PSS:  In sharp contrast, this was a much more elegant, sincere, beautiful attempt:

http://blog.renren.com/blog/258854898/723061231

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A weird and funny thing happened the other day when I was downstairs ordering food at a local restaurant.  The minute I got in and ordered mine, a random guy came up and told me excitedly that he ordered the same dish as I did.  I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about and remained skeptical.  So what?  There must have been a lot of people ordering the same dish. Besides, it was quite a tiny restaurant, so people actually don’t have a lot of options to choose from, do they?  But after this whole thing, I finally came to understand that he was just hitting on me and trying to strike up a conversation.

At first, he talked about the dish, the ingredient and its origin.  Then he seemed quite smooth in chipping in the question asking where my hometown was.  After about 2 or 3 rounds of sentence exchange back and forth, he said, with a big smirk on his face and an odd look in his eyes that “since you like the dish, you should totally get married to a Hunan guy cuz it’s derived from that area”, which I found a little bit abrupt and coming from nowhere. Hint: he was from a city in that province or another one very nearby. I couldn’t remember the exact location.  So I replied: “well, I like all kinds of food from every corner of the country, not exclusively this one, so…”  Anyway, I deemed it was a little bit awkward and bizarre, so I made an excuse about buying some snacks outside and then just walked out on that note.

I thought this whole parenthesis was totally over.  However, to my astonishment, when I came back, got my food and took a seat to eat while watching the newest episode of American Idol on my mp4.  Someone suddenly came over and knocked on my table. I looked up, and BINGO! It was him AGAIN!  Before I managed to utter one word or give one reaction, this guy just comfortably invited himself, sat down right in front of me and took my mp4 to his side to find out what content I was watching! Unbelievable!

Then he started to ask all kinds of questions again, as if he was the local policeman with the task to interrogate me or something, my graduation year, my job, my home, my major, all that jazz.  I answered some, dodged some and lied about some. Well, cuz I didn’t really know this guy, who would know for sure whether he was a good person or not. Besides, as a Virgo, I just couldn’t help it but to whip out the cautious self-protection card.  Why should I share personal information with this stranger I met from the street? No, I stand correct, it was not that WE met, but that HE decided all by himself to come up to me.

But I did tell him my major was English.  I thought it would be totally harmless.  How bad could it be?  But oh my how in the world I regretted telling him that.  Cuz after this, it went all downhill and slipped into a sheer abyss.  He started to ask me questions in English all of a sudden. But every time I replied him, he’d say “Pardon?” C’mon, if you were not good at it enough to listen and understand the simplest oral English, why spoke it in the first place?

In the middle of it, he came up and asked me whether I’d like to drink some doujiang. No thanks.  I so wanted to just flee and never came back, but I didn’t finish my supper yet, so I’d have to sit there and just bear the unbearable. When he came back, he brought that doujiang to me. As soon as I finished my supper, I said I’m afraid I’ll have to go. But thanks for the doujiang and it’s nice talking to you.  Then the nightmare finally came to an end.

Now some of you may think that I was too confident to call him hitting on me, but trust me, girls’ instinct always works. Even with the same words, the same questions, we’ll know whether it is an ordinary conversation or attempting to hook up.  Others might think that I am so not outgoing and might exaggerate the whole situation.  It’s not true. I’m actually quite an easygoing and outgoing person. Ask my friends.  Others may think that I simply dislike the guy for no sensible reasons. Now I’ll tell you I have my solid reasons as follows and here are also some tips and lessons to learn if you are a guy and you want to hit on a girl and ask her out on a date.

1.       Don’t start a conversation with weird look or twisted emotion on your face. Just be calm, honest and natural.  Otherwise, it would feel clumsy and might leave the impression that you are not trustworthy.  We girls might even wonder what are you? Perv, stalker or something?

