Ask, and You Shall Receive?

My life might be close to being shambles in many different, sometimes completely unrelated areas, I might drink too much, I might be home sick, I might be guarded and suspicious that my dude will never commit to me the way I want him to, I might be afraid, slightly insecure and a little bit angry.

But yesterday I took charge of one area of my life. I did something absolutely terrifying that took a lot of guts on my part. I did something terrifying and was (finally!) rewarded for it.

After six months of working at my company, I asked for a raise.

I was afraid to hear a negative answer. When my boss called me into his office for a chat at the end of that same day I sent him an email with my raise request, I was fully prepared to keep my face as straight as possible and not let any disappointment seep through to the surface.

He is always an intimidating dude when it comes to discussing serious financial things. He is the type of a person who has the "fuck you" face even when he says yes to something. I nearly crapped my pants at the thought of going into his office and sitting down, one-on-one, to discuss all matters concerning my personal financial security.

But I heard something entirely beyond my expectations. I heard that I am probably the best employee they currently have at the company and that even though it is typically not within the company's policy to give employees raises so soon after their hire, that I was absolutely worth being dangled a proverbial monetary carrot in front of.

And who was I to disagree?

Granted, the raise, as I was told, would not be a great amount. And I would not see the increase in my paycheck until the end of January...

But I did it. For the first time in my life, I asked for a raise. And for the first time in my life, not only did I received it, but I was also validated as a kick-ass employee that I always suspected I would grow up to be.

And, damn, it feels good to be rewarded!

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Broken Teeth and Wounded Hearts

A tragedy transpired recently upon which I was left disfigured and disappointed.

Okay, maybe not exactly disfigured, but pretty self-conscious and a bit terrified at the same time. You see,Ii have had this filling in my front tooth for about a year. My last dentist was kind of shitty when it came to certain things, like performing routine examinations on one's teeth and I, unfortunately, was one of his involuntary victims.

A year ago, he blissful filed away at my front tooth that only had a minimal amount of cavity evidence and slapped a filling to cover up the gap. A year later, (this week to be exact) as I was happily munching away at a slice of cheese, I felt something chip off in my mouth. Suddenly, the previously soft and mushy slice of cheese in my mouth started tasting rather crunchy. I pulled out a little piece of white solid from my mouth and felt a newly-formed gap between my front teeth with my tongue. Much to my horror, my fears were justified as I felt a small chunk of tooth missing from the front of my beautiful veneers.

Son of a bitch!

I was supposed to see The Banker that night but almost canceled on the count of him seeing me looking like a beauty queen at a meth addict pageant, but he insisted on me coming over. He said that I would look beautiful even if I had George Washington's wooden teeth.

Whatever, man. That cheesy line worked and shortly after work that day I was on a subway to his place, trying not to smile to strangers with my toothless void.

The Banker gave me a hug as soon as I entered his apartment and, slowly but surely, I started to feel all the tension just melt away. I had all the intentions, mind you, to speak my mind and inquire him about his prowls on the dating site that night. But, just like my tension, I felt my anger and the sense of urgency just melt away as he wrapped his arms around me.

He hugged me, he reassured me, he made my worries go away, even if temporary, for a couple of minutes or so. We settled on his couch and he laid down, with his head resting on my lap as we eventually started drifting away to sleep after our respective days of work and health-related troubles.

It was not until shortly past midnight that I started to feel myself waking up. It was one of those lucid dream-like states, where I was aware that I was awake but I was still drowsily engrossed in a dream I must have been having just a second prior to waking up. I felt my sense of reality tighten around the fact that it must have been late and that I should be getting home. I wanted to say, "I am falling asleep.." to The Banker to let him know that I should be leaving to go home shortly.

Instead, I said..

"I am falling in love..."

Oh.

OH FUCK!

It sort of came out very awkwardly, like "I am falling in lov..shhlalalblahblahargh... I'm falling asleep! I mean I'm falling asleep!" I was trying to eat my own words and try to quickly think of what I really wanted to say.

The lights were dim in the room, otherwise, if he had been fully awake, The Banker would have seen my face turn beet red. I tried to play it off as a no-big-deal type of situation. But, really, I just wanted to turn back time and take back that Freudian slip of a tongue. Shortly after, still mortified, I gathered my things and left his place to go home.

