I don’t talk about my father much because, well, that’s actually a part of this post. He is very much an old-fashioned Taiwanese man (emphasis on man) in many ways. He lived in America for roughly 25 years before deciding there was more for him in Taiwan. As a result, many of his ideas of America and Americans are stuck in the past. Actually, that’s his thinking in general, especially when it comes to women. We’ve had countless arguments about this despite my best intentions to not get dragged into an argument with him. It’s futile because he’s a narcissist who never changes his mind on anything. He thinks whatever he feels/thinks/believes is universal; he can’t imagine anyone feeling/thinking/believing anything else. A few examples.
When I was sixteen, I hadn’t had a boyfriend yet. I didn’t know I was bi at that point, which would have blown his mind completely. He couldn’t handle the fact that I got a tattoo in my mid-twenties. There is no way he could have dealt with me being bi. Does he know now? Don’t know and honestly, don’t really care. My mom knows, but has ‘forgotten’ that I told her (which is a whole ‘nother thing). Anyway, my father has a habit of bringing up thoughts out of the blue that have nothing to do with anything and proclaiming them as if they are brilliant insights. Then, he gets this self-satisfied look on his face and just sits there, looking at the other person expectantly.
So, on the topic of boyfriends, this is the sage advice he offered me–a fat, sensitive, never-been-kissed girl* who was worried she’d never get a boyfriend: Raise your voice an octave or two; let him beat you in a game, and; ask for his advice (on something like cars). I looked at my father in horror and said, “If that’s what it takes to get a boyfriend, then I never want one.” He also handed me a random gift he got from someone once and when I asked him, baffled, why he was doing that, he answered, “Women like gifts. I always give these to Mom.” Yes. He truly believed that any woman-shaped person liked any gift-shaped present they were given. He added, “You know, like at weddings.” Which, I mean, I did not know what to do with that so I let it drop.
Another example was last night. My brother has been buying us things from Costco. He took my parents there last week. I declined going because I knew it would tire me out. Anyway, we went to Cubs yesterday to pick up a few things. Last night at dinner, my father mentioned that he preferred shopping at Cubs to Costco. No argument there. Costco is too big and for a single person, pointless. Yes, I can get ten pounds of bananas for the same price as a few pounds of bananas (from Cubs), but they’ll rot before I can eat them all so it’s a waste, anyway.
If my father had left the discussion there, it would have been fine. But, no, he had to offer this brilliant nugget of wisdom: Housewives aren’t as smart as we are and might not be able to figure out how to navigate Costco. I’m paraphrasing, but not by much, and he actually said we were smart enough to figure out Costco, but housewives…He didn’t come out and say they were stupid, but he might as well have. Putting aside the fact that my father is not ‘smart’ enough (spoiler: I don’t think shopping at Costco takes any kind of smarts nor do I think housewives are not smart) to navigate Costco on his own, what the actual fuck? I mean, how do you utter something like that without being red-faced in shame? But, no. Not a single shred of shame in saying such utter bullshit.
Which is funny given how much he cares about face and shame. He’s always monitoring what would make him look bad, and yet, he can drop those kind of gems without even blinking. I remember a classic example of this when I was a teenager. My parents were playing tennis with a few of their friends (Taiwanese. They only had Taiwanese friends). Another of their friends called and asked where they were. I said playing tennis. I told my parents when they came back and my father lost. his. shit. He shouted at me that I shouldn’t have told the second friend (female, and this is important) where they went because she would feel bad about not being invited and he would lose face.
I was so confused why he was yelling at me for something so innocent and basic, but then I figured it out a little while later. It’s an open secret that my father had had affairs throughout his marriage to my mother. All women from the Taiwanese church. I knew by the time I was seven or eight that he had a special lady friend in church who was different than the others. That woman would always glow around him and act as if he were the center of her world. Oh, and they were always married, too. I don’t know if he had actual sex with them, but at the very least, they were emotionally involved.
When I was in my twenties, my mother told me that my brother and I got anonymous letters when we were kids from someone in the Taiwanese church, taking about what an awful man my father was and all his affairs. My mother intercepted them and threw them away so I knew nothing about them at the time. It didn’t surprise me, though, as my father, for all his ideas of saving face, is not able to dissimulate at all-s-in part because he believes he’s always right. So it was very clear to everyone who his special lady was at any given time.
The reason I bring this up is because in the tennis situation, it occurred to me that the person they were playing tennis with was his current special lady and the one who called was a past special lady or the next one he was lining up. Then it makes sense that he would want to keep the two of them as far away from each other as possible. Otherwise, my father’s prickliness made no sense at all. Well, outside of the geek group fallacy, that is. The theory that everyone had to be invited to everything or it was bullying–or some such bullshit.
In contrast, my mother has never met a secret she didn’t love to blab around town. I have to remind myself not to tell her anything I don’t want spread far and, indeed, wide. It’s annoying as fuck to tell her an amusing story and then a minute later, she repeats it to my father in Taiwanese. Then he mixes up what she’s told him and gets mad at something or the other. Then, my amusing story is soured and I vow not to tell her anything again. Except, it’s never clear what is going to set him off. It can be something as innocuous as the color of the sky (not an actual example) and after walking on tenterhooks around him, I mentally say fuck it and deliberately antagonize him. Or rather, I stop giving a fuck if something is going to upset him or not.
I know the best thing to do is ignore him. To add to his raging narcissism, he’s in the beginning stages of dementia. And he is hard of hearing and refuses to wear his hearing aids. The best thing to do is nod and smile, but it’s galling. And, sometimes, an interaction is unavoidable. Such as when he asks why I’m not eating what he and my mom are eating–telling me it’s really good. I have told him dozens of times that I cannot eat dairy and gluten. I have emphasized that if I’m not eating something they’re eating, it’s because I can’t–not because I don’t want it. Every goddamn time, he nods his head and says something asinine like, “Understood. I say it’s asinine because I know he doesn’t understand and will ask me again. In fact, last night, he brought it up yet again. He asked if I’d be happy when I could eat like normal again. Meaning he once again thought the way I was eating was due to being in the hospital.
I explained yet again that it wasn’t a recent thing. I’d been eating like this for four or five years. It wasn’t because of what happened to me recently or being in the hospital. I will admit my tone was terse, bordering on rude. This time, he said he didn’t understand why I was eating the way I was. That nearly broke me. I had explained it to him over and over again, to no avail. It didn’t matter what I said because he would forget it and ask me again. I was so tempted to say, “Because if I eat gluten or dairy, I’ll be shitting my brains out for six hours” even though I had already told him the last time I accidentally ingested a bowl of regular macaroni (didn’t realize I had bought the normal box instead of the gluten-free macaroni elbows), I spent six hours on the toilet on and off.
At this point, I’m tempted just to make up shit because he won’t remember and he’ll ask me again. I know that there isn’t anything I can do to change his behavior, but it doesn’t stop me from being annoyed.
*How I identified at the time.