Sincerely, Thalia

Jon once asked me in 2008, why I didn’t go after Thalia – the girl, not his car… Hahaha! What a total coincidence eh? Yeah I know, what the fuck am I talking about?

So, it all started sometime in June of 2003, when my friend at the time, Ernie introduced Thalia to his friends at his birthday dinner. Not long after, during a night out around UBC, Ernie being the number cruncher he was, asked Thalia if she would put a numerical value to how attractive I was to her, what I would be. She answered I was a 1.5 out of 10. Also, that night, she wanted Ernie to prop her up against the UBC gardens and fuck her brains out. She later confessed she was glad that never happened. Amongst other things, his shifty eyes and pettiness turned her off. I guess it was his muscles that initially made her soaking wet?

Regardless, she and I became fast friends. Basically around July 2003 onward, we pretty much emailed, texted, called, and hung out at least once a week. She was also one of my most ardent supporters here in this blog for a few years until 2009. Which then I basically never saw her again here.

A particular memory from October 2003 was when I invited her to come out to dinner with Charles, his cousin Dietrich, and I. We went to Saigon Fusion on West Broadway. Charles was all over Thalia at the restaurant, even though I was sitting next to her and he was on the other side of the table. I went to the washroom a few times. The last time I went, I went outside for a breather. As I leaned against the cold railing on the second floor where the restaurant was, I considered walking home by myself. Mind you, it would have been a very long walk, eventually crossing a bridge. Basically, my home was about 12 kilometres away. I mean, it was cold, I was drunk, and obviously, my vision impaired. I decided against it and went back in.

Afterwards, we ended up wandering around Granville Island. On a few occasions, Charles forced his hand into a Thalia’s, holding her hand in a finger-interlocking way. For some reason, Thalia let him. When I saw this and the lack of rejection, I was annoyed. I still had a good time though. The night ended and life went on. 

I introduced Thalia to Keith, my childhood best friend. Keith was an athletic man who loved playing tennis and ice hockey. Keith remarked to me how cool a friend Thalia was. I smirked every time Thalia spoke about Keith, and every time Keith spoke about Thalia. They were on completely different pages. I didn’t say anything to either of them, as this was something they had to figure out on their own without a 3rd party to influence their choices. On an occasion, Thalia was trying to teach Keith how to swim. She had a chance to touch Keith’s six pack abs. In short, she wanted Keith so badly she shivered on the thought of him while she was sitting on my bed explaining the experience. I didn’t say anything, other than the occasional nod, a few affirmations, and some follow up statements. I was amused.

To cut a long story short, they didn’t work out. Thalia mentioned later in hindsight, while Keith was hot-looking, his personality was equivalent to a one-tone lecture about cardboard-smelling napkins. That’s the polite version of what she told me. I laughed my ass off of course. I love my buds, but unless they are in harms way, there is no reason for me to not laugh at the humorous situations befallen to them.

Then I introduced Thalia to Yonni. They hit it off pretty well and their relationship looked promising too. However, shortly after they broke up, Yonni told me her religious convictions amongst other things, eventually split them apart. He didn’t appreciate how Thalia tried to convince him to take on her religious beliefs. I scolded Thalia on that. I told her that she will grow to regret doing that.

After my relationship with Cindy ended, my feelings for Thalia were still there, but had somewhat grown cold a bit. However, when Meowry was having some hard times, Thalia and I took Meowry in to celebrate her birthday at Thalia’s home. After dinner and after the cake, somehow, Thalia and I wrestled with each other, well, more like tried to tickle each other and I ended up on top of her on her couch. Thalia’s legs were on either side of me, while I pinned her wrists down on either side of her head. I noticed Meowry was staring at us with a huge grin on her face. I stared right at Thalia and she whispered to me, “Get bigger.” I didn’t say anything because I knew she wasn’t asking me to get an erection. She was telling me that if I wasn’t so skinny, I would definitely be more attractive to her. It was that moment, I wanted to kiss her. While her wrists were still pinned down, I leaned down thinking of kissing her lips, but chickened out in the last moment. Instead, I gave her a peck on her cheek. My heart pounded so fast, I thought I was going to faint. Yet, Thalia didn’t reject me, or wiped her face, or react negatively.

