A week with Echo
Many things I've noticed, many things I've lived and seen. One week.
Last friday I picked up my rental car at the Avis stand at Pittsburgh airport, and happily drove off to Newark, NJ to pick up my friend/girlfriend Echo at the Newark airport.
I have story details to tell, but in short, I picked her up at 6:55PM. I ran out of gas before getting there, so I parked at the Economy Parking lot at the airport, and had 0 miles left to go. We spent a weekend in New Jersey taking taxis, renting zipcars, trying to siphon gas, and generally just trying to put gas into our ride back home. Half-stressed-out, half-excited to see Echo again, I spent a conflicted weekend trying to calm Echo's excitement down while dealing with the gas situation.
Right after the gas situation had been resolved, I talked to her:
"I don't think I'm ready for a long-term relationship. I know you are, and that you want a stable life, someone to hold onto and build a life with. But I'm not ready for that yet, and I think you should know that before you believe that I'm accepting a commitment between us already".
She looked sad and hurt, and talked very seriously about wanting to go back to China as soon as possible. I honestly though it was not such a bad idea, and was just waiting for her request to get her a ticket back to Shanghai. She talked about how she would look like a fool if she returned to her dorm and told her roommates that her big trip to see her boyfriend in the US had ended so quickly. To me it was strange though - I did want her to stay and visit me for a while, but I did not want her to be my long-term partner. We have fun sometimes, but she is so intense - she gives everything when she loves. Even when I don't and I hint to her to slow down - she just continues being intense and giving and expecting so much love and commitment from me. And I'm not quite there at all yet.
What I found astounding was that it took less than half an hour for her feelings to settle, her cold expression to turn into a smile, and to tell me that she realized that I had also done a lot to bring her here, especially buying the tickets, and that she did not expect me to commit completely, but that she was just here to spend some quality time together, and see if we could work our differences out with time. I agreed those were my intentions, and just minutes later we were making up with kinder words, caresses, and a healthy dose of sex.
Our drive back to Pittsburgh was loving and passionate. Not excessively so, but we kissed when we could, and we almost went into the family bathroom of a gas station on the way to take each other's clothes off. A misunderstanding disallowed that though, so we just drove back and we were here on Sunday afternoon and evening. We went grocery shopping at Giant Eagle and Target (for towels, cups, food, and other miscellanea), and then we came back to the apartment and had some pretty good sex. And so we had a good prelude to our first week together.
We spent our first week in fine bliss. She woke up early every morning and helped me get up and shower early. I followed her lead, although sometimes her chinese habits throw me off guard. She doesn't just tell me to brush my teeth - she just takes my toothbrush, puts toothpaste on it, and hands it to me as I enter the bathroom. She doesn't ask me to wash my face - she pours the cleanser she got me right on my hands, and tells me to use it. And when I refuse politely, she keeps pushing. Sweetly, but firmly. I find that quite annoying. Sweet, well-meant, yes. But annoying. I often felt that I was simply renting her as a mom. Not to mention as a cook. A great cook, yes. And though I enjoy her company and her food and her sweetness, I perceive a great asymmetry of feelings for each other and of expectations. As I've told her, I expect little. I don't know what I want from her, although she knows a lot about what she would like from me. She has told me: she wants a stable life - a partner she can completely count on, who would be on her side even if the rest of the world is against her. She wants to find someone to meld lives with entirely, to depend upon each other completely. I don't think I want that, and though I've told her that, she seems determined to stay with me for a longer time to try it out. My hopes for us are very slim, though.
