Ok, I’m sorry but I have to write this down and have it on record: somebody unfriended me on Facebook and I can’t get past it.  I found out about four days ago and to be honest: it has been bugging me ever since.  Why  would she unfriend me?  It’s so decisive and final.  She didn’t just hide my status updates from her news feed or roll her eyes at the frequency of my updates (What? I’ve got stuff to say).  She took the decisive and irreversible action of actually obliterating me from her cyber universe.

Here’s a little secret.  Of my 200 or so FB friends, I actively dislike about 7 of them .  But I think it’s rude to say “no” when some extends the hand of friendship to you, no matter how inconsequential and undeveloped said friendship proves to be.  So if you ask me and I can at least pick you out in a line up, I’ll say yes.  Even if I think you might have slightly douchey tendencies.  The reason this severing of FB ties bothers me so is because she is someone I barely know / talk to / care about.  She is just not on my radar.  That being the case, the fact that she is so anti me – when I have zero feeling towards her either way – is perplexing.  It’s incongruous.  It’s just not right, dammit.  And, drama queen that I am, I’m a little bit hurt.

There are people on this planet, dear Reader, who don’t like me.  If you follow this blog, this might be a no-brainer to you.  Or a totally shocking revelation you cannot even contemplate embracing (Hi, Mum!).   The odd person not liking me is ok.  For the most part, I think: fair enough, because the dislike is mutual.  But with this particular person, I was 100% ambivalent towards her.  Completely.  So, that she doesn’t like me and took measures to demonstrate that fact makes me feel like I’ve been beaten to the draw.  Like I’ve been hung up on.  Like I’ve been building up to the punch line of a really good joke and someone blurts it out before I can.   Like I am eyeball deep in the enthralling fourth season of The Wire when someone screeches: Omar dies in the next episode! (He does, by the way.  Deal with it.) I feel like something has been spoilt.

Unfriended on Facebook by someone I barely know.
Well, I never!
Although, of course, I have.

So here’s the deal.  A while ago, I met a person for a thing.
Ok, I met a male person for a social thing.
Ok, I met a guy for a date, leave me alone!

I chose the time and place  – girl power, rawr! – but mainly because of my well-documented fear of being kidnapped.  I worry that certain members of my familial circle will be put off by the scale of the ransom demanded and I can totally hear one of my sisters saying: “You want how much?  Dude, for that kind of money we can buy ourselves a better Iris”.

Anyway, at the end of the encounter (the date, not the imagined kidnapping) I reached for my wallet, fished out a couple of notes and put down what I reckoned was about two thirds of the bill.  I’d had some cake, but shh, don’t tell.  He happily accepted my two thirds and plopped his share on top.

I found that quite…Whoa!

Call me medieval but I would’ve liked for him to offer to pay.  Just to be clear, I am saying “offer to pay” not “pay”.  I would most certainly have insisted on going halvsies.  And yes, I’m aware of the fact that it’s 2010, not 1810, but I’m still the girl, and he’s still the guy and the gesture, even if it had turned out to be an empty one, would’ve been appreciated.

While we’re on the subject:

• I still want him to be taller than me.
• And to carry the heavier bags.
• And to know about DIY.
• And to put that knowing to practical use when I break stuff stuff gets broken.
• And to know more about cars than me (I know nothing about cars but my mom did use her pantihose to replace a broken fan belt once when our car broke down on the highway in Johannesburg.  It was awesome.  By association, and osmosis, I like to sort of claim this feat as my own.  He needs to have equally MacGuyveresque car repair tricks up his sleeve.)
• And he should like to cook.  And match that liking with being good at it.
• And be at least a little bit into carpentry.

Come to think of it, this guy didn’t demonstrate any of these things during the few hours I spent with him.  I think I really dodged a bullet here.

I was out on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday – trying to meet my new people quota for the month. Mission accomplished, I think.

I also feel that I have met enough new people to last me through to the beginning of the next decade. Not because they weren’t all really nice – everyone has been lovely. But because this was my Everest. Mounted, branded and conquered, thank you very much.

And my date yesterday was a triumph. Define “triumph”? This guy didn’t bring another woman along.

So January 29 and I can confess a little something which I hadn’t wanted to write down in print in case I failed to do it …

My goal was to meet 31 new people this month.  One for each day of January.  Although not necessarily one on each day of the month.  It wasn’t actually my goal; it was the goal that J assigned me.  And she seems a very sensible sort so I thought to myself – this won’t be that hard.  But it kinda is.  Why?  Because people are a confusing bunch sometimes .  You know how you have to decode everything they say and no one says what they mean or means what they say and social interaction is laden with this really dense subtext that only the cool kids understand?

