#14: New York Dialogue

Is life even worth writing about if you’re not loving?

New York Dialogue

💗 This week’s playlist: the pink room.

E: This week, we asked each other the famed 36 questions to fall in love from NYT. Recorded over two nights in New York, we’ve transcribed our conversation below.

K: Thank you to Valeria for suggesting this week’s prompt!

Set I

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

E: Let me think.

K: I already know your answer.

E: What? You do? I don’t even know my answer.

K: It’s Japanese Breakfast.

E: Ohhh. You’re right. And who would you have? Donna Tartt?

K: I’m kind of scared of Donna. I’d love to, though.

Would you like to be famous? In what way?

E: Yeah, but only for my writing. I don’t know if I’d want to be famous for anything else.

K: The kind of fame that I want is just a side effect of doing what you love. It’s not anything I’d actively chase.

E: Right. It’s not a great benchmark for success.

Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

K: Not really anymore. I used to.

E: For professional calls, yes, I do. We have a script at the law firm. I’ll literally talk in the mirror to practice. With friends, no. Unless it’s confrontational.

K: I haven’t had a confrontational call in so long. I know you can’t say the same.

E: Noooo. 😖

K: You’ve gotten really good at it, though. I remember the early days. It used to be a joint effort between you and me. Now you just take care of business. I’m proud.

E: Thanks.

What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?

K: A perfect day has little to do with what you actually do. You can have an extravagant day or a boring day, but if it’s with someone you have a good synergy with, it doesn’t matter.

E: I agree. When it comes to a perfect day alone, I’d try to incorporate some kind of physical activity. I feel the best after I sweat or when I’m outside. Perfect days for me require that I’m out in the world. Running, walking, hiking. The weather has to be nice.

Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

E: No. Do you?

K: I did. I thought I was going to die before I turned 18. For no reason. I just felt like something bad was going to happen to me. That was part of How to Disappear Completely [this essay I wrote], too. I genuinely felt like I wasn’t going to live. And even now—not to make this deep, it’s just one of those idiosyncratic things—I’m reluctant to put money in a retirement account. I can’t see myself living to 65. It’s crazy to me that I could be OK for 65 years straight. Does that even count as a hunch?

Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

K: We’re both water signs. We’re both Chinese.

E: You can be more creative than that. We like a dinner party, we like good conversations.

K: We’re writers and readers.

E: We like pretty things.

K: We like New York.

E: We like the color pink. I mean, just read our newsletter.

K: Literally. Moving on.

For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

K: I’m very grateful to have my own money. When you don’t have that, life is a lot harder. There’s a certain level of independence you’ll never reach. And without my independence, I feel really, really bad. I need to be able to—within reason—go wherever I want, whenever I want. Money isn’t everything, but it’s an important building block to constructing the life you want.

E: I’ve always admired your ability to be independent. You grew up a little earlier than the rest of us. Right now, I’m grateful to be in New York. I take that for granted when I feel stressed or overwhelmed here. I couldn’t have imagined that I’d be able to live here so soon in my life. It was always just a, I’ll move there someday, type of thing.

If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

K: Not having my father in my life sooner. I wish he’d been around more.

E: I wish my parents talked to me less as a kid and more as a person. Growing up, they were caught up in their own issues with each other, money, or where we’d go next. We moved around a lot. They never spoke candidly about things. My mom still can’t say the word “sex.” It caused me to feel sheltered from the rest of the world. They never trusted me. This goes with being a younger sibling, too. Maybe Ariel [my older sister] had a different experience.

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

K: Definitely time travel. Do you know how much that would save me? I’m always late. And I say so many embarrassing things. I could just rewind time and fix it. I’d probably get addicted to an ability like that, though.

E: Time scares me. I don’t want to mess with that.

K: OK, so what would you want?

E: Something silly, like the ability to fly.

Set II

If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?

K: I’d want to know if any disaster would befall my family, or have premonitions about bad things that might happen to my friends. Probably nothing about myself, though. That scares me.

E: Even that’s scary to me. Knowing stuff about your friends. What if you can’t fix it? I would want to hear how I actually feel about things. I get confused all the time about, like, my personality.

K: Real. “Crystal ball, tell me who I am!”

E: Let me be perceived. I want to know if there’s any type of objective thing about me that I can bank on. What’s my deepest fear? What’s my greatest desire?

Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?

K: Having a normal sleep schedule.

E: Probably having a consistent workout schedule. I feel like it’s never going to happen.

What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

K: Being happy now. That was really hard. I hadn’t been happy from the fifth grade through to college. Being able to deal with things in a healthy way now is pretty impressive of me, honestly. I can recognize things I do that make my brain go crazy and actively course-correct. I couldn’t do that at 17.

E: Getting over the freaking breakup last fall. I was in the trenches. [my breakup happened the same time as when i was studying for the lsat] It was a matter of surviving from week to week. I was always in that state of mind. I’m still healing, but it’s not as immediate and urgent as it was before. That used to be my number one goal, every single morning. I’d wake up and think, “I’m still dealing with this.” Now I can deal with multiple things at a time and think into the future. I can be more hopeful.

