No Regrets

look at me just churning out the blog posts! probably because i'm completely checked out right now about work (sometimes when things get too burdensome or overwhelming i just completely shut down about it-DEFINITELY not a good self-defense mechanism).

last night i met up with Stitch who i haven't seen in a bajillion years. we're planning on attending the 2NE1 concert at the Prudential Center on August 17th and i had a check to give to Stitch for it. i picked Ugly Kitchen to meet up since i wasn't sure whether we would be eating or snacking, and Ugly Kitchen does happy hour until 9 pm everyday ($6 cocktails, wines, and well drinks and $4 draft beers). we did the usual catch-up conversation since it had literally been ages since we had met up wherein i felt like my life was completely boring compared to Stitch but i also learned the following:

1. Stitch's job is in PR for liquor clients (this i already knew about her, i didn't just learn it last night). what i didn't know was that her job is exactly like how i imagined it would be on TV: she plans parties and events to showcase her client's liquor. so fun. granted i learned this because she had a work crisis regarding an event in Boston (also fun, she gets to travel for her work to attend these events. last week she was in San Francisco), but still, these typical work stresses aside, this Stitch has a pretty cool job.

2. Stitch is mad at Gohm. yes, my ears still perk up at all news about my ex. it's the same feeling you get when you walk through a historical exhibit where they recreate the life of a 1776 colonial person. clearly you're far removed from the person so you'll never really know what was going on with them in their life, but it's when you hear or see little tidbits about their life, you have an abstract sliver of what it's like to be them or what they were doing/thinking.

3. Stitch may move to San Francisco. NOOOOOO! i barely see Stitch as it is and if she moves to the Wrong Coast aka California i may never see her! then who will i have to go with me to kpop concerts and fangirl about 2PM?!?! boooooooooo.

all these updates were fun and insightful, but the best one was that Stitch has started to like a friend of hers that she's known for 10 years. hooray! i love those kinds of stories. and apparently, he's always liked her, which means that he probably still likes her but thought it was foregone conclusion that she would never like him.  so boy will he be in for a big surprise.

we continued this conversation over dinner at Ramen Misoya, which is only a few blocks away from Ugly Kitchen and is on my list of restaurants to try. it's the newer of the ramen shops to open in the St. Marks area and although small, it doesn't seem as pretentious and hipstery as the other popular ramen places. since it's a small place, i think it's ideal for 2 people, although if absolutely necessary you can prob push it to 4. but that's it. no more. don't ask me to.

both of us claimed we weren't that hungry. however, Stitch wanted a hot ramen with soup whereas i was intrigued by the cold ramen offering, so we ended up each ordering an individual serving.  Stitch ended up with an order of Shiro Miso Chashu ($13.80) which was recommended by the waitress as one of the most popular soup options and also the lightest. while i can't confirm either claim, the dish (of the 1 i had) had nice and chewy wavy noodles and a flavorful but light (as alleged) soup. 

i on the other hand, had ordered the Cold Sesame Shiro Miso ($10) which is a cold, soupless order of al dente wavy noodles served with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, ground pork, and corn with a sesame shiro sauce. indulging my chinese heritage, i also added a hefty dosing of shichimi and rice vinegar which gave the cold noodles the exact punch i was looking for. and apparently we were both hungrier than we thought since we each finished our portions without any trouble.


if you get to go, i also recommend ordering a carafe of their cold sake. it's served in the cutest carafe i've ever seen. there is a hole in the center of the carafe where ice cubes are placed in order to keep the sake nice and cold. and no matter how you pour the sake out, the ice cubes (even as they melt) don't ever fall out of their little holding cell. it's pretty impressive.


so back to my convo with Stitch. i gave her 1 quick word of warning about my own experience crossing the friend line with someone i had known for over a decade:


i had known Door for a long time and we had initially dated back in middle school but broke up after a month (if it could even be called a real relationship). and ever since then we were in constant communication through high school and would occasionally hang out since he lived only 2 towns over from me. throughout this entire period, Door would serenade me with claims that i was "the one that got away" and how much he liked me. i would politely defer, and brush these overtures off as just silly talk. 


until my freshman year of college, where i was away from home for the first time, at a women's college. and i would occasionally miss home and eventually fell into a pattern of talking almost daily to Door, who was back home in NJ. so no surprise that i started to really entertain the idea of dating Door and began to see him as a real prospect. and so 1 day i told Door that i was ready to date him and wanted to be together with him in an actual relationship. 


at first Door didn't believe me, which is understandable since for him, it seemed to come out of the blue, and it wasn't like he was acting any different than he usually did over the many years that i had known him. but eventually, he accepted what i said as true, and we tried the dating thing. and things went well for the few months that i was at school, but quickly went downhill once i returned home to NJ for the summer and we had a real, day-to-day existence as a couple.


Door turned douchey real fast once i got home and he realized he had to be a boyfriend on a daily basis. and Door and i are still friends to this day and he completely admits that he turned douchey. but here was the real problem: after all those years of claiming he "loved" me, when it actually happened, it became apparent that Door wasn't "in love" with me, he was just used to the "idea" of me and what he imagined dating me would be. and even tho he knew me in real life, the idea he had of me as a girlfriend adjusted to fit whatever mood he was in or whatever phase of life he was going through. so no wonder i didn't live up to that expectation. and so no surprise, we broke up.


so when Stitch told me she was a little nervous to confess her feelings to her friend, i gave her this little tale of warning. however, i also gave her my feelings about the whole experience: if i hadn't done it, i would've regretted it for the rest of my life. because i would have always wondered "what if." but since i did it, i never have to wonder if Door was my soul mate or what would have happened if we had tried dating because now i know. and while we didn't end up together, we are still friends and can talk about that time together in a nostalgic and amicable way.


so good luck Stitch! try to go through life with as little regrets as possible.