While Meowry was hanging out with me the next day, she remarked, “Why didn’t you kiss her lips, Li?” I sighed and didn’t respond to that question. The entire freakin day Meowry was with me, she constantly had a grin on her face. It was irritating. Later that day, after taking Meowry home, and just before she left my car, she remarked again, “You should have kissed her lips, Li. She obviously wanted you to.” I didn’t respond, smiled a little, and waved at her good bye. I made sure Meowry was inside the building, before driving off.

In the summer of 2008, while swinging on the playground swings with Yonni, he remarked, “Why don’t you go after Thalia?”

I responded with a snort, “Are you kidding? I’m Lucifer. She’s Eve. She’s obviously looking for her Adam. She’s too naive for me and I’m too wicked for her. Adam is just right because he’s blonde, blue eyed, and unblemished. I’m cursed you see? Tainted, evil, and ugly. Plus, she prefers tall men like you, or pretty boys like Keith and Daffodil.” I remember Yonni sighing multiple times and rolled his eyes a few dozen times until they fell out. Putting them back in was a feat.

Yonni asserted paraphrased, “Naivety can be changed in time. Your wickedness is just citing truth and wisdom. You can show her things that no other man could, not even I. You have the perception and experience that most men would have dreamed of at the age we’re at right now. You’re only stopping yourself because you obviously love her. You think you’re bad for her, but actually, you two are perfect for each other.”

I rarely get annoyed with Yonni. Like pretty much never. Yet, the irritation was wretchedly gnawing at me. We were quiet for a few minutes, until I blurted out with stressed out laughter mixed with me choking on my saliva and trying to cough it up.

Yonni eyed me with indifference and in a monotone voice said, “You know I’m right.”

I looked up at the night sky briefly with a grin of slight displeasure, and rhetorically asked, “When did you become so poetic? Wait, don’t answer that.” Yonni let out a fart in retaliation while I kicked up sand beneath my feet. I looked up at the dark sky again, but this time, toward the tips of the silhouetted trees I grew up with. I was silent in my thoughts for a few more minutes, only hearing the squeaking of the chains that were bolted to the frame of the swing seats. I contemplated whether I was going to respond absolutely truthful or somewhat dismissively. Well, it was Yonni. So I opted to just respond absolutely truthfully, even if it kind of hurt me in the process.

I bluntly answered, paraphrased, “She’s superficial. She goes for things that look good on paper. She seriously believes a big dick would automatically bring her to orgasms even though she’s never had intercourse. She believes a man who has the same beliefs as she does, will automatically solve any future problems that may come around in their lives. She really believes that intelligence equals wisdom. She mistakes conceit as confidence. She believes being empathetic means the same thing as having understanding and compassion of others. You being in her life was incredible, because she found a diamond and somehow ended up losing you. Now, she’s going after this pretty boy whose nothing but smoke and mirrors. Tell me Yonni, why did she like Keith? Why did she like you? Why does she like Daffodil? It’s because you’re all pretty or tall. It was just by sheer luck of the draw that you turn out to be an honourable person with good character.”

I let out a long bellowing sigh and continued, “Most people go after the things they want, and not after the things they need.”

Yonni interrupted me, “How do you know she doesn’t want you?”

I blankly looked over at him and said, “Didn’t you listen to anything I said? She likes pretty boys and tall men. I’m neither and would I really go after someone like that? Who time and again has proven she only went after pretty boys and tall men? I literally spoon fed her a diamond, and she fucked that up. You seriously believe I would go after someone who fucked up her relationship with you?”

