Plenty of Fish in the sea.

Sorry to have left you in disappointment but I have to say that I felt obligated to remove my post from last week due to complaints of its offensiveness. While I will try to be a bit more sympathetic in certain regards, please do not worry, my blogues will not turn into mindless boring blurbs that have no "color" or appeal. I shall not disappoint.

So for today's little bit of Taiwanese Enlightenment I would like to discuss a recent night I had where I encountered my first rendez-vu with a real live Taiwanese girl.

The story starts like all great love stories, in a crowded, rap playing, smoke-infused night club at about 330 in the morning. I was perusing around the "club" seeking to indulge my sweet tooth in a bit of the old booty dancing. I tried dancing with some girls here and there in the rap music room but none felt like they might offer the sort of emotional depth that I look for in a girl I meet at some random club in the middle of the night. So I decided I would make my way over to the techno room where dancing there is merely of form jumping around and doing whatever the hell you want to do. It was there that by chance I met a delightful young lady by the name of Katrina.

We didn't really do much talking in between our circling and hip thrusting on the dance floor but we did meet eyes once and I while and I knew that I had found a real spark plug of sorts. We spent the rest of the night together bouncing from her table to mine and enjoyed ourselves as any self respecting clubbers might do by drinking long pours from various liquor bottles randomly distributed throughout both tables. In all this Katrina was quick enough to put her phone number on my phone which saved me the rest of the night when I forgot her name every five minutes. To make things short we spent the night having fun and I woke up on my buddies couch not quite sure as to where I was. (He found himself on the bathroom floor.) Quite classy in all.

After that night I thought that we would never see each other again and I was quite saddened at having to accept that I might never see my dance partner again. That thought only lasted about 5 minutes between when I woke up at 130 in the afternoon and her first call rang on my phone. I let the phone ring simply because I did not quite feel awake enough to enjoy a good ole chat with my new princess. I talked to my friend about the night and had some laughs at other happenings that had taken place throughout all the while watching the calls and text messages mount up and up.

After a good breakfast I left my friend's house and decided to respond to the 4 calls and 3 text messages I had received from Katrina. I found her to be quite well and excited at having met me the previous night. She certainly made that clear by her desire to talk this day. We talked a little about not much and the whole time I was finding it a bit hard to bridge our different language abilities. "Oh well, I'll give it a chance" I thought, "we could have a good time." So we made plans to go on a lovely date the next Wednesday.

Wednesday was a long wait, especially for Katrina who called me every couple of hours those next two days and even sent me a late night text message saying "I miss you so much." This started making me think, "why don't I miss her too? Did we not have a 'connection' at the alcohol fueled binge party? Do I really know anything about this girl? Do I even know what she looks like? " Nonetheless, Wednesday did indeed arrive as it often does and our date was planned.

I was going to go right after work so I had to dress a bit nicer than I normally do for work. I didn't know what to say as to my night's plans because I really didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know where we were meeting. I don't think I really knew anything.

I called Katrina after work and had another in our fantastic attempts in conversation that would have been made so much easier if I could just speak some Chinese.

"Hi, how are you?" I said
"Hi, why you always say how are you before me?" she asked
"Uhhhh... well I want to know how you are."
"Yes, but you want me to ask?"
"You can ask."
"But you always ask first. I cannot ask" she didn't seem upset.
"I am sorry, you want to ask now?"
"No"
I thought at this point it would be a good time to shift the conversation to a new topic that might be a bit more successful.
"So are you ready to hang out tonight?" Aren't I sly.
"Hang? What you do? I don't understand. You come to my office?" I didn't remember conversations like these during our club night. Although I wasn't sure if we had really talked about much that night.
"Yeah, I will come to your office." I said
"You come here?" she asked excitedly.
"Ok, but can you tell the taxi man how to get to your office?" I rarely ride a taxi on my own and if I do I usually just say one street I sort of know and then say stop when he drives me somewhere I recognize. I do a lot of walking this way.

