[girl blog] Foreign Fool Saga chapter 1

I wouldn't consider myself inexperienced with women. I'm a 27 year old guy who has an older sister and plenty of female friends throughout his live. I've had women I loosely dated and women I dated seriously. None of these relationships however lasted very long or turned out to be good/mature. I know how mysterious women can be sometimes. I know when I'm setting myself up for possible drama. That didn't stop me though.

About 9 Months ago I moved to China for a new job. Being a foreigner here I didn't have many connections. Just a few people I remember from my hometown who also moved here and that sort of thing. The first day on my job I would meet I got to know my new colleague, and the girl in question: Lisa. I liked her from the first second I saw her. Beautiful eyes, beautiful smile, clever, witty... Pretty much everything I like and admire in a woman. We got along very well from the get go. I made her laugh, she made me laugh and at the end of the first day she told me how happy she was to be working with me. I know that almost everyone agrees that dating a co worker is a bad idea so I wasn't planning on pursuing it. I mean I'm not an idiot right?

A few months had passed and Lisa and me were growing evermore close. As I mentioned my social connections were limited when I came here so she quickly grew to become one of my best friends. She helped me with all kinds of things a foreigner around here might struggle with and even watched several of the World Cup (football/soccer) matches with me at ungodly hours due to the time difference. I felt like I was slowly falling for this girl. She was just always there with her smile to pick me up when I stumbled and help me improve myself. I had the feeling she felt the same way about me because the conversations and interactions became more and more flirtatious. Then came the morning of the World Cup Finals. I don't recall the exact text message conversation we had but it I do remember what it made her ask: maybe we can be lovers in stead of only friends. My mind was blown. I told her to wait until we would meet at work because I'm not comfortable with having this kind of conversation on the phone. So we waited. We had to pull an almost all nighter at work (we work in a hotel) because we had some German guests who wanted to watch the finals and obviously wanted to celebrate. When the guests finally left we had an opportunity to talk:
ME:So about that thing...
HER: Hmm...
ME: Don't you think it will be difficult?
HER: Forget about it, I'm kidding myself!
ME: No you're not.
At the end of that shift she kissed me (for the first time in years I was really nervous) and that's how it came to be..

I felt like I was the king of the world. I had a promising job with people I enjoyed and an amazing girlfriend to take home at the end of the day. We did fun things together when we had the chance, the sex was amazing and we were just happy all around. I knew she was concerned with getting married and having children soon (due to pressure from her family) but we worked around it. I said I needed a bit more time but that this was a very serious relationship to me. As you can also imagine we had to keep our relationship a secret to our colleagues. The boss just left for a new job and effectively made her the no.1 in the department and me no.2. Us dating wouldn't make our team happy. Another thing especially she had to consider is that she had a group of close friends/colleagues, most of whom she had already known for 7 years with whom she had to keep a good relationship because it is important for her career.

At the beginning of November there was a large outside catering event my hotel was running. A total of 200 of our employees went there for over a week to make this happen. Me and her were part of a 15 man core team in charge of leading the rest employees in this event. As the event location was far away from our home all the staff stayed in a motel close to the terrain. Goddamn this was a terrible week for me.

In the very beginning of the event one of her friends ran her mouth to her boss (a close friend of her but NOT the guy you want to find out about this). Due to some other political tension in this hotel he was very angry to find out she was dating me. For the rest of the week I wasn't able to talk to her or see her. Safe for a few messages in the morning or evening and sparse interaction on the bus home. Her birthday was this week and even then I had to silently look on as she was going out to celebrate it with this group of close colleagues. Most of them knew she was dating me but I wasn't invited. Keeping up appearances right? As you can imagine it hurt a lot. Due to lack of communication I really didn't know what to think. I understand the boss was angry but she denied it and he had no evidence. So what right? Even the night after the event when I thought the would finally be mine again she had to go with this same group. I tried to force her to tell me what's going on. She completely choked and told me not to push her. She said she would come to me the next morning to explain. She told me she loved me. No matter how difficult it would get she loved me. She had to do this for her career. I drank and drank and finally went to sleep.

The next morning she messaged me how there were other things she had to do first and blablabla. When I got angry and told her she better tell me what the fuck is going on she choked again, hung up, and turned off her phone. That's when I wrote the quoted post at the beginning of this entry.

