Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: dating

Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock): RATE THOSE DATES!

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I have done it. I have 100%ed Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock), and I’m ready to move on. The minute the last achievement popped, I stopped playing the game and closed it in relief. I did not have to do the grind any longer. I was freeeeeee!

It sounds as if I was really down on the game, but that’s not the case at all. It’s just that it falls into the trap that other cozy indie games do, and I had my frustrations with certain aspects of the game. I’ve talked about that ad nauseam, so I won’t get into it again.

What I want to do now is talk about romance in the game. Please be aware that I’ll be spoiling a lot, including a character who arrives to the town after the main storyline ends. So, we’re talking the second year in the game. Google tells me summer of the second year, which is the second season of the second year.

The minute I met this character, they shot up to instant favorite. Well, ok, not first favorite, but second for sure. Unlike with the other characters, I never got tired of talking to this one. Then again, I spent much less time with them because they came into the game so late, so I did not see as much repeat dialogue.

Now, I will be spoiling all the dating possibilities as I rate them last to first. There are eight.

8. Cameron. By a wiiiiiiide margin. He’s the leader of the alternative religion in town, and I was gritting my teeth from start to finish whenever I talked to him. I have a very bad history with religion, and he reminded me of the worst parts of it. Plus, he was just so boring. He even acknowledges that his tastes are basic. I disagree slightly, though, that pumpkin-based whatever is basic. Pumpkin flavor is delicious! Even when it’s really cardamom.

When I was dating him, I mashed through the dialogue as fast as I could. Each dateable calls you a term of endearment once you’re together, and his was ‘darling’. Which, from his lips, made me do a full-body shudder. It was both condescending and creepy, and I could not get awy from him fast enough.

It was hilarious when I married him, though. With everyone else, the other characters were happy for me and saying what a great match we were. They gushed about certain characteristics of my partner, and in general, everyone was really pleased for us. With Cameron, though, only his followers were happy. Everyone else either threw shade, wished me luck (implying I would need it), and in the case of one character (head witch), I think she did not show up to the wedding. Or at least, I did not see her at the ceremony.


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Let’s talk about gender…again

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Let’s talk about gender, shall we? We shall because it’s my blog and I can do what I want. Also because gender is important–and yet, I wish it weren’t. Let me hastily add that I don’t want to take gender away from anyone for whom it’s important. My BFF, K, and I have discussed whether or not ‘they’ will take over gender proclamations in our lifetime (instead of he and/or she). This was before the election, by the way. All bets are off now.

We were both hopeful that we were moving towrds a society in which gender was not as emphasized as it is now. Or rather,, that the toxic, sexist ideas of gender would subside.

I can’t help but laugh bitterly at that idea now after said election. Never in my lifetime has equality seemed more like a dream. I have read about queers hastily marrying before the exchange of power because they fear that marriage equality would be repealed.

This should not even be on the menu. Civil rights should never be able to be voted away/legislated. And yet, here we are. Marriage equality became law in 2015. Almost a decade later, we are fearing that it will be whisked away again. Before it became the law of the land, I was talking about it with K. I did not think it would happen in our lifetime (I was the doubting Thom in our friendship) while she was convinced it would. I begrudgingly said maybe, but only when we were in our seventies or eighties. It was less than five years later when it became a reality. I was stunned, in a good way. It honestly happened faster than I could comprehend, but I willingly accepted it as a positive thing.

I did not care about marriage equality persosnally because I don’t believe in marriage (for me), but I cared about it from a social justice perspective because I firmly believe in equality. If straight people get to be miserably yoked together, then so should queers! I kid, but not exactly.

I honestly do not understand why straights are so against marriage equality when it has nothing to do with them. But wait. This post was not going to be about that–but it’s related. Those who have rigid ideas about gender are more likely to be anti-queer, too.

See how I tied it back to the point of this post?

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Random musings, part deux

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I was talking about dating in yesterday’s post. Kind of. As with everything in my life, it’s much more complicated than just do I want to date or not? Because yes, I do, but also, no, I do not. Or rather, I do, but I’m not sure I want to go through all the pain and angst to do it.