2.       Don’t ask the questions too directly too quickly or make weird conclusions. If you ask too many personal questions, we might suspect your initial intention. Or even if we don’t, you’d sound really desperate and pathetic, as if you haven’t got laid in years and was horny like a monkey, which might lead to a possible assumption that “do you think I’m a random girl, a slut from the street that you can easily score and sleep with?” Now this is an awful direction where you don’t want to get yourself into, since it implies or verging on insult to girls or even humiliation.  

      In addition, don’t make appalling conclusions like the guy did that “I should marry to a Hunan guy”. It would sound really weird and uncomfortable. Why does he have any business to do as to where and when I should get married since we’ve met only a few minutes? Gosh, he even said it twice. Twice! Did he feel really good about it or about himself? Cuz I certainly did not! Not in a million years. I heard you the first time, so cut the crap, OK?

3.       Always be polite and respectful. The playful knock on the table was really lame and made him look like a jerk. We were not that familiar. Hell, not even one bit. Why not just say Hi and ask my permission before taking a seat on MY table right in front of me. “ Can I sit here” is not such a hard question to simply ask, is it?  The worst part is, he took over my mp4 to his side, watched the show on it for quite a while, whereas I could only look at the backside of it.  HELLO,  eh, that was MINE and I was watching the reality show that I liked and was anxious to know the elimination result. 

      Ask for approval before you take someone else’s stuff, especially when you are not that close or in this particular case, complete strangers!  That’s the social protocol that we should be taught and nurtured to abide by since kindergarten. I was so thrilled to watch the show but was suddenly interrupted and even stripped of my video player, so was it sufficient to make him a clueless, rude guy to just take it from me like that?!  I could even imagine this kind of guy, even when they get married, he’ll be the kind that takes over the remote control and simply switches to his favorite TV program, ignoring whatever his wife is watching or what channels she likes to watch.

4.       If you want to spend money for girls, be a gentleman and be careful to cater to their taste, not yours. Otherwise, just don’t bother to buy it at all.  In this scenario, take the doujiang for example. He asked whether I’d like it. I said no thanks.  So don’t just still bring back one in such a stubborn, self-assured manner.  I didn’t like it so I didn’t take one sip. And then he said something like “c’mon, just drink it.” I can’t even describe how upset I was at that moment. I just didn’t show it externally. But come to think of it, if you really want to buy a drink or anything at all for a girl, ask HER what SHE prefers. He never did but forced me to drink that instead and made it look like I was the ungrateful, unfriendly one here. What a ***! 

      It’s not that I thought the 1-yuan doujiang was too cheap or something, but he should’ve had the courtesy to at least ask what kind of beverage I liked. Otherwise, just don’t buy it at all and don't force his own taste on me cuz it would make him such a self-centered, inconsiderate, egostic man.  Sometimes doing nothing means doing nothing wrong. It would be so much better to just buy nothing and make no moves rather than shoveling the bottle to my face and compelling me to drink it.

5.       Don’t ever underestimate other people, especially the girl that you want to take a chance and hang out with. Be proud of who she is instead of being suspicious or jealous.  Like when he was asking my major and my job. I said I was majored in English.  Then he asked in a very belittling and know-it-all tone “English majors are required to pass TEM8, do you pass it? ” you people should totally look at his face when he asked that.  He was secretly waiting for an apologetic and remorseful  answer “no”. When I said “yes, if not, we cannot obtain the graduation certificate”. After that, it was a moment of awkward silence because he didn’t expect me to pass it at all. So he suddenly didn’t know what to say. 

      And when I replied to another of his endless questions that I worked in a research center at a military hospital. (which I don’t now since I just quit.) Again, he looked at me and continued, “So you are a nurse?” Screw you! Do I look like a nurse to you? With all due respect, I admire the caring service of nurses.  But if you could see his face as I did, I’m sure you’d want to punch him hard and yell at him: “No. I’m your mother!” So when I said I was doing some translating job for the hospital. Once again, he was unhappily surprised and ask in disbelief, “You? Translator?” I couldn’t freaking take it and tolerate this male chauvinist anymore. But he quickly thought of something else to ask me again.  Someone, please come and save me!