Yonni stopped pushing on the subject matter after a few more words, because it just dawned on him that it was less about what I wanted (liked), but more about what I needed (in principle).

Eventually, Thalia met Daffodil, someone who shared the same religious beliefs, same desire for a large family, is highly intelligent, with similar values, similar interests, and is gorgeously good looking. Barring all other details, it was a match made in heaven from her perspective. Occasionally, she came to me for insight, but despite any and all insight I gave, at the end of the day, the charm outweighed the perception. So when the time came, she asked a final thought into whether I thought he was good for her or not, despite some of the yellow flags going off all around them, I gave her the answer she wanted to hear.

Yes Thalia, he seems to be the man of your dreams.

Of course she laughed, since I’m always a little sarcastic and witty according to her. She was still a bit skeptical of my answer, and only asked afterwards, “Really?”

I remember during the phone call, I had a slight pause before answering, “Truly.” I could have told her my true insight, but I figured at this point in time, she has already made up her mind and of course, had already been charmed. I was but a fly on the wall with next to no influence. So the only thing she really asked of me, was for my support, rather than criticism. Plus, it was already too late in the game, if my words could have changed anything.

After Thalia and Daffodil took their relationship to another step, Thalia’s consistency disappeared from my life. Though to give her credit, she did try at times over the years.

Not long after Thalia and Daffodil’s celebratory union, Thalia called me one evening and spent about an hour and a half on the phone with me. Basically, she ranted about her negative experiences with her new partner. In short, he was a selfish prick who thought he is god-king of romance and pleasure giving. I saw it a zillion kilometres away, but well, things and stuffs. Who knew that big dicks didn’t automatically translate to having explosive orgasms or that having the same beliefs didn’t automatically mean problems will be solved easily? Didn’t I say Daffodil was all smoke and mirrors? Yeah, Daffodil’s true colours started revealing themselves.

Anyway, phone calls like that were a frequent activity between us every few months. We didn’t really talk about anything else, and whenever she asked about my life, I was always hesitant, because during those two early years, whenever she asked me about my life, just the way she asked and responded, made me feel she was really just not interested and hurried me along for the ride. Like she felt she owed me something for listening to her rant. There were also a few social media blunders along the way between her and I, but that’s neither here or there. For those first three years, I didn’t particularly like where our friendship was. It felt rough and it felt like I was being used. Well, 80% used and 20% just hanging out. I guess this is how normal run-of-the-mill relationships happen.

2012 came along and the events of The Dishonest Kiss happened.

From around 2015 all the way to roughly mid 2020, I hardly saw Thalia. We spoke seldomly too. Pretty much most of the time she reached out to me was to ask me something about her websites that I maintained. We saw each other around the end of 2020, again near the end of 2021, and one more time near the end of 2022. She was super pregnant. Wearing a shirt with only one button closed, on the surface, I was absolutely calm, but on the inside, I was raging with desire. I have a massive fetish for pregnant women. Before she left, she noted my erection… I was a moron. After she left, over Whatsapp messages, I asked if I could do naughty things to/with her. She didn’t outright reject my advances. She just deflected them in a joking sort of way.

Time went on and we hardly spoke with each other, as she was super swamped with everything under the sun and then some.

Around the end of August 2023, Thalia popped into my mind very suddenly. I mean, I thought about her every now and then, but oddly, Thalia just entered my thoughts quite frequently at this time. With no particular trigger, I would be doing something mundane like a chore, or play games with my friends online, or have a voice conversation on Discord, or walk Rudi, or roll around after waking up, and Thalia would just appear in my thoughts.

After about two weeks of that, September 2023 came around and I wanted to do something special for her, within reach of what I was able to do. After a bit of brainstorming, I found a “thinking of you” card, but one that she would appreciate, because it was ‘so her’. I wasn’t sure what to put inside the card at the time, so I left it until around February 2024, where I thought I could do a mini-comic panel depicting some of the core memories I have with her. Not getting into any further details, let’s just say I reminded her of our times together.

