What makes a woman fall for you? Every guy asks himself that. I ask myself that question from time to time. What is it that attract a woman? Is it your looks, your money, your soul (or arguably, your brain), the way you treat them, or simply, the way you carry yourself? Have you ever looked at a couple and then ask yourself, what is this girl doing with a guy like that? Have you seen a guy treat his girlfriend like crap but she still looks at him like he’s the best thing she’s ever laid eyes on? Or a guy who treats his girlfriend like she’s the world, and yet, she cheats on him. I don’t have any answers for any of those questions. I can only talk about my experience (and none of that is about, actual relationships, which the title has already said. No, I didn’t lie to you !!)

The year 2004’s been a strange experience for me. I lived as a hermit consulting in Ohio not knowing anybody for half that time. It was an exhausting experience, as I liked this girl who lived in LA, who works 15 hours a day and makes a habit of not picking up her cell phone and not returning messages (and it isn’t anything personal towards me). I dont know why I liked her so much, maybe an enormous hope of wishing her to be someone else, maybe I was just lonely in a foreign place (did I mention that it snows?). We were at times quite close (or maybe that was an illusion), but we drifted apart soon enough, and towards the summer we hardly talked, though we are still good friends now (or are we?). Was she once interested in me? I’d like to believe so. Did I mess up in some way? Perhaps. I won’t go into the details because this isn’t the heart of the story, but a prelude to what happens after. What did I learn from all this? No true Californian should set foot in the midwest for more than a month (especially not during winter). And dont take red-eye flights every other week back between LA and Ohio (did I mention there’re no direct flights?) and not see the girl you love. Don’t try to be a hermit if you need human contact once in a while. And no job is worth it to sacrifice your social life (even if it pays a lot). And don’t fall in love with a girl who don’t return phone calls even to her close friends, because you don’t know if she’s ignoring you because you are you, or if she’s ignoring you out of habit, and if she answers her phone then are you special, don’t ever ever do that especially when you are away.

Well, I started meeting people in Ohio towards summer, and one day my project manager tells me that he’s no longer my manager, and I was moved to another group in DC. The other manager called me and asked me if I wanted to go there. It wasn’t really a question, its more like either you come here or you could go back home and sulk without a job. Don’t you hate consulting? Well it doesn’t matter. I lived on a suitcase in a hotel. I agreed and started working in Washington DC. So I bid farewell to the friends I met (for one week?) from Ohio and started flying to DC (yeah I still flied red-eye, but its better this time, because there are actually direct flights). Turns out one of my friends I met in Ohio worked in DC as a consultant, and I actually have someone to hang out with for dinner and stuff once in a while at another foreign place (okay, its DC, they actually have museums there, a lot of them, and good food). In addition, I met a bunch of foreign exchange students (okay, girls), and my social life improved, and I started to stop thinking “what may have happened” if things would just work out with the girl in LA. Can a man and a woman be good friends, and simply good friends? Some of my friends have argued otherwise, but I totally believe friendship can exist between Martians and Venetians (or is it Venus-vians). But perhaps, in a way, a man and a woman, when they meet for the first time, assuming he/she is not already in a relationship, will always consider the potential of the other of becoming your mate. Humans are creatures that abhor loneliness, and our genes beckon us to seek a companion, that is how post civilization mankind has existed for thousands of years. I think I have digressed. Okay, this girl I met, one of the nicest people I’ve met in the world, okay I have thought about it, and not just once. But I never really liked her, and I don’t think she ever liked me. We are friends. What is the point of all this, you ask? Probably nothing, and I have digressed. The point is that, I think that men and women can become best of friends, and don’t have to even want to sleep with each other. I have tons of good female friends. My advice of staying friends with women? It’s knowing what you want. And that your friends are not that ones you want. My advice on actually “Getting a woman to love you” (afterall a man dont just want female friends and no girlfriends)? It’s that perhaps sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice your friendship. Yes, its a double-edge sword, and nobody said that the world is not complicated.

