Bromances

My husband inspires many, many bromances.

This is not a problem. At least, it isn’t so far. But it is a rather curious quality and it began early on in our relationship.

However, it is a bit of a wonder that my husband immediately seems to bring out something different in various men, men who in other circumstances seem prone to, how shall I term it, womanizing? In fact, after my friend  heard one person’s exclamation about my husband, to wit: "Isn’t he the one who is really good-looking? Like model good-looking,” she wondered to me, “So, what’s it like being with a man other men want?”

And that is, after all, what this piece is about. I mean, I’d like to say it’s all about how open-minded I am regarding my husband being desired by other people, men or women. That it isn’t threatening to me and my relationship with him that other people find him sexually attractive. That’s what this should be about, right? Especially in this age of openness and understanding, of knowing that no one person sets the standard for normalcy when it comes to things like one’s sexual orientation. It should be about me being concerned about our relationship.

No. I confess that is not what this is about. It is actually a lament. About me. Yes, all about me. Well, let’s back up a bit.

So, this is what I think a typical male response is when other men find his female partner equally attractive: “Yeah, that’s my woman.” And it makes him feel virile. Triumphant. Veni, vidi, vici and all that. But women, I think have two responses. Yes, one is validation in her ability to “catch” such a sexy guy. Handsome. Attractive. Whatever word you want to use. She is sexy so she gets the sexy guy, right? 

But there is another response. Competitiveness. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. See, that’s the thing. It might just be me. Who is thinking, “Hey, wait a minute! What about me?”

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve thought. From that first encounter: “What am I, chopped liver?” Because I tell you what, that woman barely even acknowledged I existed. I might as well have been a worm sticking to the bottom of her high-heeled pumps as she clickety clacked her way down the Pasadena Crate and Barrel stairway towards the exit. She was on a mission and yet she stopped mid-stairway to accost my husband.

And no, I'm not thinking my husband as in I'm possessive. It’s more like, “Really? My husband?” And then immediately, “Hey, hellooooo! Yoohoo! I’m standing right next to him and you’re not even looking at me.”

I’ll be honest, I don’t consider myself smokin’ hot. But then I’m no ugly duckling either. I’m 5’5”, 110 pounds. Well-defined, though not actually muscular. But since I did gymnastics between ages 7 to 14, I’ve got some muscles I’ve never lost. My features aren’t lopsided. I’ve got a smile that allows anyone who so desires to count all my teeth. And I’ve got healthy hair. So, all in all, a decent package. 

She didn’t care. 

“Hiiiiiii!” she said turning her body straight to him. Wait, you’re saying. She’s flirting with him, you dumbshit. Yeah, okay, maybe she was. Do you think I gave a shit? Because I didn’t. What I wanted was for her to flirt with me. Hey, I’m not above women flirting with me, I like it, because as any self-respecting woman knows, if there’s one thing other women know, it’s which women are attractive. Perhaps not sexy, but they know pretty. And even beautiful. As a matter of fact, oftentimes if you speak to a hetero couple, the woman might say, “She’s pretty,” and her man will probably answer something along the lines of, “Yeah, she’s okay,” accompanied with a shrug. Because what he’s thinking is, would I want to do her?

So with all this background in mind, there I am. Standing. Right next to my husband. Helloooooo.

Nope. Nada. De rien. Shit. 

She could not have given a tinier bird-sized pellet-shaped shit if she had wanted to. Okay, I know, bird droppings are pellets, but you get the idea. Smallest shit—not me. 

Here’s a thought. Imagine yourself. In an awkward situation. Now paste a smile on your face. For whole minutes. Let’s just pick a number out of thin air, say, fifteen. Now keep that smile intact. Sprinkle a few nods at intervals throughout those minutes, again let’s just be random. At 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 minutes, just for fun. And because the person next to you is tall, and the person not talking to you or acknowledging your existence is equally tall, imagine that you are also subtly trying to lengthen your body so you can match their height. 

And then your stomach begins to growl. As the person not speaking to you is saying, “So have you ever been a model? What do you do? You go to architecture school? Because you could pay for it. Have you ever done any acting? Have any head shots? Here’s my card, I would loooove to represent you!”

After all that, after fifteen painstaking minutes of trying to draw attention to yourself and prove that you, too, are worthy, she finally turns to you. And says something crushing like, “Oh, hi. How are you?”

And then walks off. 

So this was my first encounter, and obviously, this was not a bromance or man crush. This was a woman crush. And yes, I was crushed. 

After that, I decided to work on my appearance a bit more. I’m Chinese. And it’s unusual to have curly hair when you’re Chinese. It is. Most have straight hair. And I’d been going to this hairdresser, this $100/haircut hairdresser, who was always, always, always blowing my hair straight. It doesn’t go that way. And after a while, I realized it was a good look to go curly. So I began to let that go. Eve locks and all. Yeah, I know Milton’s Paradise was creepy and sexist and all, I get that. But I like the Eve locks imagery. 

I also started wearing dresses, and not those flowy feminine ones, either. No, I started going for those fitted ones. Not tight, mind, because I am not a skank. But hey, I’m not above fitted and I’m certainly not above trying to work whatever assets I have.

The next time something occurred, it was actually less threatening. Because frankly, I didn’t like the guy. And yes, this time it was a guy. My husband had this prof on his Ph.D. committee. Some old school, overrated ancient China scholar—a middle-aged white guy whose specialty was ancient Chinese philosophy—how stereotypical can you get, right? So he had this dog. A really yappy dog. One of those dogs that pants far too quickly, like he’ll hump anything in sight. 

