Bored to death and sad and lonely

The flip side of expat life for some of us, are the boring parts in between the outstanding parts.  In so many ways, life in Taiwan is such a huge step up for me than life in the U.S. had become.  But on the other hand, I had a dog and a cat and a fantastic sexual partner in the States.

As an introvert, it takes a while for me to reach the end of my introvert rope and get bored, but Monday and Tuesday seem to be the prime time for this to happen.  I don’t want to do any solitary pursuits; I want to play.  I want a sympatico English speaker.

I had this fantastic period of serenity and feeling of completeness all by myself for the first two months.  Now I’m itching for a dude.  It’s not that I need to have sex; I want the fun of a romantic relationship with a guy I dig.  When you want to get with someone, they are initially fascinating.  So I find being single boring (but I find being in a bad relationship worse)  I wish it weren’t so; I’d rather be cooler than that.  But I’m 35 and I’ve been married and in a long term relationship, so I know what I’m missing, and it’s a pain in the ass.

Back in high school and for most of college, I never had boyfriends and it bothered me, although I had lots of time to spend with my friends and that was a blast.  After my divorce, Cleveland was not a happening place to find guys.  For some reason, there were tons of dudes in Indianapolis to go out with, and several to have flings/short-term relationships with.  For the first time ever, I was a hot chick and lots of dudes wanted to squire me about.  Now I’m back on bench– only older women and children find me piaoliang.  I liked being a hot commodity; it was fun.  One take away from this, dear reader, is that context is a big factor on whether you’re a backstage betty or a wallflower.  I have not changed in looks or demeanor and my stock has risen and plummeted and the only difference seems to be where I live.

So boredom— I guess the best thing is is to make a feature of it.  Hang out with it, Buddhist style.  Make art for it.  What does boredom look like?  What does boredom feel like?  For me, it’s very stomach based; a little like nausea and asphyxiation.  But I’m not really going to die.  I just don’t happen to feel like doing any of the things that normally entertain me.

Being bored is boring.  I’m boring myself describing being bored.  If anyone read down to here, I’m sorry.

Ugh, guys.

For me, I’m recently relatively unafflicted by romantic woes largely because I have enough other stuff to occupy my attention.  But after a really awesome afternoon at Bantao Village (beautiful, pictures to follow), I made the mistake of coming home and getting online instead of going straight to the salon and getting my hair done.

Before I came to Taiwan, I had a great but tragically flawed relationship with a man I still carry a torch for.  I got an email from him noting that I had rejoined OKCupid (which is iffy here in Taiwan), which bummed me out, because I still haven’t totally made peace with the fact that things didn’t work out between us.

The real fly in my ointment is that I did go back on OKC and I actually have discovered a man whose attention I straight-up long for.  I don’t know him, but he looks perfect for me and I want to find out if I’m right or wrong about it.  But I can’t, because he hasn’t returned my last damned message.  Does it sound like I’m frustrated?

Meanwhile, the men whose attention I do attract all seem to see me as a free therapist; a service I offer because of the social leverage it offers me and from genuine human empathy.  So I spent over an hour “counseling” a guy I decided weeks ago that I don’t want to bang, while simultaneously discovering that a runner-up to Mr.-Perfect-for-Me-in-Tainan just broke up with a long term girlfriend like 10 weeks ago (hurray!).  So now I have a new client instead of a frisky playmate who may have the hookup to fun.

I only joined OKC because I wanted to make friends (No!  For real!), and now I know about a man I want to project all of my romantic fantasies all over who is winning a blue ribbon at ignoring me.  Why didn’t I just stick with more quality pursuits like learning Chinese and finding a ballet instructor?  Grrrr.

Brides Throwing Cats

http://bridesthrowingcats.com/about

http://www.yourtango.com/2013196408/married-forget-bouquets-here-are-15-brides-throwing-cats

No cats have actually been thrown, so let’s all breathe a sigh of relief for the fates of the cats and the poor, hapless bridesmaids who would potentially catch a scared ball of claws in a strapless dress (bad idea).  So far all the pictures are photoshopped, and let’s all hope no one is stupid or cruel enough to actually do this.

