A Bout of Yellow Fever

How Does it Work Again?

The basics of using online dating are dead simple, as described in previous blog entries.

I have however, found an appropriate comparison in that online dating is basically a lot like a really bad computer game, where crappy controls, shoddy design, awful camera angles, or extremely monotonous gameplay are its downfall… you have a torrid time, spending absolutely ages tackling the same task over and over again, and eventually you get to the end of the level but you know that it wasn’t your skill or talent that got you there, rather than sheer bloody-mindedness and repetition. I think I previously described online dating as “soul destroying”; whilst it is effective, I stand by that statement.

So as the Banana Dater, I obviously think I’m God’s gift to women, right? Unfortunately, most women don’t agree with me, because I'm actually a normal looking, 5’7 Chinese dude. And so I need to work a little bit harder at persuading them that I’m a worthy potential mate. In addition to the “racial hierarchy” mentioned in my first post, on speaking to some of my female friends, there is also one other big factor that matters to girls, which is height. I find that being short won’t necessarily be a disadvantage to you as long as you are still taller than her, but being tall will definitely grant you an advantage!

Yellow Fever

Just check this out the following summary taken from the NHS Choices website:

Yellow fever is a serious viral infection that's usually spread by a type of mosquito known as the Aedes aegypti mosquito. It can be prevented with a vaccination. Typical symptoms of yellow fever include: high temperature (fever), headache , nausea and vomiting, muscle pain, including backache, and jaundice – yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes caused by liver damage.

See, you’re not laughing now, are you? I don't wish to alarm anybody, but whilst the NHS website asserts that there have not been any recent cases in Europe or North America, it seems an unusual mutation still seems to be active, targeting mainly white men. The pattern is the same in Britain, with the primary symptom being the afflicted man has a preference for girls of oriental origin.

This condition varies in severity, from guys who don’t noticeably have a preference but may do in their own heads, to guys who go way out of their way to seek out and date oriental ladies. And to be honest, each to their own; if that’s what floats your boat then you go for it. And some Chinese girls prefer to date non-Chinese blokes which is cool too. Although having said that, I must say I find it incredibly galling for the handful of times I’ve been told by an oriental lady that oriental guys aren't their thing… The most ridiculous case in my memory would a night a few years ago when I was still at uni; I got talking to this attractive BBC girl who stopped me and bluntly said: “sorry, I don’t do Chinese guys”, before walking off. Nice .

Something for Everyone

I was most surprised to receive a message recently, from Jennifer… ‘cos you know, it’s not often I get a message :P

Anyhow, it was standard Hello sort of message, clearly showed she’d read my profile and what-not, which is always a good start. Navigate to her profile: English girl with curly blonde hair, some normal pictures, she was into manga (cool), oriental culture (cool), cosplay (could be awesome!), and a few other interesting things.

And… Oh… Jennifer was 5’10 (I’m 5’7). As if it wasn’t any more obvious she was into all things oriental, she finished her write-up with: “I only date Caucasian and East Asian men”. Umm… Well that was interesting!?!

Truly, there is something for everyone on the internet… So it turns out that there are non-Chinese girls who are specifically into oriental guys. I’m not aware that there are many of them but that they exist at all was a total revelation to me. I’ve spoken to Chinese girls who’ve been pestered by white guys struck with Yellow Fever, and they sometimes sound a little annoyed by the whole thing. So whilst this may be a familiar feeling to you Yellow sisters out there, for me, this was an entirely new feeling.

At first I thought it was kinda cool that there were girls out there specifically attracted to orientals… but then after about 5 minutes, I thought more about how it wasn’t my personality or anything else that she liked, simply that I was a Chinese dude... I was essentially reduced to being some lady’s kink and not much more, and that was a much less pleasant feeling.

So this is how it feels to be totally objectified?!?

Curiosity is a Terrible Thing

I would never date Jennifer for a number of reasons. For one, she’s taller than me by a fair bit, and the Napoleon Complex in me just wouldn’t be able to deal with that. I wasn't particularly attracted to her either. Then I’m not sure how much we actually had in common, but she seemed to be exclusively into oriental stuff, like one of those Wapanese girls. And I was still very uncomfortable with the idea that somebody only liked me for my race. Aaannnnd… here's where I made my mistake… I let curiosity get the better of me!

Against my better instincts, novelty factor was too strong, so I responded to Jennifer's messages. And I even gave her my email (just a dating one, not my actual email... I'm not one to live that dangerously!)… and before I knew it, I had received:

• Some very looonnngg emails about herself and what she was into... we're talking a few emails, each one longer than this blog entry!
• All manner of vaguely naughty pics and even a few videos... which isn't nearly as cool as it sounds in these circumstances.
• A bunch of very very very long emails describing Somerset where she came from. In excruciating detail: upbringing, nearby shops, features. Together with accompanying pics.
• More long emails about herself

What the hell had I let myself in for???

