Confessions of a Cat-holic (233)

Here was my other confession. During that year I lived with Eddie, I took shower three times a day on average, and brushed my teeth around five times a day. I wore make up to sleep. I also applied a mask at least once every night. I applied body scrubs twice a day. I had to remove my make up and put on make up for another hour or so before I went to his place. I could only afford to do that when I dropped all my classes to minimum workload in my junior year. I didn't have time to dress up for him when I interned, which was why I didn't want to live with him that summer. I didn't want to expose my busy and exhausted self in front of him yet. But then I kind of regretted it now; I felt that I was very silly. I should have moved in with him that summer. But at that time, I worried that he would call me ugly and 師奶 if he saw my bare face without any make up. I didn't know how his ex-girlfriends looked. But judging from the way he talked to me and treated me during our one year relationship, I had a feeling that he had very high standards for girls. I didn't want to make Hong Kong girls look bad, you know. Also I always suspected that he liked Iris, Jason's ex-girlfriend. Iris was drop dead gorgeous, as I mentioned before. I didn't want to leave a bad impression on Eddie. But now that I thought about it, I had to admit that I was overthinking, worrying about really stupid stuff. As I got older, I figured that I needed to be more of myself in front of my love. But at that time, I found him too attractive to be true, so I made a series of decisions to hide my genuine self which I now considered nonsense. This could be another reason why I wouldn't want to see him anymore, I didn't want to ruin his impressions of me.

I also hated to have to speak in English when I was with Eddie. I wanted to speak my mother tongue. So I picked up Korean after I went out with him. I didn't know whether he spoke Korean better or English. But I definitely preferred to speak in Chinese. He actually told me that he knew Chinese too. He called me Mei Mei when we dated. And my heart really just melted like that. I sometimes stuttered a few words in Korean, but I had very limiting command of Korean at the time I dated him. I felt that he wouldn't understand my innate self. I was nothing like the girl he lived with in New York. I just wanted to be best version of me as possible so he could fall in love with me. But then I felt that I was slaving myself and forcing myself to become someone else. I always worried that he wouldn't like the real me, you know, the fat couch potato who wanted to do nothing but chill. But I really wanted him to like me, so I learned cooking and pretended that I could do housework. Actually, I hated doing the housework. He took me to do laundry with him once. I was very impressed. He actually sorted the socks, white with white, colored with colored. If he ever found out that I never even made my bed in my dorm, I would bet he could run away from me. I felt like a schemer too. I was nothing like the girl who dated him that year. The real me was very laid back and ugly when seen without make up.

He never told me anything personal, apart from showing me his family picture and taking me to meet with his brother. His brother looked very much like him. He went to NYU at the time, a few years younger. He moved to Hong Kong for a banking job too. But I didn't like his brother, not romantically at least. I found him attractive though. But I didn't like his personality. There was something about his character I didn't like. Maybe it was his horoscope. I didn't know what it was, but I just didn't like him enough to make him my friend. Eddie told me that his mother was a singer from Korea. I googled her up and saw their performances online. Apparently, she was a big star in the 70s and 80s. But their music was only so-so, and their dance choreography was also nothing like the K-pop you would see now, especially when compared with the artists from Hong Kong in the same period.