Xiao-Wei Zhong:
I feel oh so sad! It makes me want to, but, unfortunately, I no longer have the energies for it! Let me explain this using a line in a book: we no longer dared, nor would we ever, whore around again. Like my group of buddies who only stated how they wanted to, we’d only DARED looking at the backless side of the hotties and start swallowing hard, and spoke of our views about the stories of cheating singers or movie stars reported by the news, and at the same time, we’d turned our wedding bands around and around, and sighed about how we weren’t born in another time.
At which time, I’d always turned to my wife, and told her about the end of the Chi’ng Dynasty, at the start of the current era, how the western suits had “evolved” through time. Like how “female dress shirts on the arms, raised about one foot, how the female pant legs are up about a little over one foot”, and, these sort of clothing are considered “slutty”!, and, the city government of Shanghai in the 1920s had also ordered: if women wore shirts that showed a little of their cleavage, their arms, or their calves, the police shall make an immediate arrest, and fine them right away. Then, more importantly: use the time of studying, to chase the sexy figures of those young women with all our peripheral visions.
Wen-Hwa Wang: is it really that you didn’t have the energies for it, or that you don’t have the wills for it? The “will” I’m referring to is considering the values, the morality, and even from the foresight of predicting the outcomes of an extramarital affair, and changing your own beliefs about it.
This sort of an adjustment in thought is sometimes a good thing, it’d suppressed a lot of the things we deemed to be important, that we won’t get blown away by the miniskirts getting blown UP by the wind, on those hotties. There are, surely, things about those hotties that are better than our wives, but, there are also better points about our wives compared to the hotties out there too. It’s just, that the best things about our wives are usually not visual, and, because we’d already taken those wonderful things about our wives every single day for granted, we’d no longer focused on what we perceive anymore.
The character for “leftover” is truly amazing. Not all the serendipitous meetings all end well. On some of the interactions, the plugs need to be pulled in time. Seeing a hottie, acknowledge them with a simple nod. And, if the circumstances permit, give them an oral compliment. Leaving behind this amicable feeling toward each other, then, we go our separate ways. It’s actually, the best way. If we’d exchanged our contacts and really do get into contact with one another later on, it may be, the start of something bad. “Spare thoughts”, “Spare times”, may be, the best kind of gifts we can leave for one another.
- Xiao-Wei Zhong: whether it be “wanting but unable to” or “our minds won’t allow us to”, the married men and women always kept things inside their minds. Had you ever wondered, that whether it be families, schools, or work, how much free time does a person have in one’s life? How much time must we succumb to the demands of others? We’re commanded for our “maturity”, when we forced a smile on our faces when we actually wanted to cry; called “professional” when our minds are a mess, and we’d still kept our cool and collect fronts to the outside world; and when we wanted to start screaming or start wailing, we’re forced to keep everything bottled up inside, it’s called “unmoved”. This, is a truly hard way to live.
It’s just that I find your “corrections” point of view very interesting. In an unknown way, we all have a set of standards that helps us reaffirm our own beliefs, and there’s also a standard for “everybody thinks you’re okay” rule too. I’d always used the examples of the baggage scans before we get on flights: how the travelers goes through the metal detector gates, we’d accepted the trials of life as they come to us. In the grand view of destiny, we slowly lose what we have on hand, watches, rings, earrings, and, return ourselves back to our most primal states willingly, hoping that we can pass through this checkpoint like everybody else has.
But, there would be, accidents from time to time: whether it be forgetting to take off the belt or the bellybutton rings, all of these small derailing, would “beep” us in time, reminding us: you’d not met the expectations of the societies. Wonderful wives, you should not be wishing for another; good mothers, there are still dusts gathering up on the floors; good son, there’s not enough cash in your bank accounts; elites: you can pull in a little more overtime at work. As we’d gotten these gentle reminders, we’d looked sorry, and bang! Slammed shut that Pandora’s Box with our desires in them, and, in what’s left over of our senses of self, still, picked out what seems to be out-of-place and abnormal, then, we’d give it another go, and return to our right tracks, in the watchful eyes of everybody else.
Love and marriage is like so. The marriage certificate is like the baggage check, the bride and groom are like the baggage sent into the machines, no matter the values, the external appearances, the truth finally comes out, after we’re sent in, to the large scanner called “marriage”. This gentle-mannered, wonderfully mannered person, is actually a Chauvinistic PIG at home; that submissive, complying to the needs of her husband, woman that you married, is actually the shrew. The endless pages of personality quizzes, analyses of the signs, the matchings of the charts, the pre-marital counseling sessions, would NOT be comparable, to the first few months of you two, as newlyweds.
And so, love may be a dream, but, marriage turns that dream into a LIVING nightmare! It’s still ALL because the two of you did NOT take off those beer goggles, that you were wearing when you two “lovebirds” are going at it, and, because love has the tendencies to bring out the best that you two are reflecting onto one another (hello, hello, hello? And, you DO realize, that it is Y-O-U, who are “reflected” in one another’s eyes, right???), and this is precisely WHY, after the HONEYMOON is over, when reality SETS in, you are getting your BUTTS kicked! Precisely why people still should NOT marry, for the purpose of JUST love, I mean, love IS important, but hey, love does NOT pay the bills, does it? And, marriage, unlike love, IS, after the fantasies wears off!
Life, the Obstacle Course 