Category Archives: Relationships

A toast 

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

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I am going to be my college best friend’s bridesmaid next week, and she just asked me if I wanted to do a toast at the rehearsal dinner. My first reaction was to say no. I hate public speeches. But then the recently more vocal and adventurous part of me said, why not? What have I got to lose? So here goes… 

Just when I thought that the University of Chicago was full of poorly dressed nerds and geeks, I met K. The epitome of style and wit. 

We immediately bonded over designer jeans and our love for steak. We laughed over how our math professor kept backing into the rubbish bin. We switched classes just because the professor was hot and had a British accent. Turns out he was also smelly and not so hot up close. We ate chicken mcnuggets when we felt guilty over a shopping spree.  And we travelled around Europe together. Taking pictures with cute policemen and running away from sketchy gondola guys. For me it was an amazing four years and it wouldn’t have been the same without K. 

During all this time, lurking in the background was D. They were always texting and calling each other. They would rush to hang up on each other first. Not because they can’t wait to end the call. But because they want to be the last one to say “I love you more.” Long distance is never easy. But somehow they made it work. 

They are the quintessential high school sweethearts. And after all these years, we can all finally breathe a sigh of relief that they are finally tying the knot tomorrow. To the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. S, I wish you all the happiness in the world. 

Happy Valentine’s!

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

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20120215-124552.jpg

Inspired by the Valentine’s display at Landmark, Hong Kong (left), this is my favourite flower bouquet yet! A combination of tulips, hydrangeas, roses and other types of flowers and shrubberies that I cannot name, it is just perfect. It looks a lot more purple in the white office light (top) and a lot more pink under the yellowy home light (bottom), but either way I just love looking at it. It makes me smile and feel all dreamy 🙂

I hope everyone had a happy Valentine’s day!

Ps. I am loving the “Photos Wall” iPhone app – super handy. The hours on Photoshop it would’ve saved me back in the days!

Rejected

18 Saturday Sep 2010

Posted by in Random Musings, Relationships

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I’ve been busy with a new beginning in the last few weeks. Now that I finally have a moment to catch up on my me time, I wanted to share with everyone something new that I learnt last night from my Canadian friend- a professional flirt/partygoer.

Apparently, in the States/Canada when a guy whom you’re not interested in asks for your number and you don’t know how to say no, there is a rejection hotline number you can give them to let them know. When they call the number, they will receive an automated message saying that they have not reached the intended person and that they’ve been rejected.

I was amazed by the genius of the idea! Turns out, this has been around since the early 2000’s and has grown into a whole Humor Hotline business since. Obviously I’ve been living under a rock. My only question is, how does one go about memorizing all these numbers to give out? You’d think that you’d know what your own number is without having to look it up!

To budding entrepreneurs in Asia, we can really use one of these in Hong Kong.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

14 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by in Blogging, Random Musings, Relationships

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I went Artjamming recently, which is a 2 hour session where they provide you with all the tools you need with music jamming in the background, and this is what I ended up with:

Given my limited artistic capabilities and unimaginative nature, I decided to go with a simple shape and work on the color and texture. As simple as it looks, I’ll have you know that I probably spent a little over a hour working on the texture of the heart to get it to look like this. It turns out that texturizing is much harder than it looks and if you are not careful, you will over work it….

….and it’ll end up looking like this, which is neither here nor there. It looked much better in my imagination. It’s a good thing I took a picture of it before I decided to be done with it!

But yes, Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my readers for sticking around in the last year. It’s officially been 1 year and 14 days since I started to blog alone. I was so busy cramming for an exam on Feb 1st that I completely forgot until now. I know there’s been ups and downs, and quite some bit of inconsistency, but I appreciate your patience and I’ll try to do better this year. There’s been quite a lot of changes lately i.e. I finally got tired of Chicago and moved back to Hong Kong, but hopefully it is all for the better. I love you all!

Things you don’t want your BF to know

12 Friday Feb 2010

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Usually around this time every year, I’ll post a few Valentine’s gift ideas for lost souls wandering around the grounds of Henri Bendels. But I’ve already made one suggestion and I’m sure that the internet is already chock full of such ideas anyway. So I’m going to take a different approach this year and give my thoughts on certain subjects instead.

  1. Chocolate Making: When we say we “made” you chocolate, it actually means we melted chocolate, reshaped it for you using a mold and then refrigerated it. We didn’t actually make anything. It’s almost like playing with play-doh except we did it with food. To top it off, genius stores like Muji also provides us with easy ready-made kits, which includes all the tools/ingredients we need with step-by-step instructions (and even an online tutorial). In all the standardization, there is even room for “creativity” with decorating. Minimal effort with full marks for DIY effort, what more can a girl ask for? Thank you Muji!
  2. “Personalized” Items : Whoever invented sticking one’s picture onto any surface possible was a genius. Who doesn’t like constantly looking at themselves and their loved ones? Plus it allows the giver to appear thoughtful in their gift-giving even though it really just took them a few minutes to upload the pictures from the comforts of their home onto Shutterfly, fill in the form, click submit and have it delivered. Not that I’m begrudging all photo gifts, but I like to think of them as aids for expressions instead of an easy way out. A whole bunch of personalized photo gifts wouldn’t exactly match the decor of my apartment if you know what I mean. On the other hand, my friend got a personalized puzzle for her special someone this year and had it completed and framed as a present. The framed picture is probably nothing new, but the time spent putting it together and all is very sweet (Psst! I hear that in some places they put the pieces together for you).