This is how my brain works. Basic thought: I want to date/have sex.  Tandem thought: I do not want to have anything to do with Trump supporters. Tertiary thought: I hope they all suffer from whatever the next four years bring. Quaternary thought: Shit. That means people I love will probably suffer as much if not more. Then my brain is off to the races, and I’m no longer thinking about dating.

It’s because I’m probably neurodivergent. I have not had that tested and/or confirmed, but at my ripe old age of 53, I am fairly certain I have one kind of neurodivergency, if not more. It’s been a relief to realize that because it means that my brain isn’t broken the way I have always thought it was.

I could go deeper into the weeds, but I shall not. I want to get back to dating.

When I was in my mid-to-late twenties, I used to do the personals for dating. At the time, the biggest ones pused were Plenty of Fish and Craigslist. Both of which were like dating in the Wild West. No quality control, no options other than what was on the front page, and just a bunch of ugh. It was discouraging because as soon as I said I was Asian, that was all the responders focused on. This was in the category of W4M, which was what I was looking for at the time. Well, I also had an ad in the W4W, but I did not get any answers for that ad.  I don’t want to get into why I think that is.

I cannot tell you how many guys told me how much they loooooved Asian woman and sent me dick pics, even though I was very explicit about not wanting either. Worse, at that time, most of them said they loved ‘Oriental girls’, which was a sure way of making sure you would never get a piece of this ass.

That was a quarter of a century ago. I am even more strident about what I want and don’t want now. No straight men, especially white men. Does that cut out a huge portion of potential dates? Yup. Do I care? Nope.


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Random musings for the hell of it

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Checking in with my feelings.

*Several seconds of internal checking*

Yep, still furious. And with the news as to who Trump is going to appoint when he’s president, scared as fuck. Again, not necessarily for myself as I have options, but for all the people who will be hurt by the upcoming administration.

I don’t want to talk about that, thoughh, because I don’t need that agitas in my heart right now. I want to talk about something related, though, and that’s what I plan to do if I start to date again. It’s tangentially related because there is a bit of politics in it, but it’s more about what I want for my future. If there is a future.

My brother was just here, and we talked at length about what the fuck is wrong with America right now. Or rather, in general. I don’t want to get into it, but we’re pretty much on the same page.

Back to the point at hand. I don’t know if I want to keep living in this country. I know that’s a very privileged point of view, but it’s painful to live in a country that hates me. I mean, I’ve been doing it my whole life, but this election made it painfully clear how hated I am. Not me in particluar, maybe, but people of my ilk.

The sad thing is that if you talked to many of the people who voted for Trump, I’m sure they’d say that they voted for him despite his repugnant stances (suuuuuuuure) and that they voted for him because of his business acumen (what??). The thing is, though, that the fact that they could brush off the repugnant viewpoints says a lot about them. They don’t think they’ll be affected by his hate, but they will. Trump doesn’t care about any of them. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Hell, I would say he doesn’t actually care about himself, either.

Anyway. I am not here to talk about that directly. I’m here to talk about dating/sexing. I am not sure I want to do the former, but I’m pretty sure I want to do the latter. As I’ve said in recent posts, though, I do not want to hook up with cishet dudes, specifically cishet white dudes. They are the reason we are in this mess, and I have no desire to weed out the good ones from the get-the-fuck-away-from me ones. I just don’t.


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More on dating me

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I’ve done several posts about what it would take to get me off my couch and actually date/fuck someone. The last post derailed hard into ‘dysfunctional family’ territory, but I’m not sorry about that. Family is important. Not in a ‘but faaaaamily!’ way, but because the scars you collect in your childhood can carry out all through your life. There’s a saying that of course your parents know how to push your buttons because they were the ones who installed them.

Growing up, your family is your norm. What happens in your house is what you think happens everywhere. That’s not because of  dysfunction, but because that’s just human nature. If it’s the only thing you’ve known all your life, of course you’re going to assume that’s what everyone goes through.

So. If your mother is a workaholic who always puts you last, for example, then you’ll probably date someone who treats you similarly. Even if you realize it’s not optimal; it’s comfortable.

