The puzzling puzzles of men & women

Between men and women, it's always like a puzzle. By that, I don't mean the whole you-complete-me-as-the-final-puzzle-piece thing which is completely corny and unnecessary. What I meant is you can never get the full picture when you first start playing the game. There are just bits and pieces that you try to figure if the blue belongs to the sky or river, if the red belongs to the sun or the roof of house. The most puzzling part is, most of the time, you don't even know what kind of picture you are getting. And by the time you finish half of it, you realize this isn't the picture you want and all you can say is, "Oh screw it. I gonna play another set all over again."

If dating a guy is like playing the 100-piece puzzle game, dating a rich guy is like a 10000-piece game. The pieces are so small and insignificant that you don't get even a bit of the real picture. You wonder, "how many women have been trying to get the picture before you?" or "If it's a genuinely great catch, why is he even available?" The puzzle couldn't stop but hanging in my head: Am I a catch? Or am I just a fuck? 

I don't know how people start their game. Maybe some people start off at 50-piece puzzle game, and then step by step moving to the advanced level. Maybe some just stick with one complicated puzzle and devote themselves to solve just that one. Being a non-particularly-logical-or-detail-minded person, I have been putting myself into many wrong levels of games that I feel "Oh screw it! I am just a beginner to kick off the level 10 puzzle?" I never finished even half of a picture. I tried. But sometimes it just didn't work out.

I guess life is about taking risk. If you never throw your heart to find the one true picture, if you never even dare to put those bits and pieces together, if you never burn your head to figure out what those pieces mean, how could you expect to get the one picture that is just right for you? Afterall, in your twenties, what's the harm to freely, boldly, indulgently look for love? Like what they say, you can't expect to be old and wise if you were never young and crazy. 

How many frogs have you kissed?

It has been the third day of my company training on innovation from Monday. Being a marketer, we are always taught to get the right consumer insight, craft the brand vision and deliver 360-degree marketing campaign. Sometimes I wonder we actually spend more time to understand our consumers than to understand ourselves. If a good insight states the truth that changes the way we see the world, how well do you know the insight of yourself that changes the way you see who you truly are and what you truly want?

In the training yesterday, we were taught that having an innovation is like kissing frogs. Only by kissing the frogs, you know whether it turns to be a prince aka brilliant product. And most of the times, the frogs are just frogs. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know. This just gives me something to think: If our inner potential is the prince, how many frogs do we need to kiss to unlock that and live our dream? And does everyone have at least one prince ultimately? Or some of us are just born to have only frogs?

Since I was fifteen, I have been kissing a lot of frogs. My frogs include piano, guitar, French, Japanese, fashion design, graphic design, ice skating, wakeboarding, economics and now, marketing and writing. Most of them turn out to be just frogs. It starts off with anticipation and fantasy then eventually ends up with no where. Or maybe we just assume the prince will come right away once you kiss the right frog. But the truth, perhaps, is that you need to commit to kiss the frog in your lifetime to turn it to be a prince. Perhaps, we need to bet our time, hard work and hope into some frogs that we believe they can turn princes and lifetime success.

“Everyone seeks happiness, but we don’t always know what makes us happy, even if we think we do.” I learnt this from a random line in the training presentation yesterday. But really, we don’t know even if we think we do. All we can do is to take the chance, kiss the frogs, and finger cross.

One definition of relationship?

There have been talks with my friends lately on our definition of dates and relationship. I remember the time when things were simple with just black and white, or at least we thought there were just black and white. At that time, there were only single and in a relationship. But when we get to know more people and get our head smashed on the wall and heart broken on the floor, it turns out things aren’t that simple at all. There are very single, single, dating, lover, fuck buddy, in an open relationship, in an exclusive relationship, engaged, married, in love with an already-married, separate-bedroom, separate-living, in the middle of breakup, in the middle of divorce, divorced, and back to market again. I had a friend from work who had nine years of relationship with her boyfriend (and now husband) and is now happily married, saying, “For me, when a couple has gone through the kissing milestone, it goes directly to a relationship. What’s going on with all these new definitions? Am I being outdated or something?” This gives me something to think about: In terms of relationship, is ignorance a bliss?

Yesterday afternoon, I had a coffee with my guy friend, who is kind and sensitive enough to talk about relationship and friendship thing with me. We honestly confessed that sometimes, in some social circles, we just didn’t feel fit in. “When I went out with that group of friends, I did have laughter on random jokes. But at the end of the day, when I thought back what I have done in those hours, I recalled nothing and I didn’t particularly enjoy that.” For friends, we sure need more than a type. Friends to just go out with, friends to have nice and long talks, friends to bullshit with, friends to eat with, friends to shop with, friends to fuck with, friends to travel with, friends at work, friends at school, so on and so forth. For friends, it is a universal truth that everyone knows there will be more than one type. It is clear we can’t get fully satisfied by staying with only one type of friends especially when they are just the friends to have fun with. But for relationship, since when we expect there will be only one type? And since when we are programmed to have “the one”?