She came to me that day after all. Early in the afternoon. I saw a person that was broken and barely keeping it together. And like a sap I was I already grabbed my first glass of alcohol to try and soothe the pain I was sure to be coming (hey it was past lunch time right?) She had bags under her eyes, was wearing a really ugly jacket, had bandages around her wrist and was wearing her work uniform pants which made the entire ensemble look like that of a homeless person. She sat down on a chair across from me, put her hand on her face to cover her eyes and was sitting half turned away from me. I could almost see her trembling.
ME: So..... what's up?
HER: ........ I'm just so tired....
ME: Why? Please tell me what's going on it's driving me crazy!
HER: ...........
Again she choked up. FML that shit is annoying. So I started talking. Told her about how I loved her more and more, how this was breaking my heart and that I'm so confused. Basically all my feelings and the story from my point of view. I got to the point where I started asking her questions directly:
ME: So what's going on? Are you breaking up with me? ......... Are you cheating on me?
She snorted a laugh.
HER: Yeah right, with who? John? (John is our boss and the leader of her little group)
ME: Then what is it!!!
She started crying. And talking. Finally. She told me how angry John was. She told me how over the last 7 years her group of colleagues by his lead had worked in many different hotels and how everyone under his care has been getting promotions and an all round stable career. She told me he was so angry about her dating me that she said kick her out of the group. No I'm not coming to celebrate her birthday. This girl is dead to me. Apparently my association with another boss in our department made him distrust/dislike me, and now by extension her. Furthermore, he had found a new job and would leave the hotel soon... So in a nutshell this girl saw her closest group of friends and promise of a career vanish before her eyes. She was in all out panic mode to try and fix it. So I hugged her. And things seemed to be OK again.

I understood she had to keep up appearances. She was mending her relationship with John and the gang so she couldn't be too close to me. At least not to the public's eye. We became more distant at work. Arguing more. But it was all good because when we were with the two of us we were good. John had already left the hotel by this time. She organized his bye bye party and too me it seemed like they were good again. She even was talking about helping me mend my relationship with him because we also used to like each other a lot and he is a useful friend to have. Another thing that John's leaving meant was that a lot of staff from my hotel would either follow him or go work somewhere else. That's how popular he is. The staff doesn't care for the remaining bosses. She also started looking for a new job. One of the John gang set her up with an interview in another hotel that went really well so it started to look like she would be leaving her current job somewhere in February next year. It was exciting for her because it was a great opportunity for her, an opportunity for me to step up, and overall better for our relationship because we would be able to take more days off together and wouldn't have the problem of hiding our relationship anymore. It was all good.

Except that it wasn't. The last week or so she has been distant again. Too busy or some shit to come and see me. Something was bothering her again I could tell. In light of her moving to a different job I decided to step our relationship up and asked her to move in with me. She said yes but it was a completely unenthusiastic yes. She avoided me more and more. Something is obviously bothering her but again she doesn't want to talk about it. She mentioned feeling so helpless and that she doesn't know how to tell me.

We almost arrived at the now. Stick with me for a bit more if you will. Yesterday me and her got a very problematic email. Without getting too much into detail I did her a favor a few days ago I had no idea I was doing anything that could be even considered wrong. As it turned out her using both our names got us in a lot of trouble. The company is investigating this case. There is a very good chance she will lose her job. Due to me not knowing what the fuck actually happened and her protecting me by confirming that I will probably be fine but it still doesn't look good. I have no idea if she is a victim just as much as me or if she really did do something stupid and got me involved. She isn't talking so how could I know?

After all this drama at work yesterday she quickly ran off before I had a real chance to talk to her. I think her and the John gang had set a date to go out that night or something. We had a last conversation over the phone and through text. She told me again how she doesn't now how to tell me what's going on. She said she felt so so guilty for getting me into this trouble. She told me two or three times she loves me. She asked me to please give her some time. I agreed. Sure I'll leave you alone. I'm hurting and in doubt but who cares. The straw that broke the camel's back?

So here I am now leaving her alone. I guess I'll give her some time. I'm kind of clueless what's going on. Is there someone else and is she having a hard time choosing between the two? Is the John gang or someone else putting her under pressure to break up with me? I guess there's no way for me to find out. So I'll wait. But not too long because I gotta think about my own mental health as well. Maybe it's a blessing if she get's fired and I can use this opportunity to just ban her from my life. I mean, even though I love her a lot how could I possibly have a happy live with a person who blocks me out like this?