked up with, oh wait, never mind…”

“Daammmnnn, chica, what about this whole notion that white guys will treat you better?” Teresa asked.

“It wouldn’t be any better if you’re asleep,” Kerry retorted. “They were both polite, articulate, did all the right things, paid for the drink or the meal, walked me to my car, but I just didn’t feel any sort of connection to either of them. They were decent looking but I wasn’t dying to hang out again. Ya know?”

“What about the other two?” Teresa asked.

Kerry chuckled.

“What?? Do tell.” Teresa said.

“Where do I start?” Kerry said.

There was the engineer by day/musician on the weekends who was totally, totally cute. This one had moved to Alabama from his native Egypt where he got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering. Then, he married a girl from the United States.

“He’s divorced?” Teresa asked

“Yes, and he’s 28.” Kerry said.

They got divorced because of cultural differences.

“As in Egyptian culture is too patriarchal, blah, blah,” Kerry explained.

“Oh, geez,” Teresa said.

“But here’s the best part, his goal right now besides having a family with kids at some point is to get his American citizenship,” Kerry said.

“What?? Didn’t he marry a girl from the U.S? Teresa asked.

“Yes, but he said he didn’t marry her for that. Unbelievable. He said, ‘Oh, my family, kept telling me I should get it but that’s not why I married her.’ Unreal. I mean they were only married for a year and he said he knew after a month that it wasn’t going to work,” Kerry said. “He shared all of that with me on the FIRST date AND he also asked me if I got mad. Ooohhh….”

Yes, Kerry gets mad and yells at people. Of course this was all within reason. “Oh, so you stand up for yourself?” cute Egyptian boy asked. YES, ESPECIALLY IN RELATIONSHIPS. More so than anywhere else. Everything is on the line in a relationship. You sleep with me then you’re going to know all about me. The good, the bad and the ugly. End of story. Yes, Kerry can be bitch. No, Kerry is not a doormat. Even her high school students at the inner city school knew not to mess with Ms. Lee. They even said they would not want to get into a fight with her. Ms. Lee may be from the suburbs but she’s a fireball if provoked. Does Kerry have issues? Yes, Kerry has issues. Don’t we all?

“Whoa, Kerry, you are intense,” Teresa said.

“I’ll tell you about my favorite,” Kerry said. “But, I do have to add that the Egyptian guy was worth talking to for an hour. I would have totally made out with him if I had the opportunity to do so. And, as a side note, Teresa, he asked me about online dating in general. Basically, he was talking about all of the freaks out there. He had a girl invite him to her house on the first date. No joke.”

“Well, thank gawd, I have Jeff, I can’t imagine dealing with the nut cases out there,” Teresa said.

The “armydoctor” sent her a message on an online dating site. Nearly all of the guys she met online initiated contact. Kerry had tried to message other guys but that never seemed to work. It turned out that the “armydoctor” was a PhD student at the local university who had just done four tours in the Middle East. The half Puerto Rican, half native American had spent the past decade in the Army and was now teaching while researching educational technology.

“Talk about too aggressive. This guy couldn’t stop staring at me when I showed up at the restaurant. He said at one point, ‘Wow, you’re not 200 pounds” because apparently he went out with a girl who was 120 pounds in her pictures but turned out to be 200 pounds,” Kerry said. “On the phone, before we even met, he said ‘If we date, I would want you to carry around mace,’ after I told him I teach at an inner city school. Totally ridiculous. Talk about wanting to be in control.”

After lunch, Kerry suggested they check out Bookman’s down the street. “Armydoctor” had the audacity to pick up a cookbook titled “Asian All the Time” and show it to her and said, “I want to date a high school English teacher who is Asian.”

“I felt like I was in some sort of porn-type movie,” Kerry said. “And HE was the one who suggested we should hang out again at HIS HOUSE.”

“You just didn’t like his style, Kerry, some girls are into guys like that,” Teresa said.

“Well, I’m not, I like to be the one who suggests things, and I usually am the one who is, I know people see me and think ‘Ooooo, nice, little Asian American girl, but, shit, people, I call the shots,’ I’ve always called the shots with all of my boyfriends.”