I felt slightly guilty at the amount of effort she had put into writing these emails, but then again I'd not exactly encouraged it, so it wasn't like I was leading her along either. I also wondered how she could write so much about herself without any real prompt or feedback etc... then realised, here I am here writing this blog and I'm a massive hypocrite (again).

To be honest, I was thoroughly scared by now… the emails that followed seemed to change tone, so I’d get one friendly one, then one accusing me of using her, then one friendly, then one aggressive… I responded but slowly over the space of around 3 days as I phased myself out gradually. Fortunately for me I hadn’t given Jennifer much information to work with, so I figured there was a low risk of suddenly seeing her stood outside my house with a knife (fingers crossed!).

Bizarrely, another week or so after her last email to me, I actually got another email from her saying she was now in a relationship, wishing me luck, and that she no longer wished to be in touch with me… Hooray!!! Bullet. Dodged.

AMWF... ???

I was still a little struck by this whole episode and had a poke around Google; a little more research afterward and it turns out that there’s actually a proper name for this of thing… Asian Male White Female (AMWF). Go ahead, Google it… did you even know this was a thing???

Each to their own, and be happy… ‘Nuff said :)

Next!

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(Not) Date 4: Night Bus Adventures

Following on from the last sub-post in which Josh told me that my approach to finding the right girl was all wrong, I now found myself back to taking this more pragmatic approach to dating... i.e. back to being clueless.

And that was how, a few days later, Josh and I found ourselves on a night bus in London; I dressed as a dustbin man and he dressed as a Thunderbird. Nothing dodgy or 'owt, we were returning from a fancy dress party, although given it was a “wear whatever you like” sort of fancy dress, I’m not entirely sure what made me think going dressed as a dustbin man would be a good idea… particularly as much to my chagrin, my outfit was probably a little too authentic and a number of people mistook me for an actual dustbin man.

The party had been lots of fun and, having made an obligatory stop for fried chicken, we were now getting on the night bus, homeward bound. Regular users of this service will know that it’s always a motley crew of drunkards, socialites, late workers, randomers, and more drunkards. Josh and I fell firmly into the final category, and as we boarded there were only two aisle seats left near the front. I took my seat on the one side and quietly settled myself down. Josh on the other hand, has always fancied himself something of a Casanova when drunk… and sober for that matter. And immediately attempted to crack on to the lady to his right. At this point I’ll describe the cast in some more detail: Josh is something of a himbo, blonde surfer dude, around 5’10, who spends longer on his hair than most women (this is exactly what he looks like in real life)... and now dressed as a Thunderbird. His poor victim this time, was what I can only describe as one of those very tall exotic African goddesses, and even sitting down you could see she was fair bit taller than Josh. Taking all this into account, it still did not prevent our indomitable hero from having a go.

I didn’t hear all of what was said but I could see all the classic Josh-isms coming into play – leaning and whispering into her ear, a few attempts at shared jokes, completely ignoring her physical comfort zone, starting to work his arm round via the chair. The poor Goddess tried her best to ignore him staring directly ahead at all times and doing her best to avoid eye contact of any sort. Then I heard Josh blurt “ Oh you’re French? ”… I tapped Josh discreetly and jokingly mouthed “ Give it up dude, you don’t speak French ”, to which surprised me by replying “ No mate... I’ve been doing audiotapes. Watch this ”. It was strange as Josh didn't seem particularly loud but this final statement suddenly seemed to draw the attention of the entire downstairs section of the bus. In fact, everybody seemed to have noticeably quietened down to listen to our linguistic lothario in action… all were in on the joke ("entertainment"), except Josh and the Goddess.

What followed was what I can only describe as car-crash French. I’ve done my best to recreate the experience below, please forgive the terrible English phonetics:

Josh: “ Comong Tapell Yu? ”      [ Comment t'appelle-tu? ]

Goddess: “ … “     * 20 second pause *

Josh: “ Jer mapell Josh. Jer doooooooooozon "     [ Je m'appelle Josh. J'ai 12 ans ]

Goddess: “ … “      * 20 second pause *

Josh: “ Savva? ”     [ Ça va? ]

Goddess: *snigger*

There was another very long awkward pause. Josh had clearly exhausted his entire audiotape’s worth of French and looked a bit defeated. He looked at me, I shrugged my shoulders and now you could see the cogs really turning in his head. He still hadn’t cottoned on but the entire downstairs bus audience was now grinning, willing him to continue his hopeless quest. And then the lightbulb moment… Josh’s whole face lit up as he suddenly remembered his killer French line, the one that would mean he would swing things in his favour! He tapped Goddess on the shoulder to get her attention, grinned, and then excitedly shouted in her face:

“ Hey…. 'Ello! Yes. Listen... JEM BUKOO PARI! ”     [ J'aime beaucoup Paris! ]

* 5 seconds of silence *

I shit you not, the entire downstairs section erupted with laughter and applause as Josh suddenly felt very sheepish, like one of those guys who’s just been caught behaving badly on a hidden camera show. It’s funny how such embarrassment and humiliation will very quickly put a man back in his place... and that was the end of Josh’s attempts at seduction. Thunderbirds were definitely not go on this night!