A Not So Cliche Cliche

20 Wednesday Jan 2010

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Dear Clueless Boyfriends,

In case you’ve not noticed, Valentine’s day is in the horizon again. And so I thought it is time to share an idea I recently heard about from a friend trying to buy his girlfriend something nice for her birthday. Instead of getting her a typical boring heart-shaped Tiffany necklace (yes fellas, you know which one I’m talking about), he got his girlfriend a David Yurman necklace. It is not something fabulously unique or anything, but it definitely made me a little green hearing about it. How on earth did he even know about David Yurman? If I randomly asked a guy on the streets, I’m positive that at least 80% of them will not know what it is. Apparently, he heard about it from his female friends and even went so far as to get one to go with him to pick one out, knowing his own inferiority when it comes to jewelry picking (I know someone who returned a bracelet she recieved for Vday back to the store because it was so ugly). His resourcefulness and thoughtfulness immediately put him up a few notches in my books!

In case you’ve not heard, David Yurman is a jewelry brand name from the US that is a favourite amongst the trendy set, including Kate Moss. Not that there is anything wrong with Tiffany, but that heart does get a little old when you start seeing it on every girl’s neck on the streets. David Yurman’s jewelry on the other hand, is elegant and understated. Your girlfriend will feel special to be amongst this exclusive set. You’ll also be happy to know that it won’t break the bank like anything at Cartier or Van Cleef Arpels will. You can get something very nice for around $300 or above.  Pssst! He’s famous for his cable knit jewelries like the cables below (all are around $350):

You might be thinking that getting her a necklace is still kind of cliche, but there is cliche and then there is cliche. There is the Tiffany heart-shaped necklace cliche, that is almost like buying someone a box of Godiva chocolates because you don’t know what to get them and figured that everyone likes Godiva chocolates. Then there is the David Yurman necklace cliche, that is like buying someone a box of Varlhona chocolates (or whichever suits their taste better). Everyone does like chocolate, but to really hit the mark, it depends on which kind.

I hope this helps!

BG

He Get’s It!

17 Saturday Oct 2009

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This morning, my friend sent me this article. Glancing at the title: Why real men DO buy women flowers, I thought it would be just another boring old relationship column. I read it anyway, since I had nothing I wanted to do more. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the writing was actually really good. It made a lot of sense and it was not cheesy or sappy at all. I actually got teary when he described how his mother recieved a birthday present from his father, 45 minutes after his father died! I think he was right on the spot when he said that “flowers are, just a simple, easy way of letting someone know they were in your thoughts.”

As a master procrastinator, of course I had to click in to read John DeVore’s other articles. He did not disappoint. His articles are insightful yet hilarious. A few favourites:

Whatever You Do, Don’t Cohabitate

“I could make a fortune if I opened a store for bachelors called “Foam Block Depot,” where a single man could purchase all kinds of large-, medium-, and small-sized foam blocks that he could stack into couches, beds, tables and chairs. Spill-proof, soft yet firm, and totally utilitarian – they’d come in two colors, “industrial” and “medium-rare.””

Where All The Good Guys Are

“…love is intently listening to someone repeat themselves.” – my dad must really love my mom!

 The Number One Lesson I Will Teach My Future Son About Women

“What most men don’t immediately get is that for women, talking is its own reward. By talking, you are playing a game of Tetris in your head, rearranging all the differently shaped thoughts of your day into a winning order……She would complain, and I would butt in with ACTION PLANS. I came off condescending and bossy.”

Hmm it would be funny if I’m sitting here marvelling at the insightfulness of DeVore’s articles and he’s actually more like Kevin from 27 Dressses, who didn’t even like writing his super touching wedding articles.

White Day

15 Sunday Mar 2009

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Last Friday when my colleague IM-ed me and told me he had something for me, I assumed that he had finally figured out a solution to the work-related problem that has been plaguing me for months. I was perplexed when he showed up at my desk with a box of Godiva chocolates instead and told me that it was to thank me for all the sweets I’ve treated you to (for the record, I distribute my sweets equally amongst my peers). I was glad I was too busy on the phone for further potentially awkward conversation beyond a simple thanks.

Afterward, I spent a good hour or so analyzing what the chocolates could mean with my girl friends. I even tried very discretely to ask my guy friend what it generally means when a guy gives a girl chocolates. Is it just a nice, thank you gesture as he said? Or does it mean more? My girl friends squeled and gave me knowing looks, while my guy friend told me that he generally doesn’t give a female friend chocolates in case they “got the wrong idea.” In the end, I decided to stop thinking about it and take it at face value, since that is what I want to believe. See, I was just complaining about him the other day to my friends, about how he acts like a whiny little kid when he is clearly beyond the age for it. I know that he is probably used to being coddled, being the only boy in an Asian family of many sisters, but in the real world, people really don’t care (or want to know) if he has a mouth sore or not and how he takes care of it. I’m his friend, not his mom.

