#131. Girlfriend (Friday, October 11, 2013)

What was your best day… of a crossing a milestone you never thought you’d cross?

Probably the most astounding thing about my main Best Days list is that, amid 128 total entries, I did not have a single entry related to the one girlfriend I ever had, for the year and a half while she was my girlfriend.¹

#87 and its hand-shaking and Ellie Goulding and next-day Chapel Hill partying and self-pyromania fears precede that by a good two weeks. And this one mostly precedes that as well—after all, as I had noted, it was in that period that the whole thing actually felt “pretty nice”.

So, following that emotional admission by our University Apartments residences, Chenling did not automatically become my girlfriend. To quote our agreement that night, we were firmly in the “interested in knowing more about each other” stage, whatever the standardized term for that is.

Our next interaction was the Monday after. We were in two of the same classes: PhD Macroeconomics I and PhD Econometrics I. For macro, I had a loose, informal study group with my buddy Isinachi (from the Econ House, #60) and this other girl Amanda; and today, Chenling randomly asks to join it. And that day’s session is the last one we have²—since Chenling perceived them as “free-riders” who didn’t really contribute. Though we do all get food at Panda Express³, and during that it somehow comes out that I know how to speak Mandarin.⁴

I feel that must have accelerated things under the surface. For the rest of the week, I have mostly smaller, inconsequential chats with her (in Mandarin now), except for one. Where we arrange for her to come to my dorm on Saturday for dinner on Saturday. And she tells me that she’s going to some concert in Raleigh on Sunday with our mutual friend Fred Liu; doing so in a clearly apologetic way, noting that he had invited her last week. I only later learned the broad undercurrent (via comments from Chenling told me herself): basically, Fred liked her but in a casual way (he liked a lot of girls), and she was never into him. But, of course, at that moment I told myself that this thing was over before it even started.

So, that Saturday, we have the dinner at my place. It goes pretty well, we have a lot to talk about in Mandarin. The details mostly escape me now, but I end that dinner sensing a visible forward progress on a potential relationship, and a re-emerged possibility that this could be happening. And of course that excitement carries me through the rest of the weekend.

The next week proceeds much the same way. We have two or three more meaningful conversations (whose details also escape me), and most importantly I invite her to go with me to a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game that Friday against the Los Angeles Kings (who’s win the Cup that year) at the PNC Arena (now Lenovo Center).

So Friday comes. On the hour-long trip there, we continue our conversations with that natural, almost intimate fluidity. (Most notably, she had seen a rougher form of #51—the one where I drive myself insane asking out Samantha Wisniewski on a dare—and we share a mutual laugh at my childish innocence nine years earlier.) Then, in our lower-bowl seats in the arena, I explain to her all the features and nuances of the wonderful game of ice hockey (I’m obligated to, being the one Canadian in the program). For her part, she is genuinely excited—she had never imagined such a sport could exist—and once again, the three hours of the game seem to go by just perfectly well. The game and PNC Arena atmosphere is pretty intense as well.

It ends with a Kings shootout win; and as we get into the taxi to the transit stop, I ask deep inside myself what Chenling must be thinking. Is this the time to make a move? It certainly felt it.

And so, ten minutes into the ride, I take her hand. And she accepts it. And takes mine.

It’s become official now.

And an hour later, after we arrive at our dorms (two minutes away from each other), the next step of it just naturally emerges. We look into each other’s eyes, and kiss for about ten seconds. And with that, the night ends.

A night that, at the moment, felt like unequivocally one of the top five days of my life. A night where I had, without any doubt whatsoever, cleared a critical life milestone that two weeks earlier—even two days earlier—seemed completely remote and potentially something I could go my entire life without clearing. Its significance was at a scale that put me in complete shock: like “did I actually do that”, “did I actually hold hands and kiss a girl that I liked”? But it went well beyond that. At the time, I did genuinely like Chenling; I found her attractive in any way, and I was equally as excited by the sheer fact that I would be around her for the foreseeable future. A month, a year, the rest of my life? I didn’t let myself dream just quite yet.

Stripping out everything that came in the 18 months, and all the self-defeat, disrespect, and forcing myself through a relationship I clearly did not want to be in… that night was truly special. And one that can never be replicated in anywhere near the same way.

It’s just a shame about everything else.

Now that this episode is firmly closed, trust me when I say that whatever shifts happen with my list in the future—namely a hypothetical string of happiness-less years that force me to elevate some of these second-tier days into the Top 1%—this one will remain down here forever, just so I can say that. Similar to how the fitting #128 on Writing will remain the lowest on the main list. No, in case you were wondering, I do not use some pure (any) quantitative formula for ranking.
Or, more accurately, last one I have with Isinachi and Amanda.
The default fast food spot on campus, and it was legitimately tasty. I had it way too much, and actually on my first trip to North Carolina post-breakup for the 2018 conference in Asheville (#33), I deliberately had my first meal at the Panda Express next to the hotel.
Though apparently with a weird, indescribable hybrid Shanghainese-North American intonation that neither her nor any of the rest of the Chinese students in our cohort (well over half) had seen anything like before. Note I barely learned a lick of actual Shanghainese from my parents.