I, alas, am not one of the cool kids.

The rules of this tortuous “game”, are:

1.    I have to introduce myself to them, or they be introduced to me so that I know their names and vice versa
2.    They have to have a way of getting in touch with me after we both leave whatever venue we are at.

When this kicked off, in the second week of the month, the temptation to just scream “My name is Iris!!!!”, toss several hundred  business cards in the air like some sort of sharp-edged-confetti-flinging dervish and tear out of the room at breakneck speed, was strong.  But I overcame it and I think that once these last two days of Jan are over, J will be pleasantly surprised by how “meety and greety” I have been.

Some of the new people I’ve met actually got to see me dance.  Here’s the thing: I’m an awesome dancer.  False modesty has no place on one’s own blog, does it?  Sometimes when I am out dancing in a club or something, I’ll catch sight of myself in the mirror  and I’ll think “Daaaaaaayum, Girl”.

So the dancing is spectacular and the writing is passable.  Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to do all my social communication in those two ways?

I’m still about 13 people short, by the way, but I reckon that will sort itself out over the weekend.  If it doesn’t, I’ll just say it did.  Oh and if it does, I’ll also say it did.  So let’s just round stuff upwards now – to the nearest 31.

Score.

So I have decided I am going to go to one of those black women meetings.   I have always rejected being part of such associations because:

Reason #1
If there were a similar club for white men, I would a) resent the hell out of it and b) wonder what they were talking about that they felt dark-skinned people should not be privy to.  And, the conclusion I reached would freak me out.

Reason #2
I am not really a fan of “women” as a genus, or, rather, of the mythical sisterhood that purportedly binds us together.  One on one, Girls, we’re great.  But clump us together and we’re either a bunch of angry feminists or wilting daisies – without much light and shade in between. It’s kinda irksome – the lack of balance when we are en masse. For example, how annoying are those working mothers who bleat on and on about how short maternity leave is and what a wrench it is for them to have to leave little Bitsy after “only” one year of at-home mother-child bonding?  One year, for goodness sake! And I’m pretty sure it was a woman behind those obnoxious “Baby on Board” signs that make you want to rear end the vehicle in front of you just so you can say: “That’s what I think of your idiot sign”.  And what about the constant, passive aggressive competition we are in with each other?  For a prize none of us can really articulate but for which we’d happily set ourselves on fire if it meant winning?  And the workplace overcompensation.  Corporate Boss Woman scares me.  I don’t know if I want to be her, punch her in the face or run for my life.  Probably a little of all three.  And don’t get me started on the Great Make-Up Heist of 1864…That’s not an actual thing, by the way, but make-up is the Devil.  How did we ever get duped into believing we can only look/feel pretty when we are in disguise?  And yes, I wear it.  *Meep*.

Reason #3
I am not much of a joiner.   Cliques, by their very nature, are designed to separate and ostracize.   Which is kind of mean. Not that separation and ostracization are always bad.  But with this group, I realize that none of my friends in this city would be eligible to join.  Either because they aren’t black, or because they aren’t women.  Which seems odd to me.   And a little scary.  I always like to have back-up when going into a situation where I am meeting a bunch of unknowns.  To reduce the likelihood of my being kidnapped.  Or of someone spiking my drink and harvesting my organs in a back room that doubles as a laundry cupboard while I am lying paralyzed yet totally sentient.  These things happen.

Reason #4
On any night out, in any metropolis in any country on planet earth, go into the ladies’ bathroom some time between midnight and 3 am and you will find a woman – weeping and sniveling and vainly trying to stop her mascara from running.  The cause of her distress will always be a boy.  Yet the weeper is not always a girl.  Often she is old enough to know way better.  Occasionally, she is even old enough to know that she is old enough to know better.  TCOB (Toilet Crying Over Boys) is the worst.   It makes me mad at my uterus.

Reason #5
Racism makes me as …aaarrrggghhh!!! … as the next person.  Especially the unflinchingly blatant racism that black people face when living in monoracial Asia.  But here’s the thing: I. Do.  Not.  Want.  To.  Talk about it all day.  And, quite frankly, the fact that you’ve been through it too makes me feel worse, not better.  I really hope that this club doesn’t turn out to be one big fat pity party where we sit around and lick our post-apartheid, post-Obama presidency wounds all night.

