“I’d settle for anyone,” my girlfriend the Actress wistfully moaned. “You’re very lucky Bonita but at least you have choices. It’s just that you don’t want your choices but at least you have SOME.”

“Yes, but then again, if you think about it,” I argued. “They’re not choices if they’re not what you want. And the problem is, ‘I know what I want.”

My girlfriend the Actress and I were sipping cool sweet cocktails at Roxy 99 last night after a successful performance. As usual when women get together, we were talking about love, men and relationships. She was complaining that she was always a friend but never the girlfriend while I was blissfully sharing with her my unbearable long-distance relationship with a man who lives four hours away by plane.

“If you feel disappointed that the moment you’ll see each other is a few more weeks away,” she said. “Then that means you care for him. Otherwise, you would be apathetic if you saw each other tomorrow or the next year.”

The Actress was a truly lovely person. I met her at a house party and we teased and joked about using vulgar words that very evening. She has been quite active in the Taipei artistic scene, and appeared in several notable plays. We hang out and the topic would usually revolve on her frustrations that guys treat her as a buddy, and she cannot handle that because she develops feelings for them.

Physically, she doesn’t embody characteristics that most men find to be attractive. She is not chopsticks thin nor hot as most Taiwanese women are, and somehow uses the friendship tactic to gain access to a guy she likes.

“Don’t start treating men like friends,” I advised. “Otherwise, you’d be fenced in their ‘friend’s zone.'”

“But I find it fulfilling when we talk about relationships. As if we’re talking about something deeper than the usual ‘Hello’ or ‘How are you?’ bullshit,” she counter-argued. “It makes me feel closer to them.”

“Sure, but you want to be the girl they talk about,” I replied. “Not the girl that they bitch and moan to about the woman in the pedestal that they couldn’t have.”

Most of my relationships start with the men sweeping my feet away. Guys are quite simple really. Either they’re attracted to you–or they’re not. It’s hard for a man (in my honest opinion) to see you merely as a friend, but somehow, you touched their hearts and managed to convince them how great you are, and they fall madly in love with you.

Usually, in my limited romantic experience, you see their desire for you in their eyes. If they like you as a woman (and not as a friend), they cannot help but stick by you like bees to honey. They want to ensure that you keep them company. They do favors for you. They look for opportunities to get together. And to hell if you’re colleagues, their superiors or inferiors or their ma would hate you if they saw you. If they are attracted to you, usually, their feelings for you would have a force of their own.

And boys being boys, they would leap first before looking—and hope that the pool has water on it.

I find boys to be funny sometimes. For me, it’s usually a matter of wrong timing. For example, I know that one guy-pal liked me yesterday. He kept on sticking by me the whole evening and strained to hear what I was saying as if my words were really brilliant. And yes, he SMSed me today too to see if there’s any chance of us meeting together for some random activity.

Which reminds me, I have to nip his infatuation in the butt. I’m kinda taken for the meantime.

Anywho, back to my story before I digressed, it’s mighty important that women have to have some sort of self-respect. If you don’t respect yourself, then who would care for you? Women think we can bribe men to like us more. As if we can convince them how great we are.

However, this is simply counter-intuitive behavior: You CANNOT make a guy like you. However, you can make yourself a woman who deserves to be liked and loved, and you do this by acting as if you deserve nothing but the best.

Last night, when I was talking to my friend, I looked at her to say that at present, she’s willing to settle for ANYTHING that comes her way. Even though it doesn’t go up to her standard. That’s how much she wants to have a boyfriend. That’s how desperate she wishes to be in a relationship.

However, imagine that you meet someone like the Actress. And her mindset is that she is willing to take any Tom, Dick and Harry in order to be with someone. It’s like a guy who comes up to me in a bar and slurringly make me an offer I’ve always refused. “Baby, you are just like any hole in this damn fucking bar,” he’d tell me in more polite people-talk. “But hopefully, you’re the hole who would go home with me and screw my brains out.”

If that’s the case, do you think I’d do that? And if I did, then what sort of self-respect do I have left?

My men share something in common: they are picky.

They are extremely selective and don’t date a woman unless she possesses certain qualities that they want in a partner.

I like the feeling of being chosen, of being different. Of being special. Who doesn’t? Which is why I pick men who are as picky as me. Because I know the pleasurable thrill of being chosen. In baseball fields when you’re choosing a team, who wouldn’t be the person a leader would choose first?

If I am just like any ho on the street and they’d still take me, then they become like any men in the street. It gives me a high that out of all the eligible ladies they could’ve picked, they choose me. And of course, that’s how I choose guys too. They HAVE to be special before I choose them. Otherwise, it’s really a waste of evreyone’s time and effort. If they can have anyone then why not just pick up any random drunken woman from the street? They’ll go with you so long as you dazzle them with enough moolah.

Just between you and me, there’s a thrill in being priceless.

If a man or woman or a corporation can buy you, then you are cheap. Because is a million enough? Is an LV bag sufficient? If someone can buy you, then you become worthless because you already have a pricetag on your forehead.

I think the joys of being alive and what makes us different from animals is that we have choice. Free will.

We get to choose what we eat. Who we marry. Where we work. If we want to have kids.

The power to choose makes us human.

And yet, we find ourselves not really exercising this power. We often scan our choices and settle because we’re afraid to wait for the one we’re really waiting for. We are afraid that if we don’t choose now, our choices would dry up and we’ll be left with nothing.

But is this a valid fear? Are we truly that afraid to be alone that we often select people who we don’t really want? Don’t you think that there are some things really worth waiting for?

Think about this–please don’t settle.

There are so many wonderful things that will come just because we don’t settle. Hopefully, we have enough self-esteem to see what we deserve and only demand the best. Sure, some may not be as pretty or smart or whatever, but if you reach for the sky and the stars, it would still be higher than any person who grovels in the dust because dust is only what you’ll have.

Enough of this tirade. I need to buy some lingerie. 🙂

Hope everyone enjoy the rest of their weekend and again, don’t settle for second best.