And that’s exactly what he did. Initially, it was amusing. Guy had gone for an office-hour consultation on the direction of his latest paper on something esoteric like the conclusions the Zhanguo ce had on funereal relations between men and their sons as expressed through drumming. Or something equally obscure. Evidently, Professor—what shall I call him?—Stromberg, how’s that? had decided his little yappy dog could not be left at home this particular day and so there Miko was, panting madly and quivering like a one-quarter-for-ten-minutes vibro-matic bed. 

The moment, the absolute moment he espied Guy’s leg, he decided that this was a leg he had to mate with. Which he proceeded to do vigorously and at length once Guy sat down. 

Now, I don’t mind the occasional overture from a dog. I’m told it’s flattering and as long as I’m wearing pants and not a skirt and sandals, I’m okay. Given that Guy was indeed attired in standard grad-student fare—jeans and Clarks shoes—it wasn’t soo bad. It evidently cut the conversation short a bit but then again, Professor Stromberg didn’t have much to say in the way of scholarly advice, so no loss there, either. Guy arose, and Miko the dog reluctantly relinquished his newfound soulmate and trotted off to his cushion, simultaneously spent and lovelorn.

The next bit got a bit awkward, however.  Yes, there’s that word again but honestly, sometimes it’s the only one that will do. So back at the office of the department, housed in Royce Hall, there was some visiting Prof. Ever anxious to impress—apparently that’s all the dog humping Guy’s leg was doing, trying to impress—Professor Stromberg introduced Guy to the visitor with the clever line, “This is Guy, one of our grad students in Modern China. He also does Kung Fu! Show him, Guy!”

Guy’s a nice guy. Clichéd, but true. He is. At the time, he was also a grad student and thus pretty low down there on that food chain. So he obliged said visiting prof by busting out some Wushu moves. During which time, Professor Stromberg took the opportunity to check out Guy’s ass. For whole minutes. 

I could say something about how the ass is not really what you want to be watching when you’re watching awesome Kung Fu, and Guy does do awesome Kung Fu. He’s studied in China. With, you know, real lineage masters. If you’re into that sort of thing. Really, you want to be watching the entire body, but if you’re into body parts, the legs, arms, and even the hands are pretty darned compelling. Not the ass.

My aforementioned friend is responsible for yet another instance. She told one of her Korean mafia, no, we just call it that, it’s this really tightly-knit group of friends (seems they all know each other—we Chinese, having been over here for in my case 5 generations, don’t really do that anymore: we’ve become dissipated like everyone else) that she was reconnecting with me. You see, she and I had been in grad school around the same time but we hadn’t really crossed paths, her being in the Korea field and me in Buddhism. So she was telling one of her Korean mafia friends that she was reconnecting with me and did he know that I was married to Guy? His response? See above, re: the "Model good looking" comment.

Now, I know the person she’s talking about. She won’t say who it is, but I know it’s Lou. He was always given to such unfiltered outbursts, which depending upon the content, he would apologize for at a later time. Once he yelled at me for being in the grad study lounge and not studying. He apologized later. He’s also a published poet so he’s definitely in touch with something. 

The fourth is actually a bit amusing and creepy. Our older daughter attends a school that is, unfortunately, populated by celebrities’ children. It’s not our fault. We had chosen the wrong preschool (my child was beat up by one of the other children and the teachers did nothing about it and while my husband and I are all behind teaching self-defense to our children, this really is the limit), we had no other alternatives. The ridiculously early and overly competitive scene in the Westside of LA was such that we were screwed. So I wrote an article on this school, and it so happened they had openings. Several. So my daughter went there.

Turned out later that there was a rumor I was “good friends” with said celebrity who started the school. Uh, no. 

Anyway, there is this one very well-known rocker whose son is in my daughter’s Kinder class. I had no idea who this guy was. All I knew was, he looked like he had a thyroid problem. His eyes bugged out a bit, if you didn’t get the reference. That, and he seriously creeped out my baby, by sticking his face into the stroller, invading her space, and cooing at her. 

The guy was weird. And I had no idea who he was. Now I do, can I just say, I never liked his music? Evidently they didn’t at Coachella, either. To continue, my husband was teaching Kung Fu to the kiddies, and he seemed to be staring at my husband’s moves. Intently. Perhaps a bit too intently. 

At one point, a pregnant mother joined us and I began talking to her. I was frankly relieved because he was seriously making me wish I could take a shower. He was relieved to because then he was able to just move off and stare, without blinking, at my husband. He interrupted us once to say that he could tell that my husband had had years of training, abroad, because of the way he moved his body. Then he grew silent once more and carried on staring. 

Duuuude, I'm thinking. What is your problem? First my baby, now my husband?

After my husband finished his hour lesson, this person immediately walked over to my husband, sticking his butt out the entire way. Man, this guy stands weird, is what I’m thinking, and he walks like a duck. He talked with my husband for ten minutes. My husband reported later he was unimpressed, as well, because this guy asked my Guy if he was into MMA. Uh, no. Totally different and not for purists, which my husband is.

Course, now, whenever my husband sees him, he jokes and he says, “Oh, yeah, I just saw my friend, 'Jarrod,'” and we laugh. 

Then I shudder. Too many drugs. One should not do too many drugs too early on in one’s life. It makes one creepy.