"See ya this weekend!" I said and slammed the door behind me in a rush to get out of there and be left alone with my thoughts. I am foolish to even hope that he had not heard what I said.

I think he just wanted to ignore it and pretend like he did not hear me.

To be truthful, I just have this feeling (and whenever I get this feeling, I am usually right) that he is just not going to get involved with me past the point we are already at. And instead of keeping my distance, I say crap like that to him.

Careless. I am never this careless. I don't like this one bit.

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Unsure.

I like boys
They like me
They look so good
in they jeans

Want you to be the one
And my on-ly
I wanna be faithful
But I can't keep my hand out that cookie jar

I am conflicted. And the fact that it is eternal summer here, and my man isn't say the things that I want him to say, and that the temptation is always there is not making things any easier.

I am just sort of feeling that he is full of secrets. Not a lot of secrets, but just some that he does not want me to know about.

Like the girl that wrote on his wall for his birthday yesterday..:

"happy birthday, babe. It was great seeing you in Chicago. x"

Okay she could be a friend, but not a lot of MY friends call ME babe. Well, I guess, she's not even that pretty. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself to keep away from feelings of jealousy. But still...

And I would not call any of my non-single friends "babe". Just saying.

Don't get me wrong. I want this guy more than anyone else in the world. He just has to show me more sweet, sweet loving, loving.

Otherwise, it's not like there aren't any other viable options for extracurricular entertainment...

I'm just saying.

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Of Men and Creepsters

Out to Ladies' Night on a Wednesday night for the first time in about 4 years, in a different city, let alone country this time, was a lot less painful on my body than I had imaged it to be, despite my reservations and pessimistic predictions about the ordeal that I would have to endure the next morning at work. In fact, despite having free shots poured down my throat and gulping them down like I was some 21-year old hardly, I hardly felt any damage at all. At 27, I, apparently, can keep it together like the best of them can. At 27, I'm not sure it is something to brag about all that much.

But hey, I've been told I look only 24 on more than one occasion, so for the sake of the argument, I'll go with the notion and let myself indulge in free tequila shots despite vowing, over and over again, how I will never have tequila again.

The Banker is away for two weeks. He is visiting his family for Thanksgiving and I, despite all my suspicions and worries about his prowling around on the internet for God knows what, am beginning to notice that my missing him like hell takes precedent over any suspicions I might have had over the given situation. I gotta give him this - he picked a perfect time to be away, because this girl has been getting a taste of life without his sexy ass in her life and, believe me, it ain't all that pretty.

A prime example - last night at Ladies Night at Ku De Ta. A premier clubbing and drinking spot in Singapore and one of the top 10 in the world. In the WORLD, people. That has to count for the quality of the patrons that enter and leave this place, right?

Not at all. The whole place was swarming with creepy crawlers who kept their hungry eyes on alcohol-consuming, unsuspecting ladies in order to make their sleazy moves the minute a girl began looking tipsy.

I, for one, had at least two guys try to approach me AFTER I had several shots of Grey Gooze.

Oh. Hey. Didn't notice you there, buddy. Oh, you're from Norway? Sorry, nothing against Norway, but go back where you came from because you are just standing there, blocking the dance floor, sipping your watered down whiskey sour and, generally, being completely and utterly awful.

My friends were not having any better "luck" than me. Through the haze of the artificial fog pumped through the room at regular intervals, I saw the ladies get assaulted from different angles by men of all races, ages and nationalities. Creepiness, you know, knows no boundaries. If our nations of the world could unite under one common derivative only, it would be the ample availability of creepy male specimen across all borders and nations. Welcome to the true definition of globalization.

I ended up having fun with the girls despite everything. Occasional free drinks certainly helped the situation. But, through it all, I couldn't help thinking about The Banker. And what a truly fucking great catch he is. And what I want to do to him when he comes back to this country.

I texted him with a sexy and slightly filthy text message that I will keep to myself for the time being. He texted back with something that simultaneously made my heart skip a beat and made me wish that he could fly back to Singapore immediately so I could rip his boxers off.

And then it dawned on me... Maybe it's all going to be just fine. I've got a fabulous man who just happens to turn me on as much intellectually as he turns me on physically. What the fuck else could I possibly ask for?