I think anticipating the first date is always the best experience, because its about hope. The hope of the other being who you really want, and the rest if all about comprimises. Because face it, nobody can predict the future. Nobody can predict when the stock market will crash, just like nobody can tell you who their future wife/husband will be exactly like. But everybody has an idea. I wouldn’t say that after the first date it is all the way downhill from there, but all I can say is that not to go to a first date with too much expectation. While hope is a very powerful thing, disappointment is the mother of all depression.

Which comes to the gist of the story really. What makes a woman fall in love with a guy? Before I go into that, I have to go back to talking about Washington DC. I couldn’t afford to stay at hotels in DC, so I started to look for a roomate. I found someone on Roomates.com, a girl from Shanghai actually, and rented a room from her. It was the strangest experience of my life. No, we didn’t hang out, we weren’t even friends, we hardly talked, simply, I couldn’t stand her (I promise to talk about this in another post), but this has nothing to do with this topic. I moved out after 2 months and rented a room from a friend I met, a guy, this time. I did mention international students, didn’t I? Okay they hung out at the house I lived in. They were very nice. They stayed over sometimes and would cook really good food for us, and we played cards until late nights. Sometimes in the day we went sightseing together. I stopped flying back to LA as frequently. I went on a few dates with one of the girls, I knew that she liked me. Okay, I’m usually very very bad at this kind of detection, I either have no clue or I totally misunderstands, so I try not to over-analyze things too much. That is unless, she told me right out. Well not so in many words, she asked me what kind of women I like. I gave the usual answer, I know exactly what I want, but I can’t describe it (and this is the truth). She asked me one night if she could just be that person I wanted in my mind, and how she could achieve such a thing. I don’t think she could, and I never answered her. I changed the subject, and there was that. I remember the first time we dated we saw the movie “the Village”, now before I dive into that, the famous 6th sense director is one of my most admired directors ever, because he tries to achieve what I want to do with my writing (okay, if u didn’t know this, I write novels, well none is published in the US so far, but they will be in the future), that is the ultimate plot twist, the ultimate surprise, I have shaped my last few stories on a single, or multiple, plot twists. Perhaps that’s why I love M. Night’s works so much, and I will always go line up to watch his movies, no matter how bad it is. Okay, after I’ve said all that, I don’t need my girlfriend to actually share my love of the ultimate plot twists, and I don’t even need my date to like the Village. But really, for her, to not get what happens in the movie (Warning !! Spoilers ahead!!), what the movie is about, and in fact, I dont think she knew that the people (in the village) lived their ways of the past in the present, let alone the point of it. Okay, I don’t need her to guess the movie’s twist after 5 minutes of watching the movie (And yes, I did, because that’s how I would have written the story, in fact that is the only way to surprise the audience), but if I can’t even explain why I knew it in 5 min, discuss about it, in fact I dont think she knows what a “plot twist” is (Is it edible?). Okay, i can’t stand it. She asked me how she can be what I want, how should I answer her? I don’t need someone to cook me nice dinner and put on pretty clothes, or do their hair a certain way for me, I just need someone to understand why I love the things I love so much (no matter how stupid they are, and no they don’t actually have to love them), just to listen and actually know what I am ranting about, till eternity… okay, I admit, I am strange. Some guys will probably date anyone who looks hot in tight pair of jeans, or especially, look hot being not in it. Why not me? I really don’t know, but that’s just not the way I am. The way I see it, no matter how good looking something is, you’ll get sick of it, like my “first date” theory, its all downhill from there. At the end, it is all about the life you share, if you can’t share your dreams, the things you love, the things you care about, if you can’t even communicate, how can you care about each other? (After saying all that, I really dont understsand people who marry if they didn’t speak a common language at proficient level, perhaps for some people, body language can last a life time). At the end, well this isn’t a story about why I can’t accept the women that are attracted to me, but what makes women tick? Why did that girl like me so much if I was so different from her? I certainly did not try hard enough, in fact I think I tried very hard to make her not like me. And why did I try so hard with the girl in LA and never went anywhere? Before I answer that, I must draw my conclusion from another incident.

