Proposal "ruined"

I'm really good at surprising people but not the other way around. I micromanage. A lot. And I'm impatient. You're probably wondering why kyzen8 would choose to be with someone like me?! (Go ask him!) All of these qualities added up meant that there was no chance in hell kyzen8 would be able to surprise me with a proposal. And this blog is not going to tell you otherwise. In fact, one of our very first fights was a few months into the relationship when I started talking about marriage and he was like, "we've only been together for a few months!" No girl wants to hear that. So I think it ended up with me (the crazy girl) sobbing, thinking her boyfriend didn't love her. He managed to weasel out of that one and many more to come.

Occasionally during the next few years, I would ask him when he was planning to P (short for propose). Let's cut kyzen8 some slack though. He was still in med school. In fact, he still is finishing up his last year of residency. It's a loooong process. He wanted to start making good money before getting married, so he could support the family financially. Makes sense but hello--tick tock tick tock--my clock was running out of time. So I gave him an ultimatum. But that deadline came and passed, and I pretty much knew he wasn't ready.

But then came another ultimatum, this time much stronger. I told him I *needed* to be married before 30, because those babies need to start popping out soon after. This time he took me seriously. We had another big fight that resulted in a cold war of not speaking to each other for almost a day. His way of "apologizing" was sending me an email with his vacation requests for the year. Since he only gets 2 vacations a year, and his requested top choice happened to span our anniversary weekend, I guess it was obvious what that meant.

March 2009 it is!

silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 6

For our first date that night we bought lobsters and rib-eye steaks and cooked up a meal fit for a king.

My good friend checked in on us and instead of a proper greeting, she said to him "oh. you're normal." After dinner we went to the movies in a cab whose driver obviously noticed us (keep reading to find out). I saved the ticket stubs to "The Recruit". The following night, we had a double-date to a piano concert at the Symphony Hall.

Afterwards -- and I'll never forget this -- as we were crossing the street to catch the T, I lagged behind a step, just enough that kyzen8 was concerned and reached back to grab my hand, gently. That was our first contact! My black knit mittens separated our skins, but it was still ever so sweet. I remember touching the mittens and lingering on that moment to etch it into memory...

After having brunch with some friends on Sunday, we headed back to my apartment because kyzen8 had agreed to help me finish some geeky website homework. Instead, he sat on my green futon, used his socked feet to swivel my chair around to face him, and lightly touched my own socked feet with his. Contact #2! We chatted a bit and then he came over to kneel down next to my chair. He held my hand in his semi-wet (which I didn't mind) hand and asked, "Ignoring what your friends and family think, if I asked you to be my girlfriend, what would you say?" I think I said "yes" but to this day we wonder if our relationship is valid given that it was only a hypothetical question. Valid or not, March 16 became our anniversary!

Here's the said futon and half of the swivel chair (pictured on Friday night):

We announced the news to my roommate and called a cab for his airport trip. I was filled with giddiness and walking on air as I accompanied him out. I felt very embarrassed not knowing if we were supposed to hold hands or whatnot since he was my very first boyfriend (he ended up just putting his arm around my shoulders). After he left, I consulted 2 friends and freaked out about whether he would try to kiss me on his next trip. We then had a sorority meeting in the common room, but I hardly paid any attention. All my thoughts were on him.

Later, kyzen8 told me that the cab driver who took him to the airport was the same guy who took us to the movies Friday night! The driver told him that he and his girlfriend were really cute together. I thought that was a nice touch since we weren't even a unit yet on that first night!

It being a long distance relationship and our previous awkward encounter, I was worried about the phone conversations. But for whatever reason, our phone conversations weren't awkward anymore! Whew. He visited 3 weeks after that where we shared a TON of firsts, and those back-and-forth long distance visits continued for 6 more years between Atlanta and Boston, San Francisco and New York, Shanghai and Los Angeles, and San Francisco and Los Angeles.

silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 5

After that short and awkward phone conversation, kyzen8 and I eased back into what we felt most comfortable with: IM. But inside, I was a nervous wreck. What if he's not what I made him out to be? What if it's really awkward in person just like on the phone? What if this person that I thought I liked so so much turns out to be a loser or psycho? Lots of "what ifs" filled my mind. In the early morning hours of March 14th, I tossed and turned in bed trying to sleep, my mind active and racing all night long.