Since then, Thalia and I have been sending quite a lot of text and voice messages through Whatsapp to each other almost daily. I tried to do a Zillion Q&A game with her, but after the second round, she told me she wasn’t interested in it. She didn’t see value in it. The reason I wanted to do a Zillion Q&A with her was because I want to get to know her all over again. The Q&A yielded discussion between us beyond the things we were talking about already. I enjoyed taking a glimpse into her psyche and enjoyed reading what she had to say. Alas, things like the Zillion Q&A isn’t for everyone. She doesn’t see the value in it, because obviously, we don’t see each other the same way. Like Keith and Thalia, we’re on two totally different pages.

Now, one very odd thing is happening between us that hadn’t happened in the past.

In the past, pre-2020, she would occasionally send me photos of herself. Sometimes, they were a bit naughty. Some other times, she showed more of her feminine side. In other times, just a few mundane photos. The last photo of her I got was her being very pregnant and taking a few shows from side to side. That was about two years ago. Then it stopped. When we started talking again, I mentioned it, and in a huff, she said she just didn’t have anymore time for that sort of thing. She sent me a few pictures afterwards, but they’re public domain so-to-speak. So I didn’t think much about it. In the past when I made mild sexual advances, mild flirting, and photo requests, she would either flirt with the idea or show me outright, but not obviously revealing. The weird thing is that the last two months of our correspondence, she has completely, literally 100% ignored all of that.

Two months ago, after doing some self reflection, I asked Thalia to set some boundaries with me, but she completely ignored that too. Then two weeks ago, I brought it up again and again, she completely ignored the question. I mentioned this to Amber and she was flabbergasted why Thalia would 100% ignore not just my advances, but also completely ignored my request for her to set boundaries with me. It makes no sense.

On one hand, I understand ignoring someone’s advances is a form of rejection. However, I’m talking about Thalia and I. I’m not talking about some Joe Schmoe. Thalia can literally say no to me and I’ll be fine with it. She will say no to me for 99.99999% of everything else, but she just refuses to reject my advances and simply ignore them. However, on the other hand, if she really is rejecting my advances, then she can easily just set some boundaries with me and voila! I will never flirt with her, or make sexual innuendo with her again.

In short, I don’t want to ‘just get the hint’. I want Thalia to recognize Leeman as Leeman and just reject me outright if these are the things she doesn’t want. I am absolutely mind boggled here.

I created a question on Quora asking why a close female friend can reject me on 99.99% of everything else, but refuses to reject my advances, knowing that I can take it. Also, why she won’t set boundaries with me. Unfortunately, five out of the six answers were socially-driven drivel. Things I already knew would happen to the vast majority of people without context. In short, their answers all reflected the same sentiment, “Ignoring you means no. It’s a form of rejection. Stop making advances, or you will lose her friendship.” The only one of the six answers that was totally different, said, “She obviously wants you to make a move.”

I hate it when the answers are polar opposites. Forgive my immodesty, but I could have given those answers myself. No one had any in-depth insight as to why Thalia would do that. They all just gave the generic progressive-minded cookie cutter answer.

Which brings me to the sixth answer again, paraphrased, “She obviously wants you to make a move. She’s probably tired of whatever has been happening and just want you to show her you really mean it.” How in the nine cat hells did the answer poster come up with that?! I mean, that makes a bit more sense as to the whole context, but at the same time, it doesn’t!

THALIA! Why are you like this?!

Anyway, I’ve been struggling with that for awhile, but my depression is making things worst for me.

In the present time, it is now 21 years into our friendship. Both of us has certainly aged. Back then, similar to Thalia, I fell for the way she looked, as well as the other more positive parts of her personality, but I was always warring with myself when it came to desiring her intimately. Back then, Thalia at her bestest moments, was so hot with a lovely fit body, and a pretty face. Even in 2012 during the events of The Dishonest Kiss, I felt she was the hottest there. Then again, I was slightly more biased. Basically, I would like to point out that no matter how she looked and how she was in 2003, 2007, or 2012, I was simply too immature to have done anything properly with her. I know that’s a cop-out answer, but it simplifies my entire mind frame in that period of my life.

