Ring-less

It has to be written about. Just as much as it had to be talked about. But then it's sometimes easier to give up and hang up. Ignore it altogether? Not quite.

The 'cultural difference' card was played. Married men and women in Asia don't usually wear wedding rings. I'm glad I was told this before I married an Asian.

On a show I watched this afternoon, an American guy, no less a polygamist, who was falling for another woman realised he was still wearing his wedding ring upon knocking at her door. (Shouldn't he have been wearing 3 of them? One for each of his wives?) He promptly removed it before she answered.

In a later scene, the significance of the ring was discussed at a meeting with fellow polygamists. For most, removing it implied intent to have an affair, to fuck around or to cheat on their wives. Yeah, that's a big cultural difference.

So, why have I decided not to wear the ring any more? Mostly because I need to know how it feels to go without it. It can easily be forgotten, left at home or even lost. Yes, it sure can. And with it a lot of significance.

And how does it feel? A lot like those other situations where I know I shouldn't be so sentimental, lest I feel utterly out of control of my emotions. I've let those be manipulated in the name of trust. And so the trusting begins anew.

Just friends

My boyfriend's new boyfriend

It's not that I didn't know about him (I did encourage their first getting to know each other) and his likely role after I left my boyfriend in Beijing 4 months ago. But one day not too long ago I realised there was nothing more ever said about him, even though there were plenty of events both were likely to have attended. It hit me unexpectedly hard to recently discover online photo albums of the two of them in various states of cuddly friendship complete with their banter of comments peppered with sexual innuendo.

Naturally I had to say something to the boyfriend and naturally he had to reply they were just friends, though he did readily apologise repeatedly for intentionally downplaying their practically-platonic friendship. The reason he did it? Unknown, undisclosed and unlikely to be forthcoming. Because (?) I have opened up this can of worms, I am now subjected to hearing about their upcoming social calendar in overcompensating detail.

Since I came back to Vancouver not expecting to live alone for very long, I regularly refused to allow any number of new acquaintances the oppportunity to get too close, essentially resisting the urge to make friends with benefits. It seems a tad petty to say, "What a waste!" or "Now I'll make up for lost time". All in all, in light of what was kept from me and what's been going on out in the open in Beijing (and in online photo albums) for everyone else to see, I don't plan on changing my modus operandi.

But one thing is certain, I have to make more friends!

Update on 1 August: Some surprises in the way the BF's BF comes and goes in conversations with my BF, on my BF's blog and on one of our shared social networking sites. It's gradually hitting me - like a feather pillow - that I'm more amused than concerned at their follies. Still, the childish way in which it's being played out via status updates, their adding and removing each other as friends, and the mockery of their public game concerns me insofar as I worry how hard they will take it when(ever) my BF does return to Canada, leaving the other behind. Is this the point at which the terms schadenfreude, 幸灾乐祸 (xìngzāi lèhuò), and morose delectation (delectatio morosa) converge?