For anybody who wants an actual masterclass on use of the night bus as a legitimate place to pull, can I refer you to my Manchester-based friend Tim; regularly leaves a night out on his own, rarely leaves the night bus on his own. I may write about him one day, the scoundrel.

When I had gotten on the bus, I took the other remaining seat and hadn’t even noticed the girl I was sat next to, however throughout Josh’s drunken attempts we found ourselves chuckling at the same points and sharing the occasional knowing glances – it’s always easier to strike up conversation over a shared laugh isn’t it? I got talking to this lady (mainly taking the piss out of Josh) and it turned out that she was actually quite an interesting person.

I didn’t realise publishing had such punishing hours, but Rowan was an American (Caucasian) girl working as a sub-editor for a national Sunday paper... and was on her way home after work… at 2 am?  We chatted over a number of topics, covering America and why she was here, what it was like working for a newspaper, the unsociable hours, her specialisms, and then in particular talking about what a tosser one of the well-known columnists for the newspaper was.

Rowan wasn’t really my type but the conversation was excellent and there was an undeniable bit of a spark; at the risk of sounding incredibly shallow, I must say, it’s not often I would have that with someone without at least finding her physically attractive first. Despite only talking for around 25 min, it felt a lot longer (but not long enough) and by the time it came to her stop, there’d been plenty more smiles, jokes, laughter. I almost asked for her number but bottled it and that was that. After she got up and off the bus, I said to Josh: “ She was alright, wasn’t she? ” [ “alright” meaning "good" ] to which he nodded, still red-faced. Before I felt a gentle smack round the back of the head… oh… Rowan hadn’t gotten off yet and was stood right behind me waiting for doors to open. At least she was still smiling!

The next day I felt like the conversation had given me the right to ask for her number without seeming a little creepy, and kicked myself for bottling it. Nonetheless, I endeavoured to see if I could track her down. And she, lo-and-behold, turned up on the very first Google search I did… [ REAL NAME ] + “sub-editor” +  [NAME OF NEWSPAPER ]. I’m already a heavy user of LinkedIn, but even I was surprised by how easily it came up with the top result. I sent a message and we see what happens.

The thing about what I had just done was that it was actually quite creepy… I’d taken a gamble that she felt the same as I did and then actually looked a girl up who I’d spoken to for less than half an hour. Essentially, it seems the only difference between whether I would be deemed creepy/stalkerish or sweet/romantic is down to whether Rowan found me attractive. So often and in all aspects of our life, we feel we’ve made ourselves abundantly clear on an issue only to find that the person you’re communicating with has missed the point entirely… Differences in age, cultural background, language, and ability to properly hear mean that this usually happens with my parents, mainly… BUT seriously though, my heart goes out to all you guys and girls who’ve ever (romantically) got the wrong end of the stick and been branded a stalker or a creep as a result.

Amazingly Rowan messaged me back that day and back-and-forthed a couple of times before I suggested we meet up one night. She replied back almost immediately saying she’d really enjoyed chatting to me and yes she’d love to do something one night. Boom, The Banana Dater has secured his first date that didn’t start on the internet. Whoop whoop!

… Unfortunately, ,that’s pretty much where the story ends; we tried to arrange a date 3-4 times but each time one tried, the other wasn’t available (usually work) and we just ended up gradually decreasing amounts of contact until it had fizzled out.


We now know that:

• Josh can’t speak French. Or he can, but very little and with ridiculous English-style pronunciation. And he still thinks he's 12.
• LinkedIn is a legitimate way to secure a date. Out of curiosity, have any readers got any of their own stories to share on this one?
• This wasn’t date 4, since it never happened. But that she agreed to it, boosted my dating confidence immensely.
• I was brought straight back down to earth the next night though, when walking home from the gym I walked past a couple of drunken ladies. As I walked by, one of them uttered " F*cking hell, he's hot! ". That certainly boosted my ego further, until I realised there was this perfectly-formed male model-looking chap walking right next to me that I'd mysteriously not noticed. My turn to look sheepish :(
• If you secure a date, then go for it. Recently I've not been on a few dates that I could've and should've. Mainly complacency, no follow-up, hectic work schedule... But don't tolerate the excuses!

So all in all, a bit of a failure for the lads on this occasion, and not that much learned. Except some French. Et voilà!

Next!

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