To me, our relationship now is an experiment and a learning experience for both of us. I have never been involved in a long-term relationship, and I have had very little close contact with the chinese culture. Its language, its food, its habits, its wants and goals. I saw the possibility of learning chinese, of learning cooking, and of a close romantic/sexual/girlfriend relationship, and of building up a routine helped by a person who already has one. I also saw the possibilty of teaching her to swim, of helping her with GRE, and of helping her build contacts here in the US by being so close to two important universities in Pittsburgh. I repeat as much as I can, though, that commitment is not in my short- or medium-term agenda, and I hope that she understands me to full depth when I say it. She and I will not end up together. Our personalities are too incompatible, and I have told her that. She gets so strongly offended if I slight her, even if she knows that I do so with good intentions and with the kindest words I can manage. So strongly that she basically breaks up with me every time I do so. "… then maybe we shouldn't be together", "… then I should just go back to China". I'm actually anxious for her to go through with one of her threats sometime, though. It would make things much simpler. But as they are, I accept her staying here, as the experiment is still ongoing, and there are still things to be learned and to teach. But this will not last for too long. She will not stay further than the first week of 2013, but I see no gentle way of telling this to her. Not yet, though.
But every time she loses her countenance and threatens to break up, I simply hold my position and wait to see what happens. I do not strike, because I still think there is potential to be taken from the experience. But only minutes later, she comes back again, saying that I have done much for our relationship too, and she somehow switches back into caring and loving mode, and not a half hour later, she's excitedly telling me what we'll be eating for dinner. Her moods change too suddenly for my comfort.
She got upset on Monday because I attended Alex's TurnOn Meetup in the evening. It was my first evening with her, and yes, she was not my priority over this meeting. But this was because I had made a commitment beforehand, not because she was not important to me. Anyway, this did not produce much of a problem. A stronger problem occurred when I asked her to be nice to Leibny, when I detected a bit of tension between them, as she asked me if I thought Leibny liked me, and she thought she was not being nice to her (Leibny to Echo). She complained that she had not acted badly at all, and I told her that I had not implied that - that I was merely trying to keep the peace. She ignored my reasoning and kept complaining, and then we held silence for over an hour. Later on, the same pattern occurred. She tried to get an apology out of me, I presented my position in the most diplomatic manner that my own patience could tolerate at that time, but I did not stray from what I thought and felt. In the end, she somehow came back to being loving and caring, and we came back to a nice Friday evening of cooking, dinner, and hugging. Not exactly the..........
Many things I've noticed, many things I've lived and seen. One week.
Last friday I picked up my rental car at the Avis stand at Pittsburgh airport, and happily drove off to Newark, NJ to pick up my friend/girlfriend Echo at the Newark airport.
I have story details to tell, but in short, I picked her up at 6:55PM. I ran out of gas before getting there, so I parked at the Economy Parking lot at the airport, and had 0 miles left to go. We spent a weekend in New Jersey taking taxis, renting zipcars, trying to siphon gas, and generally just trying to put gas into our ride back home. Half-stressed-out, half-excited to see Echo again, I spent a conflicted weekend trying to calm Echo's excitement down while dealing with the gas situation.
Right after the gas situation had been resolved, I talked to her:
"I don't think I'm ready for a long-term relationship. I know you are, and that you want a stable life, someone to hold onto and build a life with. But I'm not ready for that yet, and I think you should know that before you believe that I'm accepting a commitment between us already".
She looked sad and hurt, and talked very seriously about wanting to go back to China as soon as possible. I honestly though it was not such a bad idea, and was just waiting for her request to get her a ticket back to Shanghai. She talked about how she would look like a fool if she returned to her dorm and told her roommates that her big trip to see her boyfriend in the US had ended so quickly. To me it was strange though - I did want her to stay and visit me for a while, but I did not want her to be my long-term partner. We have fun sometimes, but she is so intense - she gives everything when she loves. Even when I don't and I hint to her to slow down - she just continues being intense and giving and expecting so much love and commitment from me. And I'm not quite there at all yet.
What I found astounding was that it took less than half an hour for her feelings to settle, her cold expression to turn into a smile, and to tell me that she realized that I had also done a lot to bring her here, especially buying the tickets, and that she did not expect me to commit completely, but that she was just here to spend some quality time together, and see if we could work our differences out with time. I agreed those were my intentions, and just minutes later we were making up with kinder words, caresses, and a healthy dose of sex.