In my case, it’s the push/pull that is my norm. I am so used to my parents alternating between smothering me and not even acknowledging what I existed. I don’t know what I would do with someone who loved me and treated me well, but also gave me space when I needed it. Someone who was attentive without being demanding. I still don’t know that what looks like. Eevn in my friendships, I prefer a distance that most people would probably find uncomfortable. i love chatting with Ian throughout the day, but I don’t need much more than that. I message with Kathleen once every other week or so, and we talk once a month on the phone for hours. I see my Taiji teacher on Zoom once a week and in person for an hour private lesson overy other week. I should add another Zoom class to my schedule.

So.

11. Understand that I vacillate between clingy and aloof. This is not something I’m proud of, andI have worked on it in therapy. However, at this point in my life, I recognize that I’m not going to significantly change. If I’m going to date somenoe(s), they need to understand that I’m like that. I’m moody. I can keep much of the snappishness to myself, but it is going to come out now and again.


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If you wanna be my lover

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In my last post, I continued telling you who I am. I’m going to go on even further. Let’s just jump right in.

10. My family is deeply dysfunctional. You will not meet my family. Well, rather, you will not meet my parents. You might get to meet my brother, but that’s it. I can only deal with my parents on a very superficial level and very sparingly. Which means once every three weeks or so, we talk for a stilted half hour. I try to keep as much to myself as possible and be civil to my parents. That’s it. Nothing more.

My parents have met very few of my past partners. There is a reason for that. My mother is able to be pleasant to strangers and make reasonable conversation. If it was just her on her own, I would be fine with it. But my father is a piece of work who cannot relate to anyone. He doesn’t care about other people, and he would not be happy with anyone I dated. The very narrow exception might be a Taiwanese man who was very traditional, but who did not challenge him in any way. Which,
I mean, no thank you.

There was a letter to Dear Prudence from a woman who claimed she came from a very loving family. Her fiance, Mark, whom she’d been with for four years was loving, kind, caring, etc. But, he was cut off from his family beacuse his father, a raging alcoholic, abused Mark and his mother. Mark’s younger sister escaped abuse because she was the favored child. The abuse was so bad, Mark’s father put him in the hospital twice. While the mother did nothing. The grandparents knew what was going on, but did not step in other than to let Mark stay with them once in a wihle.

The mother and sister had contacted Mark on social media and wanted him back in their lives. He showed his fiancee the messages, saying, “Can you believe they wrote this?” She thought the messages were heartfelt and wanted him to reconcile. Not with the father–she was magnaminous to grant him that much, but with the mother and sister. The mother was a victim, too! The sister was not involved at all! He didn’t even know if his grandparents were still alive!

She also added that her very loving parents tried to prod as to why he didn’t want hisfamily there and he said they were dead to him which horrified her parents. The letter writer was troubled and said it seemed brutal to her that he refused to even consider mending fences with his mother and sister. Even though he told her that his therapist said it was btetter for him not to have his family in his life.

The new-ish Prudie who is very ‘but faaaaaambly’ agreed it was troublesome but the LW had to stop interfering. What a trash response! Thankfully, the commentariat was up to the task and grilled the LW to a nice crisp. She asked if it was a red flag, and so many of the commenters said it was a red flag…for Mark. There were a few comments agreeing it spoke poorly of Mark that he ‘casually’ decided to cut off his family or try to justify why he should at least be in contact with his sister, but they got quickly shot down.


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Not gonna change appreciably any time soon

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In my last post, I started a list of who I am. In this point, I am going to continue with what you need to know about me if you want to get with me. I’m old. I’m set in my ways. I am not going to make any major changes soon. So. Let’s continue with the list.

5. I love my cat, Shadow, more than anything. He is my everything, and I love him with all my heart.I adopted him and his brother, Raven, when they were 9 months old. This was 16 years ago, and he is nearly 17. I was allergic to cats, but I loved them. I was allergic to everything, so I decided I might as well be happy while allergic. I knew that I wanted two cats and that I wanted them to be black. I looked at hundreds of cats (broke my heart) and noticed that these two were going to be at the local PetCo the next day. Or PetSmart. One of the two.