Anyway, my friend T – who is very smart – thinks I should go.  She gave some reasons that sort of made sense – though not really.  But 2010 has to be the year I try more things out and I am very hopeful that the group turns out to be as great as I have heard it is.  And, of course, that they don’t hate me after reading this.  Or even hate me before reading this.  Wish me luck!

When a guy and a girl hang out and people assume that they must be having sex, one or both of them always says, “We’re just friends.”

Just friends.

Just.

The implication here is that friendship is the lesser of the two and if you are…um…partaking of the fruits of someone’s loins (or having the fruits of your loins partaken of) then you are forging a deep and significant connection far superior to friendship.

And yet anyone who has ever watched a porn film, read a kiss-and-tell story in a tabloid newspaper or lived on Earth knows that that’s patently not true.

So why the rush to minimize the significance of friendship?  After all, isn’t that what a relationship is, sans the sex?  And when has sex ever really been the great solidifier of intimacy?   Some might even argue that the two – sex and intimacy – are immiscible.  By “some” I don’t actually mean anyone. I just wrote that sentence to let slip that I know what immiscible means.  Holler at your girl.

At the end of 2009 I lost three of the four China-mates I genuinely considered friends – my hey-look-how-imperfect-and-neurotic-I-am-and-how-I-am-totally-comfortable-indulging-those-neuroses-around-you friends.

To greener pastures, I mean.  Not death.

The relationships that matter most to me, the ones that are a long, slow burn never feature sex.  They never have.  The ones with long comfortable silences – the ones with people I fall out with and make up with over again, the ones where the bare face and the scraped back hair are de rigueur. The ones that thrive without giving a second thought to stubbly legs; thickening upper lip moustaches; scratchy, unpedicured feet; unwaxed eyebrows; thick-rimmed specs and the same jeans three days in a row.  These are the ones I cherish.

The ones not born of geographical convenience (Let’s be friends because we’re both in China and the friend pool is, ironically, ridiculously tiny).  Or defined by the work context  (Let’s be friends because we need each other to get stuff done.) Or by the morning-after-the-night-before context (No further details available) .  These are the relationships that I miss.  With people who aren’t just friends.  Or just family.

Francis of Assisi asked God:

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;

I must admit that that is pretty much the opposite of what I’ll probably be praying for later.

That’s not a good sign, is it?  This dude was sainted, after all.

Dear World

So this is where we are right now:

In the red corner: Kanye West interrupts the insipid acceptance speech of some spotty-faced teenager accepting an award for a video she neither conceptualized nor directed nor produced.  Taylor Swift.  As in an adjective randomly tacked on to the end of a surname? Like “Barnes Hungry” or “Davies Oblique”? Ok.

In the blue corner is a 12-year old girl – some dirty old molester’s “bride” – who died during excruciating childbirth after 36 hours of labor. This CNN article says she “struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding…”. At 12.

• One of these stories should make us want to writhe and rail against a reality that is completely unacceptable.
• One of these stories should make us want to claw our way to the nearest mountain top, or at the very least, leap up onto our Twitter high horses, to scream our outraged revulsion.
• One of these stories should make us want to accuse and point angry fingers and wish this irreversible injustice into non-existence so that a young girl could get another chance.

And, according to my newsfeed, one of these stories did.

Not that outrage or wishing or mountain-top screaming ever made the blindest bit of difference to anyone.  In the end, it’s all just impotent noise, I know.

But still, a little bit of posturing and a couple of vacant platitudes would be so comforting right now.  If only to confirm that there hasn’t been a total disconnect.   I mean, what on earth is going on when everyone from Barack Obama to…whoever is on the opposite end of the “magnitude spectrum” will weigh in on this Kanye/Swift drivel but kids are being raped and their little bodies are buckling under the strain of a burden they should never have to bear yet no-one’s got anything to say about that?

Nothing like waking up to bit of oblivious narcissism in the morning.  I need a new newsfeed.  

Love

Angry Girl (Glad she’s got a blog because she’ll never be able to afford therapy)

Here’s what I would like.  For those expats who send out endless tweets about how they are singlehandedly bridging the gap between China and the West to get over themselves.  Right.  Over.  Their.  Deluded.  Selves.