Why worry so much, after all.

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Eat. Pray. Panic.

It's weird. I've been having these rather severe panic attack-like symptoms for the last several hours. My heart is racing, palms are sweaty, wrists are half-numb with tension, breaths are short and quick in an attempt to calm my body down.

Part of it is that I've been stressed with money problems lately. It's something that's been consistently consuming my thoughts. It's nothing Earth-shattering, I guess. I just have not been saving up as much as I wanted to. Living amongst the richest of the rich on an island that has the greatest concentration of millionaires in the world has not exactly made me feel particularly wealthy either.

It's funny how money concerns can become a part of your daily existence. Even when, by all standards, you can call yourself comfortably middle-class, it is keeping up with the ever rising life style expectations and comparing yourselves to the Joneses next door that can make you feel like you've been sinking deeper and deeper into debt.

I didn't think I wanted to be rich when I was younger. But you know what? Being rich just makes things so much easier. So hell yes, I want a million or two to go buy that nice dress that I saw in the Miu Miu store window or to get that nice hot stone massage I keep hearing about or to get my bills paid on time in the US and not worry about the exchange rate going up and down like a roller coaster every couple of days. (Thanks for that crisis, Europe!)

I want to be able to get my family a nice Christmas gift without scouting discount web sites for bargain deals on second-grade stuff that will sort of look like the real deal that I wanted to give them in the first place. I want to be able to fly to Hong Kong or Hanoi for the weekend without checking my bank account to make sure that I have enough money for my ever-sky-rocketing rent for the month. Or, hell, I want to go to the dentist to get that pricy root canal taken care of without worrying that one more unexpected expense will drive me to the poor house.

More so, however, I think that I am currently pissed over the fact that I bought my boyfriend a $300 dollar painting as a birthday present. And while that may not seem like much money to some people, this is actually the most that I had ever spent on any gifts for any boyfriends/friends/pals/family members. This is a testament that I actually want to impress this dude by buying something thoughtful that is, at the same time, on the pricier side, by my standards.

And no, I am not pissed that I spent that money. I wanted to spend it. And I found the perfect painting that I hope he will love as much as I think he will. It's just the fact that I know that he's been to that stupid dating web site again and it's bothering the crap out of me. Makes me feel a bit foolish knowing that he went to the site again, while I am sitting here and buying presents for him.

When I asked him about the site a couple of weeks ago (actually, the conversation about it was sort of brought up by him because he mentioned how someone sent him a weird message recently), he said that he goes on there once in a while when people send him random stuff that he can laugh at. He made it sound so innocent and straight-forward that I immediately felt relieved. I could see that he was being honest and that there was nothing going on behind the closed doors.

However, the question still remains. Why is he on the site? Why does he go on it, about once a week? Is it really because the "hilarious" messages from socially-awkward singles amuse him that much?

Or is it because deep down he is hoping for something different than what he has right now.

I don't wanna waste my hard-earned money on a guy who is not fully there and who will dash at the first sign of a better thing. I can be a damn good girlfriend when I put some effort into it. And now that I am putting effort into this, I want to see the same amount of reciprocation.

And I don't wanna have any more panic attacks over money/love matters. I think I deserve better than that.

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Love Stoned

Falling in love is a fucking beautiful feeling. I can go through makeout sessions and awkward first dates a million and one times without so much as batting an eyelash. But I relish and savor every time Cupid throws his arrows my way which, I think, is not that frequently. However, I can firmly say that I've been in love more than once.

You see, there is not just one soul mate for us in our lives. People, men, women, come and go. They enter and exit our lives and we turn the pages of our chapters, hoping that some day, we'll have that memorable bestseller that is flying off the shelves everywhere from New York to Kuala Lumpur.

And once in a blue moon, there will be that special someone that will knock our boots off. We'll turn around, stomped, flabbergasted, taken aback. We might deny it at first, too afraid to admit it, fearful of getting hurt or rejected. But we will know... oh, we will know..

when we fall in love.

My first love was at sixteen. A very emotional, passionate love affair with a lad from London. I barely touched, hardly kissed the guy because, basically, our connection consisted of, primarily, late night longing, careless confessions that were taken back as easily as they were said, sleepless fantasies. My sixteen year old self sure loved the drama of that heartfelt sting....