Raven’s bio (named Midnight) read that he was outgoing and energetic. He was good with dogs and had a small issue with the litter box (bigger issue than revealed). Shadow’s said that he was psychic and knew that I wanted two cats. They were a bonded pair and had to go together. I fell in love with Shadow’s bio and went to the store the next day.

When I got there, there was only one cat. A very unhappy Midnight. I asked their foster mom rather accusingly where Shadow was. She said that she had put Midnight in the carrier first, which was a big mistake because Shadow ran off. She could not find him and decided to leave him at home. No one had looked at the boys in all the pet adoptions she had brought them to and she had decided that she was going to adopt them after this one. She already had something like 14 cats and 3 dogs.

She put Midnight in my arms and while he was unhappy, he did not protest. We went around the store so I could pick out all the things I would need. We set up a time for me to go to her house to get Shadow, and we decided that Midnight would go home with her. When I went to get them, Shadow ran off and disappeared. It took us half an hour to find him. When I brought them home, I put them in the dining room and closed both sliding doors. I had a box in there, which Shadow made a beeline for. Raven was ready to leave the room and explore in half an hour, but I kept them in overnight.

The next day, I could only find Raven. He was meowing at me and wanting me to follow him downstairs. When we got there, he stood staring at the dividing wall and meowing. I went to the other side and found Shadow behind some boxes.

He is my miracle cat. He had a major health issue ten years ago, and he was not supposed to survive. The vet told me that it would take a miracle for him to reach the number he needed to get to by the end of the day. I was numb the whole day as I waited for the call. When it came, I braced myself for the inevitable words, “It’s time to let him go.” Instead, I got the jubliant, “It’s a miracle! He reached the number.” I was able to take him home that day and did not have to do anything special. Raven accepted him back after a week of being gone without a murmur.

We have been through so much together. He is my loyal companion and anyone who can’t respect that cannot get with me.


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This is who I am

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In the last two posts, I have writtena about what I am loooking for in a partner. That is all fine and dandy, but there’s a more important list I need to share–who I am. This is me; I’m not going to change. I may fiddle at the edges and smooth out some of the rough spots, but I am not going to make any major shifts. I’m not going to suddenly be outgoing, love movies, and want to spend my time doing things. I’m not going to be a bubbly Pollyanna who only sees the good side of things. On the other hand, I’m no longer the bitter cynic who only sees the negative. Still cynical, yes. Still see issues in things, yes. But I’m very grateful to be alive, and I know I’m damn lucky.

So. In no particular order. Things you need to know about me (and accept) if you want to get with me.

1. I like Taiji (tai chi) weapons. A lot. They are my passion, and they are something I’m going to want to talk about. Not a ton and not every day, but they are going to come up. I practice every morning, and I’m always up for learning a new weapon. Currently, I’m on a break from learning a new weapon because I’m focusing on Bagua, which is another martial art. But I still practice all my weapons every day.

I like to relate my weapons to dating relationships. The sword is my first love. It was love at first sight, and it’s been an enduring love for a decade. It’s not the hottest relationship, but it sustains me. It’s what I draw upon when I need strength. It’s the comfy house silppers that you love to wear on the regular.

The saber, on the other hand, is like that person you hate when you first meet them. There is no rational reason for it, but you can’t stand the look of them. That was how I felt with the saber, but I had a reason for it. I was expecting it to be like the sword, and it was not. At all. I struggled with it and felt it was going against me. It took me a few years before I finally got the saber and made my peace with it. It’s still not my favorite, but I can deal with it.

There are others, but what is my favorite? What is the new hottness that gets my juices going? The double sabers. You might be surprised to discover that I LOVE the double sabers when I had such a difficulty with the single one. It’s because first of all, I got used to the single saber. The double saber is a set of two, obviously, that fits together as one (each hilt is halved).