Armydoctor’s Asian fetish came out during their second meeting at a coffee shop. He suddenly moved into Kerry’s personal space within 10 minutes of seeing her. Kerry told him to move back. The only reason Kerry went out with him again was because he kept calling her. At one point, he left a message asking, “Are you mad at me?” Seriously, Armydoctor. I don’t even know you.

After Kerry told him to move back, the conversation took a turn. He wanted to talk about his feelings. What? We just met. Then, he told she must be inexperienced (total bullshit, Kerry’s personal space was only for guys she was really into) or that she was not attracted to him (partially true then it became entirely true). Then he started to talk about his last relationship with a Vietnamese girl who lived in Oklahoma. Why did you guys break up? Kerry asked. She didn’t want to settle down. Oh, how old is she? 20. 20, who in their right mind would want to settle down at that age? She can’t even drink legally! Well, I’m young at heart, I like cruising, going to clubs, listening to music. Kerry frowned. I wanted to marry her but she didn’t want to settle down. How long were you dating for? Oh, we were friends with benefits. What? When did you guys break up? Three weeks ago. Three weeks ago! What? Haven’t you been online for longer than three weeks? Oh, I’ve been online my entire life. Kerry concluded that Armydoctor was full of shit.

Kerry decided she would walk Armydoctor to his car. I really like Asian girls. What??? Why? I just think they’re more family oriented, they’re polite, all of my best relationships have been with Asian girls. Enough, I don’t like being seen in some weird exotic light. I’m the wrong type of girl for you then. I’m not even interested in having kids or getting married and I can be a total bitch. Oh, well, neither am I, and I don’t think you’re a bitch, you should come over and I’ll cook dinner for you. Right. This is not going to work. There are plenty of other Asian girls out there who will buy into that shit. Kerry got a text and another phone call the week after before he got the hint.

Kerry detested Asian fetish types. She luckily hadn’t come across one in quite some time so it was going to happen again sooner or later. Kerry could care less about white guys who speak Chinese or any other Asian language or had some sort of strange affinity for anything Asian.

“The majority of the Asian American guys in Arizona are not dateable. Most of the Asian Americans guys I’ve dated are Arizona transplants who have grown up in other parts of the United States with larger Asian American populations, meaning bigger cities, and I’m not moving to California or anywhere else for that matter so I can live with my parents or have 10 roommates in the ghetto,” Kerry said. “For the most part I’m not dating anyone from Asia nor do I want to date a guy who has an Asian fetish. Any Asian American girl has been dealing with this shit her entire life.”

“I hear ya, Kerry. That’s why I only go for the white meat,” Teresa said.

“I’m sorry but there are not just too many cultural issues. Don’t get me wrong, there are some attractive guys in Asia and I know there are exceptions, but for the most part, I wouldn’t even go there,” Kerry said. “I mean it would be nice to have a Chinese language partner at my house 24-7 like the white guys or the Asian American guys who can end up with women from Asia. Frankly speaking, in the history of the world, I’ve never heard of an Asian American girl who ends up with a guy from Asia,”

“You’re just too complicated, Kerry. I only go for white guys with money,” Teresa giggled. “I’m a total stereotype. I’m a total gold digger. Now, I ain’t sayin she a gold digger…”

Did Kerry have to go through 10 more break ups in the next decade? By then, she’d be 41. The time spent recovering from relationships could be spent on networking, getting in better shape, developing new skills, working on her book, talking to publishers instead of crying and moping. But maybe she’d have a book published by then? Would it be worth it? Ten break ups and her name and lots of her words in print? Did it matter if there wasn’t a dude with her at her book signings or the annual holiday parties? It’s not as though that would count against her on a resume.

Are relationships overrated? It’s not as though Kerry only had bad relationships.

Kerry had been loved once. Her college boyfriend, Corey, and her spent three years together and every minute of it was worth it. Corey wrote songs about Kerry, they wrote letters to each other every summer, especially when Kerry was abroad one summer, they talked about everything and were best of friends. They would get into fights on occasion but they were always able to figure things out. Corey made Kerry a better person. Sadly, Corey moved back to Hawai’i after he graduated from college. And Kerry wasn’t ready to settle down at 22. Since then, the only person that came even close to what Kerry experienced with Corey was Danny.