But then I was talking to a friend in Hong Kong and she mentioned that this weekend was White Day i.e. the Japanaese/South Korean/Taiwanese version of Valentines day. I thought it was strange that he’d chosen white chocolates since they’re generally not anyone’s first choice and I’ve never expressed a preference for them (in fact, they’re not my thing). I thought maybe they were on sale. But now everything makes sense.

“Traditionally, popular White Day gifts are cookies, jewellery, white chocolate, and marshmallows”

The skinny jeans, the man bag and the swag in his walk (if I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought he was gay)- all signs that he worship the Japanese culture. No wonder he also celebrates the Japanese Valentine’s day! But while I am very flattered to be the recipient of his Godiva chocolates (it is a very sweet gesture of very good taste), I’d frankly really rather have a solution to the work-related problem that has been plaguing me for months instead as a thanks. If only my cute Korean colleague had given me white chocolates….

A word of advice to other guys who wants to give a girl chocolates on White day but doesn’t live in Japan, S Korea or Taiwan- other girls (who are not of the three origins either) may not be as astute as I and be confused by this random gesture.

A Random Encounter

04 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by in Random Musings, Relationships

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Dear London Writer,

I just wanted to say thank you for following me into Neiman Marcus the other night and chatting me up. Your pick up line was a bit cliche, but it totally worked. I did indeed felt very chic and stylish walking down Michigan Avenue in my black trench coat, maroon tights and knee length brown wedge boots. I too thought my white ear muffs look very cute. Your compliment made it almost worth it for me to freeze my legs off in the cold in order to wear my skirt and maroon tights.

I liked how you went straight to the point and addressed your creepy behavior before I even realized what was going on. Indeed, I initially thought you were some ‘modelling agency scout’ out to scam me, a charity representative trying to get me to donate money/sign up for something or a stranger asking for directions. I was actually flattered by your “surprise” when I admitted that I don’t get chatted up on the streets by random guys very often (make that never).  I know, I am a sucker for empty flattery.

I also admired how smooth and confident you were. You completely carried on the conversation by yourself, making smooth transitions between topics, leading it to where you want it to and requiring the minimum effort out of me. There were not even any awkward silences! “Oh you’re from London? (that is probably why my trench coat caught his eye- it was like a hello from the motherland!), yes I’m working here, yes it is really cold out there (the classsic conversation filler), oh you are a writer? Aren’t you a bit too young to be?, yes I love to travel… blah blah”. It was nice, brainless banter. You also successfully made yourself sound very wordly and cool when you started talking about your friends from all over, traveling around for your writing etc etc. It almost made me curious about you and take your bate when you started asking about cool places to go to/hang out at in Chicago.

But alas, my mom’s edict about talking to strangers started drumming in my head, so I not-so-discretely looked down at my phone clock pretending that I was late to meet someone (which is actually the truth. That someone just happened to be late!). I’m impressed by how quickly you took the hint and made a graceful exit. That was possibly the most non-awkward potentially-awkward conversation with a stranger I’ve ever had. So even though I was probably not the most friendly or receptive participant, know that the exchange brought a smile to my face. I will probably not recognize you should I ever meet you again (I have facial recognition issues), but I will definitely watch out for a random young London author the next time I go to the bookstore (even though it will be difficult since I don’t even know your first name).

Best of Luck,

BG

Ps. To other random guys on the street: don’t try this if you are not at least decent looking  or half as smooth and charming.

Pps. This is NOT one of those random blog posts/craig lists posts to look for random strangers that people “connected” with on the train from an exchange of glances

Cheating

01 Sunday Feb 2009

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During lunch the other day…

Friend 1: So I spent my weekend consoling my friend in California. She and her boyfriend of 7 years just broke up

The “awww” sound was made around the table as is appropriate after such an announcement.

Friend 1: She just discovered the her boyfriend has been cheating on her…. with another GUY!

Reactions varied. The majority sympathized with the girl, as one is inclined to do when one learns that someone has been cheated on. Our gay guy friend on the other hand doesn’t feel quite the same.

Gay guy friend: Well at least he cheated on her with a guy.

Friend 1: What? But isn’t it just awful? It’s as if he’s saying that being in a relationship with her was so bad that she has turned him off the whole female race forever!

Gay guy friend: Trust me, you don’t just turn someone gay. So it’s really nothing against her personally.

Friend 2: But that means that he lied to her and wasted her time for the last 7 years! At least if he’d cheated on her with another girl, she can tell herself that well at least she’d tried and he’s just an a hole for not appreciating how fabulous she is. It’s a bit harder to blame someone for their sexual orientation.

But is there a ‘better’ way to be cheated on? Or is cheating cheating, regardless of whether your partner left you for their own sex or not?