#132. Girlfriend (Friday, October 11, 2013)
What was your best day… of crossing a milestone you never thought you’d cross?
Probably the most astounding thing about my main Best Days list is that, amid 130 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
#91 and its hand-shaking and Ellie Goulding and next-day Chapel Hill partying and self-pyromania fears precedes that by a good two weeks. And this one mostly precedes it as well—after all, as I had noted, this was when the whole thing felt “pretty nice”.
So, following that emotional admission outside 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 an informal study group with my buddy Isinachi (from the Econ House, #63) and another girl Amanda; Chenling randomly asked to join it. And that day’s session was effectively our last, since Chenling perceived the other two as “free-riders” who didn’t contribute much. We do all get food at Panda Express, where it somehow comes out that I know how to speak Mandarin.2
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 when we arrange for her to come to my dorm 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, in a clearly apologetic way, noting that he had invited her the previous week.3 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, with plenty to talk about in Mandarin. The details mostly escape me now, but I end dinner sensing real forward progress—and that this might actually be happening.
The next week proceeds much the same way, with two or three more meaningful conversations before I invite her to go with me to a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game that Friday against the Los Angeles Kings (who would win the Cup that year) at PNC Arena (now Lenovo Center).
So Friday comes. On the hour-long trip there, our conversation continues with a natural, almost intimate fluidity. (Most notably, she had seen an earlier verison of #54—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, from our lower-bowl seats, I explain the features and nuances of ice hockey to her (I’m obligated to, being the one Canadian in the program). For her part, she is genuinely excited—she had never imagined hockey could be like this—and once again, the three hours go by almost perfectly.
It ends with a Kings shootout win, and as we get into the taxi to the transit stop, I wonder what Chenling must be thinking. Is this the time to make a move? It certainly felt like 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 just emerges naturally. We look into each other’s eyes, and kiss for about ten seconds. And with that, the night ends.
A night that, at the time, felt unequivocally like one of the top five days of my life. A night when I had, without any doubt, crossed a critical life milestone that two weeks earlier—even two days earlier—had seemed completely remote, and potentially something I might go my entire life without experiencing. Its significance put me in complete shock: 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 every way, and I was equally 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 quite yet.
Stripping out everything that came in the 18 months that followed—the self-defeat, disrespect, and forcing myself through a relationship I clearly did not want to be in—and that night was truly special.
It’s just a shame about everything else.
- Now that this episode is firmly closed, whatever shifts happen with my list in the future—even a hypothetical string of happiness-less years that pushes 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 #130 on Writing will remain the lowest on the main list. No, I do not use a purely quantitative ranking formula.
- Though apparently with a weird, indescribable hybrid Shanghainese-North American intonation that neither she nor any of the rest of the Chinese students in our cohort (well over half) had seen anything like before.
- I later learned from Chenling that Fred liked her casually—he liked a lot of girls—and she had never been interested in him.