So this latest post is partially a reason why I wanted my own platform… to talk about stuff on a more personal level. I think some people might be turned off and understandably so but I figure this is as any, a good way to tribute a best friend of mine.

I first met Dee a few weeks before mid-November back in 2003 thanks to a mutual friend, Andrea who was also my trainer and #1 thumb-taper on the varsity soccer team. The reason I remember it so clearly was cause the first time I actually hung out with her outside of university was at a party we had after just winning the 2003 CIS National Championships. I’m pretty sure my weak-attempts wooing her like going streaking through Edmonton’s McKernan area didn’t have the desired effects… oh yeh and cause I think she had a boyfriend or some shit like that. A few months down the road, she broke up with her boyfriend and we started hanging out a bit more.

Far from a ladies man and not sure how or if I should lose my goofy demeanor, luckily it seemed as though I had found somebody that clicked with me and I could be myself. Inevitably we started going out and in the process she graduated to the status of best friend, somebody who you could just lose yourself with and spend endless hours chilling and not feel as though you were wasting time. Nor did you feel as though you were on the cusp of getting bored with them. I must admit, those times were pretty fucking fantastic but I must also concede, it came at a point in one’s life when you were old enough to make your own decisions but still not in the real world.

I would come to learn a lot from Dee and I felt so proud of her cause she consistently got good grades… well I had terrible grades and went on academic probation that year we started dating. Actually, maybe I blame her and not so much all the varsity soccer haha j-u-s-t-k-i-d-d-i-n-g. As the months and years passed and things got more serious, it got to the point where I was done school. I figured fuck why not go to Hong Kong and play soccer. Mostly cause I wasn’t good enough to play anywhere else, I had family in Hong Kong and just wanted to try it out since I was young.

At the time, it was a no-brainer that moving to Hong Kong and maintaining a long-distance relationship was totally doable. Naive, perhaps but I had the utmost confidence. However it was pretty tough to do it… and I still remember that one day I left and the goodbyes at the airport. Shit wasn’t easy leaving behind my family, a best friend and a lover (ok that sounded corny but whatever).

Over a span of over two years, I kept this long-distance thing going. It in all honesty wasn’t as bad as most people put it out to be yet I’m sure different circumstances, different frameworks in relationships will bring forth varied results. I laugh and cringe at people describing “long-distance” relationships that are just a few hours away by car.

Following my one and only full season, I figured I had crossed off playing soccer off my list and decided to most likely come back… that is until an opportunity with Hypebeast came up. Having seen the first year go by rather flawlessly in the world of long-distance dating, I figured how much different can it be for another year.

Let me tell you, entering the real working world, and not some fantasy world where you play a sport for a few hours a day… it really changes your lifestyle, your mentality and you yourself as a person. The catalyst for personal change that is the work world is not something that you can really prevent. If you want to be a meaningful contributor to society, I think that you really have to keep a wide open view of all things around you, which is what I did. Soon, making that daily phone call or spending a good chunk of time on the phone may have become less important as work entered the picture.

I felt that while work was an integral part of anybody’s life, I was able to rise above any effects it would have on my personal life due to already solid foundation I had built over the last 3 years. But, that seemed to not be the case. You never know what your priorities are in life until you get a taste of it… that’s what I say. I got a taste of relative success and I wanted more and more of it. I don’t look back and question my motives for shifting my priorities from a relationship to building a career at age 23, luckily I have a sort of justification for my actions.

But relationships are always a two-way street and one thing I certainly have learned in the last few months is that perspectives are often far beyond just what you immediately see. It really is of great importance to really put yourself into the shoes of another and see what they’re feeling or how they’re being affected. An earlier, younger and more naive Eugene certainly wasn’t taking into account what other people or in this instance, what Dee was going through or feeling. I sort of feel bad that I kept things running for so long despite the fact I really had no concrete answers to the progression, development and status of our relationship.

Call it being a pussy on my part, cause I will chalk it up to that, I just didn’t have the balls to face the music and I sort of let things continue along on a fruitless path. I doubted a return back to North America was in the cards and through Dee’s job, no way she would give up a cushy nursing salary in North America to come to a country that de-valued the nursing profession and that she couldn’t speak the native language.

Things probably dragged on longer than they should. I don’t really remember the exact time we broke-up nor do I really care. In the end, I held the title of a relationship that was spent more time long-distance that in the same area code. It was obviously pretty hard to swallow. Some people see relationships as an investment of their time in hopes that it leads to something else aka marriage. While I think that’s a bad way of looking at things, I definitely think that I had some of this notion and Dee probably did too. Shit wasn’t the best afterwards and rightfully so. It was downright awkward and sometimes nasty.

However, as it stands now, whatever turbulent storm accompanies a break-up, I was pretty happy that it blew over. I don’t know exactly why things were able to continue on as a best-friend, boy-girl platonic relationship but it has. Most people would wonder how I could keep so close to somebody who I had a super serious relationship with in the past… but I think if you’re truly honest to yourself, that shit is like second nature. When I mean honesty, I mean the ability to really break it down accurately and let each other know what’s up. There were times when I knew I would say shit that would piss Dee off from an ex-girlfriend standpoint but… I said it anyways cause to really break down the previous connotations, you just have to keep pounding away. No point continuing on hiding shit for the sake of not upsetting anybody if the final goal is an overall healthier relationship.

I know that Dee needs to be told how funny she is, how smart she is, how cool she is, how good she is at finding my grammatical mistakes, how good at finding new music she is… cause she’s very much all of those things. I don’t think the way things have worked post-dating is necessarily a very special case, but we’re far from the ordinary. I’ve always wanted to be that, far from the ordinary and a disprover haha.

The shit I’ve said is not some all mighty revelation, but I needed my own case-study to reinforce this fact. All too often that’s what you need, that personal case study, that one experience, that so-called proverbial taste to really understand something.

So what spawned this post? A present that represents a few things… a late Christmas gift, a late Happy New Years gift, an early Chinese New Years gift (where’s my red packet bitch?!) and an early Valentine’s Day gift.

Happy Chinese New Year if you celebrate that stuff… I know I’m diggin’ it.

-Eugene

The Goods: SleepyTime Tea, Almond Butter Crunch, Maple Syrup, Almond Flour, Vancouver Olympics Keychain, Vancouver Olympics Flashlight, Engrave Your Book MoleSkine sleeve.

Tried to make almond flour pancakes… FAIL… I should follow recipes :/

The pic seen here was actually a picture I took in Tokyo at Tskuji.

She looks rather wizard-like don’t she?