Our drive back to Pittsburgh was loving and passionate. Not excessively so, but we kissed when we could, and we almost went into the family bathroom of a gas station on the way to take each other's clothes off. A misunderstanding disallowed that though, so we just drove back and we were here on Sunday afternoon and evening. We went grocery shopping at Giant Eagle and Target (for towels, cups, food, and other miscellanea), and then we came back to the apartment and had some pretty good sex. And so we had a good prelude to our first week together.
We spent our first week in fine bliss. She woke up early every morning and helped me get up and shower early. I followed her lead, although sometimes her chinese habits throw me off guard. She doesn't just tell me to brush my teeth - she just takes my toothbrush, puts toothpaste on it, and hands it to me as I enter the bathroom. She doesn't ask me to wash my face - she pours the cleanser she got me right on my hands, and tells me to use it. And when I refuse politely, she keeps pushing. Sweetly, but firmly. I find that quite annoying. Sweet, well-meant, yes. But annoying. I often felt that I was simply renting her as a mom. Not to mention as a cook. A great cook, yes. And though I enjoy her company and her food and her sweetness, I perceive a great asymmetry of feelings for each other and of expectations. As I've told her, I expect little. I don't know what I want from her, although she knows a lot about what she would like from me. She has told me: she wants a stable life - a partner she can completely count on, who would be on her side even if the rest of the world is against her. She wants to find someone to meld lives with entirely, to depend upon each other completely. I don't think I want that, and though I've told her that, she seems determined to stay with me for a longer time to try it out. My hopes for us are very slim, though.
To me, our relationship now is an experiment and a learning experience for both of us. I have never been involved in a long-term relationship, and I have had very little close contact with the chinese culture. Its language, its food, its habits, its wants and goals. I saw the possibility of learning chinese, of learning cooking, and of a close romantic/sexual/girlfriend relationship, and of building up a routine helped by a person who already has one. I also saw the possibilty of teaching her to swim, of helping her with GRE, and of helping her build contacts here in the US by being so close to two important universities in Pittsburgh. I repeat as much as I can, though, that commitment is not in my short- or medium-term agenda, and I hope that she understands me to full depth when I say it. She and I will not end up together. Our personalities are too incompatible, and I have told her that. She gets so strongly offended if I slight her, even if she knows that I do so with good intentions and with the kindest words I can manage. So strongly that she basically breaks up with me every time I do so. "… then maybe we shouldn't be together", "… then I should just go back to China". I'm actually anxious for her to go through with one of her threats sometime, though. It would make things much simpler. But as they are, I accept her staying here, as the experiment is still ongoing, and there are still things to be learned and to teach. But this will not last for too long. She will not stay further than the first week of 2013, but I see no gentle way of telling this to her. Not yet, though.
But every time she loses her countenance and threatens to break up, I simply hold my position and wait to see what happens. I do not strike, because I still think there is potential to be taken from the experience. But only minutes later, she comes back again, saying that I have done much for our relationship too, and she somehow switches back into caring and loving mode, and not a half hour later, she's excitedly telling me what we'll be eating for dinner. Her moods change too suddenly for my comfort.
She got upset on Monday because I attended Alex's TurnOn Meetup in the evening. It was my first evening with her, and yes, she was not my priority over this meeting. But this was because I had made a commitment beforehand, not because she was not important to me. Anyway, this did not produce much of a problem. A stronger problem occurred when I asked her to be nice to Leibny, when I detected a bit of tension between them, as she asked me if I thought Leibny liked me, and she thought she was not being nice to her (Leibny to Echo). She complained that she had not acted badly at all, and I told her that I had not implied that - that I was merely trying to keep the peace. She ignored my reasoning and kept complaining, and then we held silence for over an hour. Later on, the same pattern occurred. She tried to get an apology out of me, I presented my position in the most diplomatic manner that my own patience could tolerate at that time, but I did not stray from what I thought and felt. In the end, she somehow came back to being loving and caring, and we came back to a nice Friday evening of cooking, dinner, and hugging. Not exactly the..........