MIT dome:

Finally it was time. Around 11am, I went to the MIT dome to meet up with kyzen8. While walking down the infinite corridor, I passed someone who looked familiar but did not strike me as being kyzen8. He looked somewhat handsome but slightly serious with a hint of arrogance/meanness. I remember thinking to myself, I wonder if I would be happy or sad if this person turned out to be kyzen8? That thought quickly went away.

We called each other and finally met up near the front lobby area. I think he was holding a coffee. And yup, that person that I had passed was indeed kyzen8. We turned back towards the infinite corridor where I had "met" him for the first time moments ago. The whole time, I kept making comments like "wow, you're so normal" and "can I see your ID?". All I could think about was how very glad I was that he was everything I expected and more.

MIT infinite corridor:

I had a couple calls from planted friends asking how things were. They were ready to rescue me if things went awry. Luckily, I was able to exclaim "he's normal!" as if that's something to be happy about (it truly was).

Our first stop was my research department. Ironically, my supervisor wasn't even in town that weekend for him to speak with. So much for that meet-up excuse!

silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 4

From the moment kyzen8 asked about my mom, it was like opening a floodgate. He obviously knew the key to my heart was my family, and the fact that he cared whether my mom knew about him meant a multitude of bonus points for him.

I don't remember if I had told my mom about him, but I definitely told all my close friends. My roommate endearingly named him the doctor, and that's what we referred to him as amongst all my friends. It was always doctor this, doctor that.

We danced around the topic of meeting up for weeks. Being the girl, I didn't want to come on too strong. But being the conservative and traditional person that he is, kyzen8 didn't feel it was right for him to fly all the way to Boston to meet a girl. Hence we talked about ECASU, a national conference that was to be held in Rhode Island. When that didn't work out, we talked about my research group that focused on technology and health. Since kyzen8 wanted to take a year off to do research, his excuse was to come to Boston to talk to my supervisor.

And so the date was set. March 14, 2003.

A week or two before THE meeting, we decided to chat on the phone. It was horrible. His voice was definitely NOT the voice of prince charming that I was expecting. His Chinese accent was nowhere near what I had imagined. The awkward meter ran off the charts.

silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 3

We talked a lot about our families and how we grew up. I told him stories of my brothers bullying or protecting me when I was younger, and how they convinced me to attend a UFO convention. In between studying for big tests, kyzen8 told me about his eyeball presentations and how he wasn't allowed to play video games as a child. We even talked about the guy (not kyzen8) whom I was madly in love with at the time.

I guess you could call it an open relationship, the kind of friendship with mutual interest but no possibility of blossoming into anything more. But as November turned into December and January, and as Boston started to get cold, gloomy and snowy, our relationship deepened with every hour that we spent typing back and forth.

In January, my friend and I made a trip to visit UPenn. Ironically, her 2 guy friends there were both from *Atlanta*. Sadly, the same night that we arrived at UPenn, kyzen8 happened to email me a picture of the girl he had been crushing on for the past 3 years. A really hot girl. I was devastated. Feeling so stupid for falling for someone ONLINE who had this really cute girl on his hands, I set out to party with my friend. That night, I met 5 people all from Atlanta. Seriously. This middle-of-nowhere city that I previously didn't know existed, now all of a sudden they all come out of the bushes.

Atlanta: Coca Cola and CNN headquarters



One of the guys looked a little bit like kyzen8. A bit buzzed and depressed, I chatted with him at the club, led myself to believe I was interested, and even invited him to NYC the following weekend.

