mahiwaga

Innocently, M asks me why it is that some Asian men get pissed off when they see a white guy dating an Asian woman. M is a Pinay in the Midwest who has only ever dated white guys.

I know that my brother gets irritated by it. M's cousin does as well. While I don't really feel strongly one way or the other, I can understand why some Asian dudes feel that way.

I mean, even I kind of flinched a little when my oldest friend B (who is, yes, a white guy) told me about his wild sexual escapade with this Pinay he used to work with. It was a visceral reaction. I can't really seem to explain it.

Without making it too political and too racially charged, part of it simply the inferiority complex that it foists upon Asian men. In typical chauvanistic fashion, some of us take it as personal affront to our ego. The perception is that it sends the message that Asian men clearly suck.

Now I'm not indicting any individuals here. I'm only meta-interpreting the societal gestalt. It is simply a naieve psychological exploration of the few guys I've met who have this hangup. I honestly don't know what white people think of this phenomenon, although I have certainly met quite a few Asian fetishists.

But the sad fact of the matter is that it reinforces particular stereotypes and self-defeating attitudes. The asexual Asian male. The disempowerment of the Asian male in a dominantly white society. It can cause a kind of invisibility. I remember that A and I felt it when we used to live in the Midwest. Living on the West Coast, or visting NYC, even I would get a few looks and smiles from women, but in the Midwest, I might as well not have been there. I might as well have had a shaved head in Buddhist monk fashion and a big sign saying "Eunuch" taped to my back.

True, it's all in how you choose to perceive certain stimuli. I'm not saying it's right to feel this way, but, there you have my interpretation. In case you've ever been wondering.

…the way you plan them to.

As if I wasn't acutely aware of that fundamental fact that governs the universe.

Anyway, my mind is really not functioning these days. I think I've come to the trough of this year. I may have made it over the wall, but now I'm becalmed.

I'm getting nowhere, fast.

But I've been bitching about how one-dimensional my life has gotten these days. Outside of work, there is this huge gaping void, and lately, I've been avoiding this chasm by either going to work, or sleeping.

Sometimes I hate holidays.

I have all this time to think. For some reason, despite being told by my oldest friend B from practically the day we met that I think too much, I still think too much.

If you get what I'm saying.

Ah hell. I should just go to sleep.

I can't get to sleep I think about the implications Of diving in too deep And possibly the complications… —from "Overkill" by Colin Hay

As I've been trying to say, I've been fretting about how one-dimensional my life is. I've noticed how empty of content my days are now that I've managed to catch up with some of my friends whom I haven't talked to in months. They ask me, "So, what's new?" and I try and try and rack my brain, but there's nothing.

A conversation with my ex-roommate B reminds me that "this too shall pass."

Anyway. I've been pondering how my life has very few degrees of freedom. (OK this is going to sound nuts, but) I feel like I'm trapped between two Casimir plates. There's all this energy that's getting stored here, all this weirdness popping into reality, and I just have this feeling that when get out from between these plates, reality is going to be a bitch to pay back. (OK, I admit it. I'm a sick bastard. And the biggest nerd you'll ever meet. I read books about quantum mechanics for fun. Even though I don't know how to do math more complicated than algebra.)

I'm a virtual photon streaking through the quantum soup generated by pushing too unyielding surfaces too close together without actually touching.

I'm not even high.

I'm going to get to sleep now even if it kills me, damn it.