6.       Don’t show off when you don’t really know about something or good at it. cuz you’ll never know who you bump into.  Story to be continued.  He then asked me: “so you do translation, pencil work, huh? what about your oral English?” Then he just suddenly started to talk to me in his Chinglish in a self-conceited way and thought my oral English would be too poor to respond to his words. But as I mentioned above, he couldn’t understand me when I started to speak in English and he asked me to repeat all the time. All the time!

      What is this thing with some guys that they always take for granted and think that girls will not be as good as men no matter what they do. He looked at me as if I was joking or kidding when I said I passed TEM-8 and that I was a translator.  Now when he talked to me in English, I really enjoyed the fucked-up look in his face cuz he was totally intimidated and terrified that he was not good enough to understand me even when I chose the simplest words to say in a fairly normal speed and he still couldn’t keep up the conversation flow with me.  Right in your face! You just got served! That’s his fruit for looking down upon me.

      But in the end, I was bored. Besides, showing off his not-so-good English was an embarrassment in the first place. But the fact that he continued to ask me all those personal questions in his poor English as a random Chinese guy in a small cozy restaurant was totally a CRIME! What’s up with Chinese people speaking Chinese to each other? Cannot you just talk like a normal person? What a shame.  And HELLO, you’re not even good at English. So when he still tried to think of how to say something in English sentences, I just couldn’t put up anymore and decided to leave. I'm pretty sure both of us looked like arrogant aliens to the people at other tables.

7.       Don’t be too cocky about your own achievements so far, other people might have completely different values and beliefs for life. At a point, he told me in again his showing off way that he was working in a government-owned enterprise and have a stable life or something. He considered it as a sort of attraction to draw my attention. I was so sick of his attitude. So what? Who cares? I just quitted and resigned from the similar kind of job position because I detested the boredom, the meaninglessness and lack of challenge of the work.

      And I wanted to tell him, if you want to compare incomes, I’m pretty sure my income at my institution was at least twice of yours. But that’s not important at all.  If it really were for me, I wouldn’t resign it since it's a workplace and a position that so many people would do anything to get in and have it.  But I’d admire a penniless, starved musician who has the courage to chase his dream and play rock tunes in the underground tunnel than guys like him, working for corrupted, oppressive, evil systems and taking it as such a tremendous accomplishment to show off everywhere and hoping that his job would give him a shimmering plus point to pick up young girls.

Didn’t even realize I wrote such a long-winded blog.  Actually, I’ve never been on a formal date yet, so I do not have any experience to write tips for other people as reference. But I just want to share this matter with all of you out there to avoid similar blunders or awkwardness.  Now the whole encounter and the so-called dating tips are finally gotten out of my chest. I want to add a few more words about marriage.

So many people around me are getting married this year. My old-time classmate is getting married on Mayday.  My flatmate just moved out to get married. One of my colleagues resigned months ago to return to her hometown and prepare for her wedding. Also, so many celebrities both domestic and abroad are having big wedding ceremonies frequently in these few months.   Words have it that Japanese women also rush into marriage, especially after the catastrophe. I don’t know what’s up with the fact that so many people suddenly decide to get the red certificate and start a family together. I guess it has something to do with all those devastating disasters around the world and also the alleged 2012 doomsday.  I sincerely and truly wish all of them great happiness.   BUT I still uphold the words of wisdom dearest to my heart that “The WISE never marry, and when they marry, they become OTHERWISE. ”

PS:

Packing is such an ordeal, especially for a procastinator like me.  I just hope that I could have a good time on the road, get to meet some really awesome people and have amazing experiences along the way, when I set out the journey to Hainan and other southern places.   No more awkward situations like this one, pretty please!