K: I couldn’t have done what you did.

E: You did it.

What do you value most in a friendship?

E: Understanding. Being understood is so valuable. Bad friends teach you a lot about good friends. And bad situations, too, where you don’t feel like you belong, where you feel uneasy. Being understood by a friend means they’re able to be there for you when you need help. They can meet your needs.

K: It’s hard to find understanding. I always appreciated that you liked me for more than just being “artsy.” Being the “aesthetic artsy girl” [a label we both shared in our separate high school friend groups] is, like, no, that’s just how we view the world. It’s our shared life value. It has nothing to do with being actually artistic and everything to do with being in love with the same things and feeling those emotions.

E: People don’t understand it. They assume that we just like pretty things.

K: But it means everything to us. It’s what our whole lives are built around.

What is your most treasured memory?

K: We had so many great ones in California last summer. I used to think treasured moments were so rare. In high school, I had these sticky notes on my bedroom wall of my favorite moments. There were, like, four. I was really picky. Everything had to be perfect: the people, the weather, the mood. Now there are so many good ones. They’re all just like, the day-to-day of being on campus with you.

E: Aw.

K: Yeah. College wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t for a friendship like this. It’s been the defining thing in my college experience. What we have is rare.

E: A lot of my treasured memories come from places and the things associated with those places. Us in Lucky Lab or the South Mall lawn. I always go to the lawn when I’m sad, overwhelmed, or annoyed. Or on walks with you at night. I treasure those things.

What is your most terrible memory?

K: Probably a fight with my stepdad. Those were always terrible.

E: Yeah, family fights. I wanted to run away every two seconds. When that feels like your world, you’re so mad that it’s not perfect.

If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

K: I’d drop out of school. I’d move here [new york]. And I’d get to writing. More seriously, in greater volume and depth. Try to get it out as soon as possible.

E: I’d probably talk to a lot of people from my past lives. I’ve moved around a lot, done a lot of things, and met people that fell off. My relatives and cousins are overseas. I have friends I don’t talk to anymore. I always think about, like, if I only had one last phone call to make, who would I call? And I have a lot of people in mind.

K: Bitch, you better call me.

E: I’d call you! But we don’t have that many unresolved things.

K: Yeah, you’d just be like, “Hey, heads up, I’m dying.” And I’d be like, “What? Now?”

E: 🤣🤣🤣

K: I’d be like, “Damn, did you leave any laundry? I can pick that up for you. What flowers do you want for your funeral?”

E: That’s the beauty of a stable friendship. Everything that needs to be said has already been said.

What roles do love and affection play in your life?

K: I need it a lot. More than I’m willing to admit. I love to write, I love my trinkets and coats and books, but I’m not much different from any other human being in the world. I need love. I would even give up writing for love—

E: Wow.

K: Shit. That’s not something I would’ve said a month ago. Oh shit.

E: Someone’s down bad.

K: I’m like, is life even worth writing about if you’re not loving?

E: You know me. I’m constantly in love with everything. I’d say affection is a little different. I have to remind myself to show affection to my family and friends. My affection isn’t as clear-cut as the feeling of love. But, yeah, I love love. I had so much anger when I was younger and it was because I didn’t love my life. Once I started loving my life, everything became easier.

Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

E: Let’s do three. I think you’re very da fang (大方). I don’t know how to best translate it into English. Like, you’re very caring and open. Maybe “open” is the word. You’re not nit-picky. You like to provide for people.

K: You’re patient with your friends. You have a lot of emotional tenacity for people who I would otherwise not give the time of day. You say you’re a bad judge of character, but I think you see the best in people. You’re da fang in that way, about people. Also, you’re very adaptable and versatile. In most aspects of your life, you take what comes your way really well.

E: I like that you don’t care much what people think about you. You’re confident in yourself and independent. You help bring out that side of me, where I’m OK with being who I am and where I’m at. You think independently. That’s rare. People are constantly unsure about themselves, like their personality and desires.

K: I’m so proud of your GPA. You’re smart, but it’s also a work ethic thing.

C: Is it?

K: Yes. You deserve your scholarships and honors. I think it’s easy for you to forget about that, probably because it’s been built into you. But your ability to grind, the whole LSAT thing—

E: My Capricorn rising, carrying everything.

K: Yeah. You say you can’t see into the future, but that’s all I can see. The future. I can’t get through the week because I’m too busy dissociating and trying to make myself feel better by imagining my life two years from now. It takes a certain amount of grit and diligence to wake up every day, even when you’re not feeling your best, and be like, “Whatever, fuck it, let me get some Sweetgreen, go cry it out on the lawn, and go to class.” And you did that. For months. When you’re in it, it doesn’t seem impressive, but from the outside looking in… Not that I didn’t respect you before, but after, I was like, “Damn. This girl’s tough.” That wasn’t a word that immediately came to mind when I first met you. Now I definitely think you’re tough.