I’m one of those people who likes cats and dogs equally.  In a perfect world, I’d have one of each at all times.  As a pet lover, on a really simple level, I find the images unpleasant because there are people who have, (IMO) a too casual relationship to pet ownership.  So this raises my hackles on that level.  There, simple PSA about making a genuine commitment to an animal that bonds with you on a profound level.

But this really hits me in the gut on a feminist level.  I use the word “feminist” because woman + cats= more than just a woman with cats.  There’s no such thing as a “cat dude” as a social construct.  There are cat dudes in real life; I know one, he’s super hot.  But I’m reaching for the “f” word because this is a gender issue that ladies have to deal with.  Don’t worry, men; this is not your fault!  Fun fact, a sizeable chunk of women’s gender (gender= physical sex + societal notions) issues are not your fault.  Women are often as likely as men, and in some cases more likely, to perpetrate gender-related unkindness.  The person who created the website is a man, but I doubt he gave this as much thought as I did.  He probably just thought “Hey, if you’re married, you automatically cannot be a cat lady, so wouldn’t it be funny to photoshop some brides throwing cats?” and left it at that.

Cat ladies are single past the age where such a state is seen as desirable or acceptable.  Their cats represent a cheap substitute for what they should really have; a partner and children.  Their cats become their babies, and cat ladies discuss their cats’ peccadillos at people who would rather be elsewhere.  Poor, sad cat ladies; no wonder you would toss that feline away once you landed a man.

But people, that’s a heap of steaming not-true, nuh uh, wrong story.  When I was married (which I enjoyed and would do again) and younger (ah, the real culprit!  Youthful ignorance!), I worked like a dog and envied my cat.  “Look at her” I thought.  “She’s overweight, but she still looks gorgeous.  She’s sleeping in, will get up, eat, groom herself, amuse herself, sleep some more, mess with the dog if she gets bored, do something illicit and be forgiven, and then sleep some more.  If I could choose what I get to reincarnate as, I want to be my own cat in my next life.”  Instead, I did lots of stuff I didn’t want to in order to make money to pay for a life that didn’t feel like it was mine (I was its), and so I wanted to be like my cat.  I wanted more sleep, not to care about food, not to be crippled with worry about offending people (which would probably come as a surprise to some of my former colleagues).

Cats are great role models for the downtrodden.  They have a sense of importance that stems from nothing concrete.  It just is.  “I’m a cat, I’m very important just because.”  You can’t put a cat in the dog house.  Cats don’t go to the dog house, they go take a nap until the shouting is over and then re-emerge when all is calm again.  My cat will sleep in the middle of my bed and use its cat voodoo on me so that I sleep shaped like a Z to avoid disturbing it.

Everything I’ve learned about people and life that I didn’t learn the hard way, I’ve learned from watching others who are more skilled at handling situations than I am.  Women worry a lot about taking up too much space, gaining weight, displeasing others; as a consciously scrappy woman who still automatically apologizes to other people when they bump into me (Oh, I’m sorry I was in this space you wanted to occupy), my cat is a powerful reminder that there are multiple ways to navigate space, people, and what you want vs. what I want in our lives.

I’m not slamming marriage or motherhood.  I liked being married and I hear good things about motherhood.  But there are a lot of stats that indicated that working married women are still doing more than 50% of the housework.  I know a lot of full time mother/house managers report feeling unappreciated because the work they do somehow doesn’t count even though it’s labor and they have to do it whether they feel like it or not (that’s my definition of work).

So maybe brides shouldn’t throw away their cats so gleefully.  We all need inspiration, a role model, someone to show us that you can be fat, pushy, and self-important sometimes and still be loved.  Maybe those bridesmaids clamoring to catch the flying feline aren’t so stupid after all.