I went on a blind date and fell in love with myself coming home
By: Lily Jaqueline
Tags: Short Story, Date, Relationships, Youngadult, Feminism

Clearly, the saturation filter on Instagram blinded me from clear cognition. I must have thought I was in a music video by The 1975, with sunshine gleaming on every corner, overwhelmed with fleeting laughter and persuading my fans that love was as easy and as clean as it looked on screen. But, when the lights came on and delivered our lines, we were missing something: our happy ending. And I should have detected the signs.

The Game

“Okay, here are your options for the evening,” I yelled, crossing the street. As the pedestrian lights turned green, my swift legs marched forward. “You want to stay here in Gangnam and eat mediocre pizza or do you mind driving 20 minutes to get really good pizza?” I turned to look at him. He nodded in silence.

On the other side of the crosswalk, we jumped into a cab in search of sub-par Italian cuisine. He seemed simple; so far, so good. As I buckled my seatbelt, I looked out to the mobs of people crammed in the small alleyways of downtown Seoul. As I looked ahead at the rush hour traffic, I glimpsed his hand reach for his phone. His thumb swiped up, unlocking the screen, to show me a screenshot of a map on his cracked Android.

He moved in closer. Smooth, I thought.

“We’re not in the vicinity of this red dot are we?” he asked me in a fretful voice, pointing to the dot on the screen. His Rami-Malek eyes shook a little, like he was hoping I would say no.

“Yeah, that was where we just were,” I said, indicating to him on the map while trying to read his wary facial expression.

Welcome, Player One. Are you ready?

Yes.

First Task: Detect suspicious points of interest. In the top left hand corner of the screen, I saw her name.

Immediately, the map dissipated, and darkness took over the car. He shoved his phone into his back pocket.

Player One, Will You Still Play The Game?

Yes.

“Your girlfriend must be very generous to let you get dinner with some unknown female,” I said as I lowered the window to look away and smile.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Level One: Win!

The Non-Disclosure Agreement

The dinner was amazing — rosé gambi and funghi thin crust Sicilian pizza.

“Should I cut my hair here before I go to China, or no?” he asked. He turned on his phone to look at himself in his camera.

“Do you have any photos of you with shorter hair?” I said, wiping my fingers on the napkins. “Let me see them.” Taking his phone from his hands to get a closer view, I felt a sudden pull. Not pulling me in, but pulling the phone back.

“No, I’m not giving you my phone.”

For the rest of the night, he stayed loyal to the non-disclosure agreement he had signed with his cellular device. When he wasn’t texting the girl, he kept it in his pocket or underneath his leg. When he wasn’t hiding it, he was looking for it.

He lost it three times — once every hour. Tsk Tsk. You fretful child.

The Fossil Watch

“That’s a pretty sweet watch,” I commented.

“It’s pretty cheap,” he replied turning the clock inwards towards his chest. He looked away.

“It’s still sweet, regardless of how much it costs,” I said, taking his wrist and turning it outwards again. “Was it a Christmas gift?”

“Birthday. My travel mate,” he coughed and averted his eyes. “She has okay taste.”

I stopped, processed, and then it all clicked. “She”. The map, the texting. How could I have missed all these clues throughout the night? It wasn’t a game anymore, he was dishonest.

“Cute, didn’t you say you were going to China for New Year’s? Is she Chinese?”

“Yeah,” he finally replied, looking back, giddy with excitement.

“That’s so sweet. How long have you two been dating?” I asked.

“It’s complicated,” he muttered. Then turned immediately towards me to explain his blunder. “It’s not..”

I cut him off. “Save it.” I looked at my watch: 9:43pm. “I’ll pay for dinner.” I signed the bill and took off.

On my walk to the train station, I gathered that he was emotionally dependent on his friend — a territory I could not cross because this was his to figure out. I wasn’t going to tell him how to live his life, even though I wanted for him to change his mind or realize what he was doing wrong.

And to be frank, I couldn’t help but identity with his decisions and his emotional state. I’ve been there: caring for a friend so much so that you drop everything, even a date, to go help the friend out. But, here’s the reality: you are doing that because you have feelings, whether you know it or not. If you are not sure, ask yourself this question: can you live in your worst nightmare without reaching out to that specific individual?

However, despite these acknowledgements, nothing justifies the dishonesty and his intention to swindle me by averting my question. I was more enraged by his lack of moral ground more so than the fact that he deemed me his “distraction woman”.

Otherwise, without sorting out your feelings and priorities for what you want in your own future and relationships, you begin to jump haphazardly into other people’s love lives. And to be blunt, that’s selfish. You want your own future, to find someone who empowers you, yet that’s what everyone wants. We all deserve someone who loves us unconditionally.

Whereas I was ready to give you exactly what you wanted, your hasty heart led you to confuse people with your emotions. To give you a metaphor, I was waiting for him with a full plate of homemade gourmet food and hoping that he would bring the same quality and quantity for me. Yet, to my surprise he was dangling leftovers in my face, explaining to me that he had already given away the entree.

His situation was messy. On my train ride home, I realized that I was in a place at this young of an age where I knew that I deserved so much better than to be someone’s second choice. Because he was too timid to clarify his relationship and feelings with his travel companion, I knew he wasn’t worth another hour of my evening. I would much rather be at home reading and spending quality time with people who saw my self-worth.

We often see this epiphany in movies: the girl stands up for herself and says “hey, I deserve better”, and her best friend chants “yeah!”. But, to realize and discover the treasure that is self-empowerment — I will never forget that subway ride home. I was Sandra Bullock strutting off the football field at the end of the movie. As I carried myself with poise and stature, I felt strong, not from the affirmation received from a male but from my own independence.