I have been questioned constantly from time to time, “Are you still single?” or “Did you find the one?” or my favorite, “How come you are not in a relationship?” I truly and sincerely bless the ones who are in a happy relationship or marriage now from the bottom of my heart and I do believe there is true love but sometimes, my dear friend, we have different dictionaries of relationship with different phrases and definitions. And in mine, single also means single and fabulous.

Label Slave

There is no better morning call than realizing your ex's relationship status secretly changed to "In a relationship" in facebook. In this very city, who isn’t really a label slave, no matter you are a slave for the big labels or a slave being labelled? With the help of Facebook, we can literally put a tag on your “friends” and on yourself. Yesterday morning I was just being labelled to be “professional connection” by a “friend” whom I met once in a random party. And we all know when’s the time you will have the most likes – from “single” to “in a relationship”, from “in a relationship” to “is engaged to”, or from “single” to “is married to”. To be honest, in these recent months, those relationship status bombs are as intense as in war field. I secretly thought, “Are people really “liking” it when they click the likes there? Or it’s more like thanks-for-labelling-yourself-out-of-the-market-and-I-know-now likes?” I looked at my luggage all covered by bumper stickers. I thought, “Are those labels so important for us that we need to tell everyone who we are like putting a bumper sticker on our forehead?”

Last night, I met my college friend whom I knew for years and have been putting an invisible sticker of “nice and traditional and conservative type” on his forehead. It happens when we label our friends as a conservative while putting yourself into the fun and crazy category who is looking for adventurous love, it turns out they are the ones having wild sex all over the place and you’re the one buying the true love story ad of Tiffany’s. Now what could possibly the bumper sticker my friends are putting on my forehead? Will this be “fun happy bird” or “uneasy arrogant bitch” or “desperate sad woman”? And how can we know our labels and does it really matter?

I saw a quote the other day. It says, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” I guess you can never manage to get the same bumper stickers people putting on you. But you can always look at the mirror and define the labels you want yourself to be.

And now in my head, I only have one bumper sticker:

Non-Christmasy things at Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve. Don't expect a fancy entry about a romantic dinner or glamorous party. None this year. I will be honest with you that I do want a romantic dinner date following up with a steamy hot all-night love making session. It just happens none this year. In the festive season, those questions become partly confusing and partly annoying. I am not sure whether you experience before but everyone seems to be especially interested in your christmas plan and secretly competes whose schedule is more packed. My Christmas is very chilled and there is only one plan - Christmas dinner with family which I reserved table a month ago. On top of that, nothing really special. Just a very chilled time with friends like other holiday.

At Christmas Eve, My friend, Mung Sing and I did very non-Christmasy things.
1. Attempt to queue for ramen for lunch
2. Have a Thai lunch instead as we are patience limited
3. Finish off the lunch with creme brulee and molten chocolate cake next door
4. Shoot zombies in game center after lunch

I always wanted to visit Butao Ramen but it turned me down everything I think about the fact that you need to wait there at 10.30am to make sure you get a seat at 11am. With a great urge the night before, I asked Mung Sing to have a lunch there together. Excitedly anticipating the famous ramen, I showed up in front of the restaurant with shock face. Damn. It is closed! Is this a Christmas joke?

We finally ended up eating thai for lunch and had desserts in Ocio. We ordered a Creme Brulee and a Molten Chocolate Cake. One thing I don't like about the desserts is that the portion is too small. I am a greedy creature who cannot get enough. I want more I want more I want more! As a dessert specialized cafe, Ocio could do a better job. Both the creme brulee and molten chocolate cake are just average. 

Anyhow, eating is not just eating. It is also about who you eat with, where you eat and how you eat.  The best meal, for me, is not having the best food. It is the sense that the food and people you eat with make you feel, "This is the moment I want to freeze." Most of the time, I will say, it really isn't anything about the food but the people you are with. It is the very person that makes you want to freeze the moment, just like freezing the moment by a photo.

Creme Brulee at Ocio (around $35)

Molten Chocolate Cake at Ocio (around $45)

P.S. Oh, and following up the lunch, we feel like shooting zombies in the game centre in Mong Kok. Isn't that just Christmasy? Shooting zombies at Christmas Eve. Nice.

Where: Ocio

Address:Shop D2, Tang Fai Building, 36-48 Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Tel: 2891 0855

Opening hour: Mon - Fri, 12nn - midnight; Sat - Sun, 10am - midnight