I don’t think your swilling cocktails for 100RMB a pop at Pretentious Bar X is doing anything to bridge the intercultural divide and the fact that you’ve managed to convince yourself that it does, explains a lot about how people get sucked into joining cults and  jumping off buildings in the belief that the Great Grand Wizard will grow them a pair of wings before they land.

Last week, I thought about joining a volunteer organization. Truth be told, volunteering is not something that comes naturally to me.  Usually, I kinda have to know you before I am inclined to help you.

But I need to store up some major credit with God right now.  I need him to do me a huuuuuge solid and I figure that if I start volunteering, and giving back a little bit, he’ll be more predisposed to helping me out.  Yes, of course that’s how it works.

The logistics are still a nightmare and it may or may not be something I end up doing – we’ll have to see.  But it did make me think.

In the very unlikely event that I am ever asked to write a book on how to bridge the  Sino-Western Gap, you can expect just two, pithy chapters.

Step 1.    Stop fricking talking about it all the time.  It is tedious.

Step 2.    It’s not “helping” if you’re the only one who’s benefiting

On that note, here are some organizations in this smoggy, we’ll-catch-up-with-the-West-in-no-time-even-if-it-kills-you-us city that could probably do with a little help:

• BEAN Shanghai
• Project Hope
• Shanghai Red Cross
• Hands on Shanghai
• Shanghai Disabled People’s Federation
• Lifeline Shanghai

Yesterday I gave an interview for an article about Twitter people (tweeple?) in Shanghai. Here’s the thing with me: I have no filter when I talk to new people. I am invariably very nervous and this manifests itself as chattiness. I have to fill the air with words or else…Well,it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

So anyway: interview. Yesterday. The guy seemed a bit of a Twitter-skeptic. And I get it. In fact, I think I am one too.

At one point he said something along the lines of: Twitter is for losers with no life. Obviously, these were not his exact words, but I watch American legal dramas, I know what insinuation sounds like.

I didn’t know what to do with that. On one hand, he was articulating an opinion – nothing wrong with that. On the other, he was kinda talking smack about me since, I have to admit, twitter is something I have come to rely on quite heavily for a lot of things: like feedback, grammar surveys, idea-diving…

Where me and the Interviewer Man found we were in agreement, though, is that Twitter is not really for making friends. It’s about networking. About finding people who can help you to fulfill a specific aim. It’s not about warm feelings and cybercuddles (not those kinds of cybercuddles, Mind-in-the-gutter).

This is an email I received today from Company X, trying to sell me service Y. I am not a fan of direct mail marketing and unsolicited mail is the worst. I wrote back to them asking them to remove me from their mailing list.

***HYPOCRITE ALERT ON***

I’ve sent out my fair share of unsolicited emails in my time.

***HYPOCRITE ALERT OFF***

The thing that got me about this email is it was rather self-satisfied and overly familiar. Not the tone you want to hit when you enter someone’s inbox uninvited and are making first contact.

Here’s a tip about direct mail campaigns: either make them completely generic and don’t even try to disguise the fact that this is a mass mail run, or, take the time to pick out something distinctive about each addressee.

Don’t fall between the two stalls. It’s irksome and readers are unlikely to make it all the the way through to the end of an irksome email. (Much like this blog, one might argue).

I’ve cut out the choicest snippets below:

Hello Iris:

Really? First-naming me? We’re not doing the professionalism thing anymore? This is a hair’s breadth away from “G’day mate!”. Ugh. Not a great start.

I hope that you had a good time at the XYZ Event –

It was alright but do you really hope that? If I came up to you right this second and told you your life depended on your being able to list all your hopes, all of them, would the quality of little bitty ol’ me’s Saturday night experience make it onto your list? I suspect you’re not that bothered about what kind of time I had. And that’s alright. But why say that you are? Strike 1: inappropriately matey. Strike 2: insincere platitudes. Bleurgh.

Thank you for being interested in Service Y.

Eh? I’ve never even heard of Service Y. Instead of congratulating yourself on how into it I am, why not tell me what it is? Strike….

And (I) hope that you have a great time in <city name>.

Three! Strike three! When am I going to <city name>? What for? Why are you thrusting random travel itineraries upon me and peppering your email with references I don’t even recognize?

Blah, blah blah. Details, numbers, stats,

Let me know if you have any questions, and have fun with Service Y

and at XYZ Event!

Fabulous. And you let me know if you have any questions about, oh, I don’t know, cold fusion or quantitative easing.

Best,

Yeah?

<writer’s first name, with no surname>

I give up.