E: The TEDTalks you sent me about breakups helped. My third quality for you is that you’re creative. I feel like that’s why I reached out to you. I’d never met someone so similar to me in that sense. We bonded over that immediately and it’s obviously grown into My Brilliant Friend now. I never felt that with anyone else, that I could be creative and appreciate beauty and—

K: Have it not be a schtick.

E: Yeah, have it not be silly. It really is a lifestyle thing. I’m thinking about The Goldfinch [kelly’s favorite book], too, and how that ending about beauty changed my outlook on what writing meant to me and why I see the world the way I do. You helped me realize a lot about myself. You see beyond things in a way that other people don’t. You’re a great writer, too.

How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

K: I read this somewhere: “Don’t forget it’s your parents’ first time going through life, too.” That changed my opinion on a lot of things regarding my mother. She was here before me, so I just assumed she would know better than me. But she’s living her life parallel to mine. It’s not like I’ve been the perfect daughter, perfect friend, perfect partner, perfect student. I’ve not been the perfect anything. Why should I level the expectation of “perfect parent” on her? At the end of the day, I love her. We’ve healed a lot of our past by talking it out.

E: For the longest time, my mother was constantly worried about my safety. She would call me all the time at the start of college. She used to come into my bedroom when I was a kid to make sure I was asleep. She felt like less of a mother and more of a stewardess at times.

K: What about now?

E: It’s better. I’m grateful that she’s always there for me. When I had COVID, calling her made me feel a lot better and reassured. When it’s really important, she’s there. She’s also really silly. She’s fun to be around.

Set III

If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

K: Probably that half the things I say are half-truths. My good friends know not to listen to what I say and to only pay attention to how I act or what I do. It’s like a—

E: Coping mechanism.

K: I’m not great at expressing what I feel. I could mean the completely opposite thing of what comes out. I can be unnecessarily mean.

E: Yeah, you use humor to cope, like Chandler [from friends]. It makes things more fun. I feel like getting to know me is almost layered. Things that don’t come up as much because I’m now so many years removed from it. Like that I played golf or lived in Beijing for a few years.

K: Or that you were a chess genius or played with Tiger Woods…

E: I don’t think those things are a big deal anymore, but when I was a kid, they were.

Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

K: Probably every conversation I’ve ever had with a white boy in middle school. I didn’t know how to talk to them, filtered through the fact that they were white and I was Asian, they were guys and I was a girl. I just remember picking random fights with them.

E: Remember at the beginning of the year when you said you wanted to be nicer to boys?

K: Did I make good on that?

E: Yeah. There was a recent one for me. I forgot South Carolina was in the South. I thought it was more middle and said it was “up there” at a friend’s barbecue. I’m just dumb. I don’t know American geography.

K: You just come from a different world. You can’t expect a Pisces to know geography. They know your deepest fear and greatest desire at any given moment.

E: But they don’t know where South Carolina is.

K: It’s just not ephemeral enough.

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

K: I’m very aware of how I look. I’ve found that when you grow up ugly, no amount of post-glow-up external validation eases that sore spot. Some part of me is always going to be a gawky 12-year-old with grandma glasses, greasy hair, horrible acne, jeans that come up too short.

E: Religion and China.

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?

K: I’d tell my grandpa that I love him. I don’t know how to convey my love for him. As you know, with Asian grandparents and language barriers, there’s so much you want to say, but also nothing to talk about.

E: I’d tell my family I love them, too. I wrote a letter a while back on how my parents used to treat affection as currency. So I think I’m saving it for something big or intense. Like, at my wedding or if someone dies. It feels big because I haven’t said it in a way that I really mean it yet. I don’t know if I regret being a bad kid. I did the best I could. Maybe when I finally say I love you, I’ll regret not saying it sooner. But for now, I’m still working towards it.

Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

E: I think I’ve already told you all my problems.

K: We’ll just do one for the record. Give me some general dating tips.

E: The key to a good date is, you need to be comfortable. Physically, emotionally. You need to be at ease with where you’re at. That doesn’t mean you have to be immediately talking about deep things or that the conversation has to be amazing. It just means you’re interested in seeing what he’s most comfortable talking about and that you’re easing each other’s nerves. So you don’t go in with high expectations or post-date expectations. Having a good time is the most important thing. There’s no point if you’re not having fun.

K: Yeah, that makes sense. Appreciating the date for what it is. A pocket of time to get to know the person better.

E: How do you decide what social events to go to and what not to go to?

K: Something that I always avoid doing is to consider how it’d be perceived. Like, if it’s a club, I won’t consider if the venue will be cute or if there’ll be photo ops. What I do consider are things like, when I’m there, what do I actually want to concretely do? Do I concretely want to order these shots at the bar? Do I want to dance? I think it goes back to comfort, too. A lot of these events are designed to validate you and appeal to your ego in some way. At the end of the day, you’re going to be there for three hours. Someone else going to see your photo and swipe away in a second.

Having confidence in your ability to make fun for yourself alleviates pressure to go out and seek it. All other avenues through which you might pursue play become optional and something you weigh against your personal time. It’s a mentality shift.