So, after that girl who desperately wanted to be my ideal, but was far from it, drifted apart, well she didn’t hang out at the “house” anymore. But there are still three other foreign exchange students who hung out with us. After that incident, I actually tried very hard to not have a date with anyone and make any of the girls like me. I was my normal laid-back lazy self again. The girls cooked, I mentioned that, a lot. The food were great. My roomate (the owner of the house) cooked too, sometimes he would cook breakfast for the girls (and yeah I dive in as well, i didn’t mention he was a really nice guy?). And now i don’t cook. If I lived by myself I eat an apple for dinner and I try to avoid the hassle. There are just too many things to do and my time is always occupied so i can’t really bother to spend time on food. As long as I get my nutrition from my apple and I keep my stomach from growling I am happy. Okay, I did mention my roomate was nice? He knows how to take care of women, a lot more than me. He’s richer than me, well he owns the house and charges me very cheap rent, he has two cars. Well, and I’m not really better looking than him (that, I guess, depends, on who is looking). We’re both single, and in fact, I think he’s a better catch that I am. He’s settled down in his house, he’s got a stable job, and well, I’m living on a suitcase and I act like I don’t give a damn (and sometimes, I really don’t give a damn). I don’t really join their cooking fiasco, if I feel like it I’ll accompany them to buy stuff on the market, but I hung out, I went sight seeing and played cards. But when they cooked (which is a percentage of the activities), I usually stayed in my room playing video games and reading books. Sometimes I deliberately stayed inside my room even when the girls are around, because damn, I wanted to finish that book, that game, that movie, whatever…, sometimes the girls get on my nerves (I did say I was a hermit?) but my roomate seemed to enjoy their company (me too, but just not all the time, three girls can get very very loud). In any case, I don’t think any of them should like me, when I deliberately try to not make myself very presentable, while I thought my roomate was a lot nicer than I was. But well, you never know, one of them (she actually had a boyfriend in a faraway place, but they broke up now), one night, I dont remember where we were going, slipped her hand around my arms this night, and snuggled against me, I asked her what she was doing, she said she wanted me as a second boyfriend, she was joking of course, but then, she certainly didn’t dislike me, as dumb as I was, it didn’t take a genious to figure that out. I wasn’t interested, and I didn’t act interested, I was just my damn lazy self. Why? U’d asked. I dont know, she had a boyfriend, and well, she didn’t really fit my criteria. But what she liked about me, we talked about that one day. She said I didn’t know how to take care of women, not as much as my roomate, but she thought I was funny and well spoken (okay usually I don’t speak at all, I did mention I lead a hermity life, and I try to write more than I talk), and she thought I was carefree and lazy, in fact I sometimes treated them like maids (not deliberately). Because if I helped them I would just make a mess, so I stayed in my room and they would call me down to dinner (okay I do help them set the table), but then I still feel bad sometimes, but I can’t help it. I am who I am and never tried to be anything else (for I had no motives), but for some reason she liked that about me. And let me tell you, I really don’t get it at all. Oh, okay, i do get why she likes me, but I don’t get why this doesn’t work with anyone else. For the women I like, I think I try too hard sometimes (or maybe I didn’t try hard enough) to get them to fall in love with me, but I think I do a lot worse the longer I know them and they just want to be friends. Why am I so bad at this? I ask myself that all the time.

When a man courts a woman, he wants to look his best, and he wants the date to go as smoothly as possible, he wants to the best listener when she talks, and he wants to make her laugh. He wants to listen to her problems, talks about the things she love, provide for her what she wants, and become the person she can’t stop thinking about. This is all fine, we should all do our best when we find what we like so we never have to regret it. But sometimes, I ask myself, does it all matter? What makes a woman fall in love with you is sometimes not the way you hold the door for her when she goes into the restaurant, but perhaps the way you pick your nose (okay I’m exaggerating, but you get my meaning), and they may not even know it themselves. Attraction and love is a mysterious and fickle thing, and it never can be explained by logic. At the end, all I learn, is that every human being in the world, is different, not a single person gives the same reaction to the things you do, or, how they think about you. So, my advice, to myself, is just, to be myself. Don’t try too hard to make a woman fall in love with you, because it is not something you can control. It just happens, or it doesn’t. So far it hasn’t worked very well for me, but one can cling to hopes of the future, hope that you can find that perfect soul mate to share your life till eternity (or, well, until death). For me, I just hope for that ultimate plot twist to come along. And perhaps, the final twist, is that, there are no twists at all (may the audience be awed).