I saw my teacher’s classmate demonstrate it at the demo in 2020. Right before the world closed down. I bought a pair immediately and demanded that my teacher show it to me because I was captivated. I wanted to be the human blender/Cuisanart, and this was the way to do it. My teacher taught me the first bit, but then–pandemic. I ended up teaching myself by watching my teacher’s teacher’s videos on it.


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The final countdown

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I started a list in my last post about the things I’m looking for in a partner. My first need today seems in direct contract to one of the things I said I needed yesterday. Let’s get on with it.

4. Not too much of an empath. One of the weird things on the RKG Discord is that most of the Americans who comment late at night are empathetic people. It’s very odd that there are at least four of us whto chat away after midnight (Central Time).

The problem with being highly empathetic is that you sometimes overstep. I can tell what others feel in an instant–by the way, it’s amusing to me how some people want to deny this is a thing. THey think it’s made up just because they can’t do it. Apparently, there is an empath industry (as there is for everything), which…I don’t want to Google. I don’t want to know how people are exploiting empathy for gain.

Anyway, I don’t want someone who’ll anticipate how I feel at the cost of actually being there for me. Being able to sit with someone in all their emotions is a skill in and of itself. And, as good as I am at reading people, I am not infallible. I don’t always get it right, so I would not want my preconceived notions to trump other people’s actual lived experiences. In addition, I most emphatically do not like being told what I am and am not feeling; I would not want to do that to anyone else.

Granted, in my case, it’s because my parents have a history of disbelieving what I saylfeel/do, but still. It’s best to take people at face value unless their is overwhelming evidence that they are not being honest with you/are deceiving themselves. Which, by the way, the last is really hard to dispel. People need their coping mechanisisms, and one of the sayings of Pysch 101 that stuck with me is that you don’t take away a person’s coping mechanism (no matter how bad it is) if you don’t have something to replace it with.

5. The ability to sit quietly. This sounds facetious, but it’s not. I could phrase it as preferring introverts, but that’s not exactly true. It’s more that I need someone who is comfortable in their own skin and who does not feel the need to talk all the time. I like just chilling with someone, both of us on our laptops, doing our own thing.


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Making a list and checking it twice

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There is a common trope that if you have a list of characteristics you look for in a partner, you’ll fall for someone who is the exact opposite. There is some validity to it, but that’s more about not being aware of your flaws and the dysfunctions of your family. If you don’t understand how your family has installed your buttons, well, you’re going to keep looking for people who press them.

To put it more plainly, what you grew up with is your norm. So if your mother made it your responsibility to cook dinner every night and had a meltdown if you didn’t, well, then that’s what you’ll expect to do for a partner. If she’s criticcal of everything you do, that’s your norm as well. In my case, my father was absent and very self-centered. My mother danced attendance to him, then demanded that I be her emotional punching bag. So that’s what I do for partners until I explode in rage beacuse I can’t take it any longer.

I learned that when I’m in a relationship, I revert to being the extreme caretaker and then resenting it when I don’t get that in return. I tend to date people with limited EQ, and then I get mad when they don’t show me the same consideration. It’s not their fault because they literally can’t, but it doesn’t stop it from hurting.

I remember one guy I dated (oh my god. He was such a piece of work. He’s the one who dumped me because of my viewpoint on Pulp Fiction) who declared because I did not have monetary worries, I had no right to complain about anything. This was after I told him about being sexually assaulted and other dark secrets of my life. The casual cruelty took my breath away, and it really cut deep.

In my post yesterday, I talked about how I’m currently looking at dating. I do have a list of things I need in a partner. Some are negotiable, but most are not. One thing about being nearly 52 and having died twice is that I know myself better than I have at any point in my life. I’m not hiding my light under a bushel, and if someone does not want the glorious messiness taht is me, then they can fuck all the way off.

Let me be clear. I’m not expecting anyone to be 100% copacetic with everything about me. That’s not realistic or possible. But, what I am looking for is someone who can hang with the person I am and not freak the fuck out at how weird I am. How different I am. How not-in-the-mainstream I am. And they have to see this as a positive. Not just something to be endured or tolerated. It’s something to be celebrated and embraced.

So here we go. The list of qualities I need in a partner. And how much wiggle room there is for each one.


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