Back then, she had big dreams. She wanted to be a reporter and work for The New York Times. Kerry was convinced that was her focus in life—not settling down. The only thing she could think about when she was 25 besides going out was how to further her career. The last thing on her mind was having a serious relationship that would lead to marriage. Moreover, there were too many bumps along the way of her career for her to even think about settling down. She was broke. She needed to do more with her life. And then she went to grad school twice and lived in the Middle East for two years. Why should she get penalized for working on her education/career and living her own life? She was still trying to learn how to survive in the work world. It wasn’t like she never had boyfriends. But she could be single for a long time and survive although now she was afraid she had swung too far toward permanent independence.

“I mean I’m not going to be Charlotte from Sex and the City, ‘I’ve been dating since I was 15, where is he?’ Fuck that, I don’t want to be pathetic. Nor am I going to be Samantha. My feelings get hurt way too easily for hooking up all the time. Furthermore, I know it’s hip to have a friend with benefits, but I ain’t doing that again. Been there, done that. Crossed that off my list,” Kerry ranted.

“Hey, do whatever works for you, Kerry. There’s nothing wrong with being honest with yourself,” Teresa said. “I mean it’s not like those other people really know what they’re doing.”

“All I know is that I’m going on a total of 50 dates, so far I’ve gone on six thus far. After 50 dates I know that I’ve actually tried to see exactly what is out there. If anyone inquires, well, I will tell them what I did,” Kerry said. “Maybe I’ll even write a story about it and show it to them. Chick lit ain’t for white girls and an occasional black girl or Latina girl anymore. Haha. In the meantime, I will work on my career and hopefully become successful at it.”

“I say go for it, Kerry, you have nothing to lose,” Teresa said.

“As jaded as this sounds, there won’t be a knight in shining armor who will save me. If I don’t like a situation, I will leave. Or it’s the guy who ends up leaving you, you just don’t know, it’s almost like what’s the point? If you’re not having a kid with the guy, which is a whole other can of worms, then what is the goal?” Kerry said. “I mean if a guy can’t be your best friend, you can’t express how you’re feeling without having him just think you’re complaining because apparently that’s what girlfriends are for, I mean as far as I know guys just provide a bunch of solutions if you talk about any problem you have and then they never want to talk about anything. It’s the same story with all of them. When they first meet you they will do anything, ANYTHING to hang out with you, it’s just unbelievable to me. Then when you’re actually in a relationship, it turns out they don’t want to do anything. If you work and don’t rely on him financially since that’s the way the world is working these days, then, seriously, what are we getting at here?”

“You’re on your soapbox, Kerry,” Teresa said.

“If only Danny hadn’t joked about beating me. I told him at the very beginning that I spent two years in the Middle East working on a thesis about the treatment of women in Middle Eastern cultures and that I screened a documentary about feminists in the Middle Eastern countries at my old job. Shit, I really liked him, so I took his word for it. I thought he understood what I was talking about. I mean he’s the one with a college degree in anthropology—not me,” Kerry said.

“He talked about causing you physical harm! Even if it was joke, that’s not acceptable, Kerry, you did the right thing,” Teresa said. “You know Korean culture, including part of Korean American culture, can be very patriarchal and there is a history of domestic violence.”

“I mean I would have overlooked all of his other flaws and I am certainly not saying I am flawless. I just feel like we would have just become another dysfunctional family although we would be English-speaking, American-born Asian Americans. Danny even told me that members of the Kim family were known for having bad tempers and big butts, yeah, guess who fits that bill? Moi. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting with people. That was my childhood,” Kerry said.

“Well, Kerry, you’ve moved on from that now, you will find a guy, I mean it’s going to be 2012 and things are looking up for you. You’ve got a new job, a new career, you’ve got your book, you’ve got your network, you’ve got so much going for you, something good will happen, girl,” Teresa said. “I’ve got to get off the phone, but I’ll
see you soon. Bye!”

“Awww, thanks for listening, bye, T.”

Click.