the tiger always comes first

i'm sure that you've gotten at least once over email that dumb, allegedly dalai lama-based personality test where you are asked 4-5 questions and your entire personality is encapsulated by the symbolism behind your choices based on the dalai lama's beliefs or whatever. you know, the one where you rank your favorite animal - horse, sheep, cow, tiger. i always pick tiger first, which, at the end, you discover means that you choose pride over everything else - family, career, and love. and, having often been accused of being emotionless and overly logical (fuck that, i'm an aquarius. it's comes with the territory), this comes as no big surprise. it's kinda just par for the course.

this brings me to my next subject, a rather niggling situation that one friend likes to refer dramatically as an 'incident' last saturday night.

i wouldn't even be writing about it here if the drama hadn't kept continuing up to today. it's laughable, actually.

i'll tell you a story. there was once this girl who decided to move to shanghai and escape her life for a while. she lived with her best friend and for several months she had a great time, meeting lots of new people, going to parties, and relaxing in a way that she never could while she was living in her home country. one of the friends she made in shanghai was a boy that her friends kept teasing her about, that he liked her a lot and all this shit. in truth, the boy was very nice but they were just friends and he had a penchant for flirting with everything in his path and making out with lots of girls in front of her. she didn't mind this because she figured someone who really liked her wouldn't do something like that, so her friends must be exaggerating.

the boy decided to leave shanghai and so he did. meanwhile, life went on and the girl had a few adventures of her own before her birthday rolled around. the boy had been alluding to coming back to shanghai for a visit, for 'fun' and to 'take care of some work things.' her birthday night came and he arrived as a surprise, which wasn't actually a surprise but for some reason it seemed important that she pretend she was surprised. since she always picks the tiger first, she didn't act that surprised but it was nice to see her friend and she thought they were all bound for a great night.

the night progressed and the boy was acting a little strange, disappearing a lot and re-appearing once in a while to grind against the girl's female friends and other random girls in the crowd. since this is normal behavior for him, the girl thought nothing of it. then, at the end of the night, the girl's manolos were killing her so she was sitting down, watching her friends act like the drunken fools they are, and relaxing. the boy comes over and sits down and launches into her about how mad he is at her and that she's so cold to him. then he leans over and kisses her and jams his tongue in her mouth. the girl, finding this rude and offensive, pushes him off and tells him to get a grip. and he continues his tirade, telling her all sorts of things and basically gives her an ultimatum. the girl, not liking being pressured, not wanting to discuss this at 3 AM in a loud club with a very drunk friend, and not at ALL liking his tone of voice, tells hims that she is not discussing it at the moment. the boy storms off and the girl and her best friend go home as they are tired and it is late.

the next day, the boy talks to a mutual friend and says that he barely remembered what happened the previous night. the girl thought he might call her so they can get things straight, but he doesn't and since she isn't the one that blew up with all the emotion, she believes the ball is in his court.

the day after, the boy calls two of the girl's friends to invite them to dinner.

two days after that, the boy decides to plan a party for the weekend and invites the girl's friends (whom she introduced him to) and specifically tells another friend that he is not inviting the girl. fortunately for the boy, the girl is going out of town with her friends (which the boy knew before making that big statement about not inviting her, but whatever) and doesn't care about his juvenile attempts at manipulation, but does find it incredibly lame that he seems to be making a lot of effort to randomly invite her friends to places.

never at any point in time does the boy make any effort to call the girl to discuss. this, the girl finds really dumb. more dumb than the inviting-your-friends bullshit. the girl is going to be 30 in a year and can genuinely use this as a reason not to engage in immature games. but, she is rather puzzled at the vehemence with which the boy appears to be trying to attack her social life. it's baffling, among other things. there are times when the girl imagines kicking the boy's ass through his face, but that's just stooping to his level and isn't a reasonable reaction, just a brief and visceral one for trying to fuck with her.

meanwhile, throughout all of this, the girl walks with the tiger at her side. it has kept her company her entire life and keeps her strong when she has needed it most.