The weekend in NYC was a disaster. In my sober state, I was not even an inkling interested. I pulled the immature ignore trick all over again, except this time was 10-fold worse because he was staying with us and had to tag along everywhere. I was a horrible host, but forgive me because I was also heartbroken.

I of course told kyzen8 about the guy from day 1 to day 10. Maybe my secret motivation was to get back at kyzen8 for breaking my heart. Since I thought I was interested in mr. upenn on days 1-7, I'm pretty sure I made kyzen8 a teensy weensy bit jealous even if he won't admit it. Days 8-10, I think kyzen8 was relieved at my non-interest but felt sorry for me. I like to think mr. upenn acted as a catalyst for our relationship. I remember on the last night in NYC, as I was complaining to kyzen8 about how mr. upenn had placed his hands on my shoulders (ick), kyzen8 asked me:

"Does your mom know about me?"

silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 2

I spent the summer of 2002 in Beijing. kyzen8 all but im'd me twice that summer. The conversations were short so I don't remember the content. But I do remember he mentioned visiting Boston in September. I'm not a shy person. Heck, I invited that guy #1 to karaoke after barely meeting him online. So, I gave kyzen8 my cell # and told him to call me up when he's in town. I was curious about this nerdy doctor from the south anyway.

September came and left. No sign of kyzen8. And then he im'd me saying sorry, he was too busy to give me a call. I got played! Girls always like hard to get, so I must admit that raised my interests a bit. A few weeks later, he said he was visiting Boston yet again. This time, I played it cool but still was hoping he would call. And again, he DID NOT. But he had the nerve to mention that he visited MIT! Now was the perfect opportunity to resolve the "no profile pic" situation. I told him, heck, even if I passed him on the streets I wouldn't have recognized him!

So, he sent me a picture of himself standing on the steps of the MIT Museum.

Wow. I was grounded. Here was this sort of dorky looking person, but someone who looks conservative, good, a true family man. A picture really can speak a thousand words. I was definitely interested. From that fine day on November onward, I started chatting with kyzen8 on AIM pretty much everyday, a couple hours a day. He became my online confidant, this fantasy person who I was sort of interested in in a virtual way.

silverbuggy & kyzen: Part 1

Spring 2002. My best friend in college was prepping for her move to New York by networking on lavalife.com. One night she excitedly told me to check out the profile of this cutie from NYC. I found myself signing up for an account, cropping a profile picture, and writing some sweet words in search of my own prince charming. There were 4 guys that I met online.

Lavalife subway poster:

1 was from Boston, NOT cute at all, but potentially a normal friend. I invited him to karaoke with friends but ended up ignoring him all night. Turned out he looked much older than his profile pic and honestly creeped me out a bit. I still feel bad about that.

Guy 2 was from Toronto. He had glasses, was the artsy type, kind of mysterious and intriguing. I still remember his name was Wayne. We chatted a bit on and off, but nothing ever came out of it.

#3 was a PHD from Stanford. He was a bit boring and his English wasn't that good. So that was that.

And then there was kyzen8, the doctor-to-be from Atlanta. The thing that struck me about him is that he was nerdy enough to actually *get* the puzzle on my profile. Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, but still it was touching. Because lavalife did not allow personal information in profiles, I had to be sneaky to pass their review. Here's what the last sentence of my profile said:

let's see if this will pass the review: if you piece vivi and lee and my favorite number 18 together...you'll have a screen blahblah name for something which i'm not allowed to say...

Soon after our initial contact on lavalife, kyzen8 figured it out and messaged me on AIM. +1 for that move! The second thing he had going for him was that he was in med school. Since I went to MIT and was surrounded by computer geeks, I didn't know anybody studying to be a doctor. So that was pretty cool. But he was from middle-of-nowhere Atlanta, which I embarrassingly kept forgetting and having to ask him where he's from again. That, and he didn't have a profile picture!! I wouldn't call myself shallow, but no profile picture = not interested in talking to you.

In the spring and summer of 2002, he initiated IM conversations maybe 2-3 times, but each conversation dwindled into nothing...

Run, kyzen8, run!