OK, so some of you already know I've been dating this japanese girl since around November. Well, most of you don't know all the crazyness involved, and I felt like I should share for your pleasure, enjoyment, lulz, and, well, the usual linkswarm commentry.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?


hmm, so about 10 years ago, I was in college, hanging out with people and such at the university and all, and i met this one guy who was the brother of this other guy who was friends with one of my friends. he kinda became friends with the little group of people i hung with at the time, and me and him, let's call him Jason (since it's a nice gay name), hung out a little, we went to new orleans once and mexico once, and got drunk occasionally. After a while, I realized he was kindof a douche, and stopped hanging out with him as much as possible. He studied foreign language, and would, at any given party he was at, practice it on anyone containing any knowledge of whatever language(s) we was studying, often then deserting the rest of the party to do so, and generally being no fun for anyone else around, since they had no idea wtf he was saying. He was also one of those guys you'd consider a "close" talker - always get in your personal space when you would have a conversation with him. I swear I always felt like he was just moments away from leaning further in for a kiss at any given moment. Anyway, he eventually left the country to do whatever it is you do with another language. He would occasionally send me emails and such; i would never really respond since i wasn't interested in keeping him as a friend anyway.

fast forward to about a year back, when i turned 30. I had a big party at my place and invited several people over, including some old friends whom i'd recently gotten back in contact with (weird, myspace is good for something). One of the people I contacted, I believe, was Jason's brother, and he had also invited Jason over to my party as well. No biggie, we're all older and mature and stuff, it was only one night, so that was fine with me.

He had just recently returned from being in japan for something like 8 years. He had this cute japanese girl with him whom he had been dating while he was over there. I was quite inebriated that night, but I do remember her being amazed at my apartment. It's quite spacious and with high ceilings, and being fresh from japan, that was something pretty uncommon to her. After the party, we noticed that she had left her scarf behind. I had learned at some point in the night that she was going to school where I worked, so I figured we'd run into each other at some point.

So one day I'm running around on campus and she spots me. She says hi, and I'm on my way to somewhere where I have to be to do work, but I pause long enough to remember who she was and to say hi back. We run into each other a few more times; I remind her I still have her scarf, and give her my number. Eventually I bring her scarf with me to work and give it back to her. We continue to run into each other, ,and eventually I get her number and started to occasionally invite her and Jason to some partys and such. Note that jason does not have his own phone, really. He uses skype but has no cell. So really, her phone was the best way to get ahold of them both. In honesty, I was more interested in getting ahold of her than him.

Somewhere around this time I finally break up with the girl I had been dating for a while, and I'm single again.

I still run into the girl, I guess I should give her a name, so let's call her Haiku, on campus once in a while. I'd usually stop and make small talk with her, then head off to do whatever it was i was about to do. My next birthday comes up, and I invite her and Jason to my birthday party again this year.

Now, over this period of time, I notice that she slowly becomes more cold to Jason and maybe a little more flirty with me. They both still traveled together to parties and such, but usually didn't stay close to each other all night. More than once me and Haiku would end up sitting next to each other talking about something or another for decent portions of a night.

So, back to my birthday party. They're there, I was drinking wine and dosing a bunch of people with mushrooms (as well as myself). Jason comes up to me and asks me about it. Now for everyone else, I had been the one to offer the shrooms to people, not the other way around. But at that point in the night, I only had enough for one more person, and jason had said Haiku was interested, so I gave the last to her, and Jason continued to drink himself to uselessness for the rest of the night. Oddly, me and Haiku didn't really interact a whole lot that night; but i had a lot of distractions and hosting duties, etc to do.
The two left, and I sat on my porch and confided in a friend who had been talking to Haiku, "you know, I'd really like to steal her away from him". He told me, "it wouldn't be that hard dude, she doesn't seem too happy in their relationship right now"
"interesting" I thought.

Now I must say, I don't really beleive in doing such a thing. A desire is not an action, and I know better than to attept to start a relationship via cheating.

Sometime after this we had run into each other at a bar downtown. Someone with us wanted to go to another bar, so we all left that bar for another. This event is relevant for a few reasons. For one, this was around when I had noticed things going cold between the two. Another is that this night she seemed to be hanging out with this other guy - some other international student, and when we left from one bar to the other, Jason rode with me to it, while Haiku rode with this other guy. On the way over, Jason talked about this couple he knew or met or something somewhere in Europe. He was talking about how they had a kid together, but were essentially separated and each had their own separate boyfriend/girlfriend but stayed together and still lived together for the sake of the child. He commented about how people in the US don't really do that and how it seemed great that they were able to do that and get along and all that. I started wondering if he was somehow talking about his situation without actually talking about it, or at least relating his with theirs.

Next month, for holloween, I go to a friend's party and invite the two again. Again, me and her end up sitting together chatting up a storm.

In another week or so, we ran into each other again, and ended up going out to lunch together some Friday. We went to a restaurant, paid separately, chatted, and I went back to campus.

A few weeks later in November I had a little art show, and again invited them out. They showed up, and at some point in the night Jason left, and Haiku got a ride with a friend, this time a Korean girl she knew from school, to the bar everyone was meeting up at after the show. I met up with everyone at the bar, and again, me and Haiku end up talking with each other.
At this point, I figured it was time to find out what was going on in the relationship between her and Jason, so I asked her what was going on. She said they were living together, but not dating anymore. We continued to talk at the bar, mostly about other things, until it closed. Now Haiku lives not far from me, and her Korean friend had wanted to leave early, so I had promised to take Haiku home that night. So we left the bar, and I started driving her home. "I don't really want to go to my place" she said. I said, OK we can go to my place then.

So I took her to my place, and we sat on my couch and talked for a while, until I said something along the lines of, "So; this is somewhat awkward. You're no longer dating Jason, who's kind of a friend of mine, but I'm also really attracted to you."

She leaned in and we kissed.

...


I took her back home the next day.
As I dropped her off, I asked her when I'd get to see her again
She said she'd come by my office and see me on monday.


So the following Monday she came by. She had a break in her classes right about the time I usually took lunch, so we went to lunch together.
It ended up us seeing each other about 2-3 times a week during the day, eat & talk & stuff; then often going out on wed. nights; sometimes her staying at my place those nights, and me taking her home in the mornings before going to work. We'd also spend most of the weekends together.
I would occasionally ask what she was telling Jason, since at first we had figured it'd be odd to tell him who her new boyfriend was. She would tell me he would ask but she'd dodge the question, or tell him it's someone he doesn't know. After a bit of this, we started to say that she should tell him, but she was finding it difficult figuring out how to tell him.
This continued for the rest of the semester (a little over a month), and at the end she traveled back to japan for the holidays.

Now, I'm not dumb.
The thought had occurred to me that she could be lying about this to both of us, but I also figured that if she was lying to us than he didn't need to be dating her anyway and, well, if that's the case, neither of us should be dating her, but at least I'm getting laid for a little while. But as we saw each other more, these doubts faded; we talked more, and got the impression that she really liked me and things seemed to be going fine. However she would occasionally recall him telling her odd things, such as "even if you marry another guy, our relationship will still be the same" and her telling me she had told him, "you're not boyfriend, just friend".

Yeah, something wasn't quite right.