RED’S REALLY NOT MY COLOR

For Thanksgiving, I spent the evening with three of my favorite people in Xi’An; my newly discovered French Canadian girlfriend, my Italian friend and my fellow American, J. We went to the Thanksgiving dinner served here at the Sheraton and had quite a good time. We talked about music and art and life and work. My Italian friend tied a few more than expected on and ended up kvetching about his ex-girlfriend a little more than he should have.

Then Friday night, KLM sponsored a free dinner at the Hyatt in Xi’An to celebrate 35 years of serving the European and Chinese community for the West Egg crowd and I got invited. My Italian and Canadian friends were both going away on Saturday, so they decided not to come but J and I decided to make an evening of it.

J, of course, was lovely and quite honestly, my favorite +1 ever. I had such a great time and being that our relationship is solidly platonic, it such a relief to be around an equal without having to worry about cultural landmines. Sitting with us were my favorite couple who hail from Bristol (he is wonderful and she is everything I hope to be) and Mr. Bristol paid me the best compliment I have received in a very long time; “You and [Mrs. Bristol] are the very same kind of woman.” You see, Mrs. Bristol is singularly minded, got married in her mid-thirties, had children in her late thirties and is the only woman I know in Xi’An here on her own dime keeping her husband company because she’s earned a full retirement. She gives me hope and she’s just a wonderful person to boot.

After dinner, a Korean woman (who clearly began life as an anatomical man) insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Bristol, J and I join she and her husband at the bar on the ground floor.

Along for the ride was the most delicious looking man I have seen since I first laid eyes on the Turk. However, unlike the Turk, his energy was more simmering than explosive; the Turk burned hot and bright but this man is slow and steady in the way that made me recall a conversation I had with my Canadian girlfriend. We were both speaking about how neither of us can relax in situations where everyone else is relaxed; we need to be surrounded by people who are more capable than we are in order to relax. This new man has the energy of someone capable of being more capable than me. And, despite this delicious man’s English accent, there was something indefinably familiar about him. There was some underlying something that felt like common ground.

Nevertheless, I got rather wrecked by the fallout from the Turk, so despite my hormones, I made the decision to avoid the very thing I want because, well, the things that I want never turn out to be all that good for me. I took a seat across from my Korean girlfriend and Mrs. Bristol took the seat next to me. And, the Mr. Delicious took the seat next to Mrs. Bristol and proceeded to have an intense conversation about the NGO work that he does here in China that Mrs. Bristol is desperate to get involved with.

Every time I stole a glance at Mr. Delicious, he was looking at me and it was lovely. And, I would be lying if the fact that he could fill out his suit and has body hair wasn’t remarkably appealing. I’m so sick of hairless men swimming in cavernous, worn out suits tacky suits that are always inevitably feminizing. However, Mr. Delicious’ suit was clearly chosen with European taste.

After a brief conversation about his travels around the world and experiences in America’s “Heartland,” it was revealed that he was Jewish. And then I was able to place the familiarity. The two deepest loves I’ve ever had were with men who come from Jewish families and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. It’s something about the focus on life-long education for education’s sake and the quite, reasonable approach to everyday life. And, there’s something about the sense of humor. It just all comes together in a way that I understand and at last I finally understand when my secularly Jewish aunt told me that she didn’t care about marrying from a specific country but she only wanted to marry a fellow Jew. There really is something common and easy about the basics, despite the country of origin.

He then excused himself to go to the restroom.

“I quite like him.” I told Mrs. Bristol.

“He’s got a girlfriend from Australia.” She told me, god bless her.

“Oh well,” I shrugged, determined to push him from my mind, which proved rather easy as he then went into the snooker room and started play with the other men as Mrs. Bristol and I talked about her upcoming trip back home.

And then that fucking Titanic song. The bar band started playing that fucking Celine Dion Titanic song and that was where I drew my line.

“Let’s go into the snooker room. It’s much more quite in there and there’s a couch we can sit on.”

Mrs. Bristol consented immediately and we fled for our lives.

“Celine Dion finally did you in, eh?” Mr. Delicious teased, smiling as the door opened up.

“A girl’s got to have her limits,” I said.

And all I got in return was the sort of smile that makes your toes curl.

Mr. Delicious then left mid-snooker game and pulled a chair up to our couch under the pretext of talking to Mrs. Bristol but he proceeded to watch me for most of the conversation. There was something distinctly lovely in his observation of me. There was no tinge of desperation or escalation. He was simply trying to sort me out.

However, he’s got a girlfriend and I’m all sorts of gun-shy, so I certainly made no efforts to make things easy for him. Nevertheless, he was not to be deterred and he pushed through my inattention.

Finally, he managed to get a real conversation going and suddenly he broke left and the conversation went down the loveliest non sequitur road possible; his status as a “single” man.
“I have the worst problem in this country. I’m 25 and not married- single- and everyone here is asking ‘What are you doing with your life?!’. They all think it’s a waste.”

“Oh honey, I’m 29, female and single. They think it’s a medical emergency.” I held up my left hand with the jade ring on my middle finger. “Why do you think I wear this? Since I started wearing it, no one asks anymore.”

Clueless, he shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Jade in China is the stone of marriage and any woman with a ring on her middle finger is engaged.”

“Oh, I had no idea.”

“Yeah, it’s the equivalent of wearing a big diamond on my ring finger in the West.”

We all continued to chat while he watched me some more. I always find being watched like that so amusing because, really, what you see is, more or less, what you get. There’s very little to sort out. It’s quite pathetic, actually but yes, I am that simple.

And when it finally came time to call it a night, he ducked out and while saying his goodbyes would shoot me looks whenever whomever he was talking to would look away. It was quite charming. However, he did not ask for my contact information, which I kind of liked. If he does have a girlfriend, I like that he’s not going mess around on her and if he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he’s not escalated anything. “Slow” is a nice thought.

While I was happily settling into the warm glow of a simmering man, trouble was brewing elsewhere over my friendship with my Italian friend. The fact is that, while my Italian friend is lovely, I simply don’t view him as an equal and therefore he will never be an acceptable candidate for lover. He’s too naïve and too gullible for me. I want to have children; I don’t want to date them. I adore him and I adore tending to his fragility because I need to get out my mothering impulses in ways other than sorting out the phrase, “Teacher, he hit me!” Designs on him, I certainly do not have.

However, my friend from France married to a Chinese woman has mistaken our companionship for dating. Apparently, his Chinese wife (a beautiful girl who makes me nuts and, unfortunately, is best friends with the putrid ex-girlfriend) was infuriated by the idea that my Italian friend might be getting on with his life and she insists that though the ex-girlfriend moved back to the US to move in with an old lover (and resume said love affair), the ex-girlfriend and my Italian friend are still exclusively dating. Which, apparently, led to her tearing into my character. Which, in turn, led to her husband (with whom I have a closer-than-should-be relationship) tearing into her for tearing into me.

“You should have heard him defend you,” my Brazilian Angel related to me after she explained the whole story. “It was really sweet of him. I tried to explain the situation so that she wouldn’t tell [the ex-girlfriend] but he thought she shouldn’t say anything bad about you to begin with.”

Which split me in two. I am touched that the people I value defend me even when I’m not around and- my god- to the exclusion of their spouses. However, the inevitable has finally begun to happen. I was always concerned about being the only single woman in the area as I would eventually get labeled the adulteress.

And here it comes.

Granted, I find irony in the fact that on the very night I met another man who- despite a possible girlfriend- I would absolutely say yes to anything asked of me, a single man whose bed I would truly choose second in a contest between he and my own brother is gaining me a very large, very scarlet “A.”