I don't think I denied it even for one second. I knew that I was in love. I still believe, despite the whole being-immature-and-not-beng-sure-what-love-was-at-the-time, that Alex was my first true love.

My second love was Dan. That took a while to realize and to admit to myself. Dan had a girlfriend whom I had never met, but that did not prevent me from having an on and off thing with him for over two years. We dated other people, yes. He dated his girlfriend, his wife now, on and off. I dated guys here and there, running back to Dan when things got lonely or boring.

He was a bastard, in retrospect. He cheated shamelessly on his girlfriend and I was much too young to care. Though, out of subconscious guilt and knowing that he had a girl all along, I never gave him my real name. To this day, if he remembers me at all, I am a girl with a name that's not my own.

My third love was Mr J. It was the most adult kind of love I had experienced but also the most passionate kind. The kind that I thought I was too old for. I felt things, I smiled when he called, I giggled like a little school girl. I cried when he hurt me. I fucking hated his guts when he was being a dick. But I loved, loved, LOVED him unconditionally.

We met up in Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, Philly, St Louis. Our romance was whirlwind. He denied how attracted he was to me in the beginning; he made it seem like it was no big deal that he was driving to see me every weekend for 2.5 hours back and forth from Dayton to Louisville. But I could see he was scared shitless that I was the girl that made him sweat and wait. He said he only had one serious relationship before me and that she cheated on him the entire time. I saw this guys emotions unravel before me. I wanted him like I never wanted anyone before.

It was own version of a cross-country love affair. But we were never destined to be close, not even in the same state. It all ended, slowly but surely, when I left to go to Singapore, half hoping that he would stop me by asking me to be his one and only.

He finally did. He asked me, begged me to be his girlfriend. But only when I arrived in Singapore. Much too late. I wanted him to ask me that question for over two years, but when he finally did, I said "no".

Because I met my number four.

Ah shit, I think I'm in love again.

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Seducing the Liar

I am the last person to admit that I am jealous. Mostly that is because I am, as I try to convince people when they inquire in disbelief, very hard to make jealous. I trust men. It comes with sufficient self-confidence which I only acquired in the last 4 years or so. But even before that, I was never the jealous type. Don't ask me why, I like keeping it this way.

But I must admit that I am jealous right now. Jealous because I am not sure what The Banker can possibly want more. I have two theories, though. Indulge me, please:

Theory Numero Uno: He got spoiled by money. Okay, maybe that is not fair to put it this way. He was always spoiled by money. He grew up in Beverly Hills (90210, indeed) and his family is all sort of ridiculously unfathomably wealthy.

And hey, don't mean to throw my own sex under the bus here, but a lot of girls, women.... tend to go for those rich types. Don't get me wrong, The Banker could get a girl if he did not have a penny in his pocket, as far as I'm concerned (those dreamy eyes...), but I am sure those hundred dollar dinners and VIP jet-setting lifestyle can make ANY man slightly more attractive. Like I said, to some women... and don't look at me with a side eye. I have dated so many penny-less stoners and broke artists that I can be absolved of a gold-digging title for as long as I live.

So maybe he's looking for Miss December 2012 to show off to his friends. I very well know men who, no matter how pretty their current girl is, are always on a look out for a fresh face. Chronic bachelors they are, always on a prowl. They never see a good thing when it comes or when it leaves, they only see the next thing.

Theory Numero Dos: His religion. Plain and simple, he is Jewish and I am not. And while it may not be a big deal to me, it could be a bigger deal than I think it is for him.

His mother is Jewish, his father is Jewish, his brothers are Jewish, his cousins are Jewish. I've always been attracted to Jewish men, so I don't care if I have to convert at some point to be with one. But to him? Maybe it's a different story and mom and dad won't approve of him dating a shiksa.

So there you have it. Two theories twirling restlessly about my head, clouding my mind with their nagging whispers. Leave him, stay with him, try harder, seduce him, dump him.

But tonight, jealousy fades into the background and I'll be taking the seduction route. Cooking has always been my forte though I don't do it often. But tonight, I will be cooking a three-course gourmet meal for the Banker and serving it to him in my itty-bitty pretty heels.

Yeah, shoot me in the face. But after all, they say that the surest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, isn't it?

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