After she consented to help me out I found a cab and immediately handed the phone to the cab driver who proceeded to talk about where to go and maybe asked why all these stupid Americans come around their country not knowing shit about anything and still picking up girls. Or maybe they talked about something else, I don't really know.

I got there and had just enough money to pay the cabby with the change in my pocket. I was a little scared because I didn't know where I was and had forgotten to pick up any money before going on this date. I was already imagining the apron I would wear as I washed dishes to pay for our meal.

Luckily the man dropped me off and I paid him. Once the cab drove off I realized, I am in a different part of town now but I still don't know where I am, what I am supposed to do, or who I am looking for, oh and I am out of money. Some planning eh?

Luckily, I got back in contact with Katrina and eventually she figured out I was on a street corner actually quite cold because I was planning on spending my hard saved jacket money (fresh out the ATM) on tonight's dinner.

She came out the doors and man was I shocked. A vague image of her floated back into my head but she still seemed a lot different than the Taiwan's Next Top Model that I thought I might have met in my sloppy slurry condition. She was indeed a bit older and a less attractive. However, nothing terrible just a little different. I quickly realized that I was perhaps not the Brad Pitt she had imagined either, so I put on a smile and got ready for a nice evening.

Katrina and I talked while walking to an "American" restaurant she thought I would like and I felt like the conversation was flowing a lot better than it had on the phone. Sure the sentences were choppy and void of many grammar complexities but the heart was there and it was strong.

We stopped in front of the doors of an English pub and she said, "here we are." Ok maybe not quite an American spot but maybe they just think all white people look the same and are the same. I think maybe other cultures are guilty of that one too.

We went in and sat down and looked at menus and I ordered a beer because I thought I might want one once things got going and then the conversation began...

"So, what do you think?" Wow, as if English wasn't hard enough for this girl I have to start the chat with that crappy ass question.
"What you say?" Ok totally my fault let's try that again.
"So am I a disappointment to you?" What the hell am I doing? Did I fall down the stairs right before entering this bar?
"Disappoint me. Oh you not tall and ehhhhhhhhh you are not handsome. But you are cute." Ok so I deserved that one. Maybe not so soon into the date but ok, you start conversations like this one and things like that are bound happen.
"Well sorry, I guess we had a wilder night than we might have thought." I said.
"What you say?" Ok, give up on that one.
"Do you like movies?" I was really trying this time.
"Yes, I like all movies, but not many movies......eh.....sorry what you mean?" she asked with a smile.
"No you are right. I like a lot of movies too." Hey look at that we were agreeing on something. Maybe this date would work out.

We continued a simple talk like this and I must say that I got over the fact that she was going to be completely honest about how she felt with the situation and maybe she understood that I was not going to be very honest about how I thought things were going. It was pretty much like every other date I have ever been on.

And I think that is when I realized "hey, she does look older than the 28 that she told you and is a bit disappointed that you are only 26 (oops), and maybe she isn't the prettiest bird out there, and maybe she did make you change meals right when they were put on the table because she liked your obviously better dish more, and maybe she smoked several menthols after eating about about three bites of her meal that cost me my jacket money, and maybe she did have to go at nine because she still lives with her parents and has to be home early, and maybe I did at one point think about asking her what her favorite color was because the conversation had dwindled down to a tiny belt holding our giant waist of mistranslation together; but maybe she isn't so bad?"So maybe I will hang out with this girl, or I suppose I should say woman seeing as how she has a car and a career and all, again.

Or maybe I won't. Later that night I went to a Taiwanese bar with Dunkle where, using my post date confidence, I got three numbers from some girls who were in fact young and quite beautiful. Maybe I just gotta keep on playing that ball game until I find a good one. Plenty o' fish in Taiwan.

Another one coming soon to a theater near you.

That is all I can say right now because I stayed up too late watching Lord of the Rings. Sorry. Don't worry, I still care about you all a great deal and I won't let you down. I already have a new collection of wild and interesting stories to impart upon you. I am also getting paid tomorrow which means this weekend you can be assured that I will have something good to report. Keep your eyes open.