In 2012, whatever happened there showed me her capabilities as a woman, a potential lover, and what the bestest version of that friendship could have been. Yet, the years following that also showed me the inconsistencies, inflexibility, and what the worst version of that friendship could also be. Thus, the resentment I had of her.

Now in 2024, I am not immature and I am not insecure like I once was. I know what I want and I want Thalia. I have seen how much Thalia has evolved, even amongst the flaws she and I have. Today, she is a much wiser, more intelligent, much more mature woman who is kinder, more perceptive, and actually, easier to speak with. Though I still have to be careful, not quite walking on eggshells, but what we have become in the little time we communicated, only tells me where she is trying to be. It doesn’t actually tell me who she really is. I hope to get there one day. I was hoping the Zillion Q&A will help me get to know Thalia more. So now, I just have to rely on general information and wits.

Not everything is about sex.

Most of it actually comes down to affection and friendship. The best lovers are also the bestest of friends. I would be happy to massage some of her stresses away, to spend time together, have a few laughs over chatter. To take a long walk around the block, to enjoy each others company. To just see her in person, hear her true voice, and experience her reactions. I don’t need her to be with me often. I just desire to see her more than once a year in person. Sometimes, while listening to her voice messages, my heart actually aches a little. Often times, when I hear the stress and dissatisfaction in her voice, my heart aches even more.

For me, friendship isn’t a category we’re limited to. Friendship is a foundation piece that allows people to expand and explore outwards into other aspects of their relationships with others. Only when that expansion isn’t viable, will we go back to the roots and continue to build on that platonic  relationship. Until then, we should all be so lucky to have mature relationships with people to help us gain further wisdom, intimacy, and connection with each other. When we do things out of friendship, in the truest meaning of the word, we do it out of love. Thus, it makes our connections with those people so much sweeter with so much more purpose. Friendship allows us to bond us to the idea of support, acceptance, and consideration.

When Thalia told me how her partner treats her, in all the immature, retaliatory bullshit, pettiness, uncaring attitude, unsupportive behaviour, entitlement, and how everything becomes some sort of competition between them, I get so heartbroken and angry.

I absolutely hate how Daffodil treats Thalia.

He’s not evil, nor abusive per se, but he is toxic and uncaring. Everything he does seems to be solely conditional, like a bargaining chip for sex. If your partner says XYZ makes her feel uncomfortable, then as the partner, you make sure to do things that do not make her uncomfortable! That is common sense!

So whenever Thalia tells me these things, it breaks my heart, because she doesn’t deserve that bullshit. She deserves to be loved and supported. I feel like a lot of the overall insecurities she has about her own projects, her self-worth, and her desire to move forward in certain venues, comes down to how her partner treats her. It mind boggles me how Daffodil can’t see the strain and stress Thalia has been going through. When Thalia told me she has next to no motivation for sex, and wonders if she has become asexual, my heart sank. I so desperately want to show her she’s worth loving, supporting, and to care for. I had wished, when she said those things to me, that she was right next to me, so I could lead her to my bed and permit me to adore her. I wanted so desperately to show her what fondness and love making can truly be about.

The gradual decline of her once-abundance of life and curious demeanour, disheartens me that Thalia is slowly becoming a shell of who she used to be. Having a shitty partner drains you, because you have to mitigate that shittiness by making a bigger effort to help make life as-is livable. It means you have to expend more emotional, mental, and physical energy into everything you do. While I cannot be her full-time partner, at the very least, I wish to help relieve some of her stress and help remind her she can trust someone who not only trusts her, but also loves her the way she is meant to be loved.