Love in the Time of... Recession

Well, here in Wuxi the weather is getting warmer and love is in the air. It’s about time I got around to describing how relationships work around here. I guess I can only offer my limited perspective, but I’ve seen and heard about a few interesting things. Obviously, relationships tend to work a little differently when the members have two different mother tongues. I should also point out that many of the foreigners here aren’t necessarily looking for long-term relationships, while many of the Chinese girls get pressure from their families to marry when they are about 22 or so. This results in some ‘unusual’ relationship stories.

For example, one of the foreign guys here has left two different apartments because his Chinese girlfriend at the time (yes, two apartments, two girlfriends) moved in and he subsequently decided that he didn’t want to be with the girl any more. I don’t know the details of the situation, such as whether the girl refused to leave him or whether he just walked out on them one day. Since some of the girls here are a little crazy (see below) and since he has a history of getting up and leaving places he doesn’t want to be without saying a word, either option is possible. Many people dream of just leaving whenever they want, but he actually does it. All I know is that he currently lives in a hotel room and has, as far as I can tell, another girlfriend.

When I said that it was possible that his girlfriends were simply crazy, which is admittedly less likely given that it’s happened twice with that guy, I did have the story of another foreigner in mind. Two stories actually, though they deal with the same guy. This guy apparently had a Chinese girlfriend for a while and then broke up with her. These things happen to everyone. Life goes on. Well apparently the girl didn’t see it that way. She proceeded to throw herself in the canal, knowing full well that she couldn’t swim. Fortunately for her, someone saw her, went in after her, and fished her out. To be honest, I’m not sure who’s more of a head case: that girl or the random foreign guy who told me the other day that he saw her, recognized her and tried to hit on her. You have to be a special kind of person to actually seek that kind of relationship. But then again, some people here are.

The other story about the guy whose girlfriend threw herself in the canal involves a later girlfriend of his. They went out for a while and, after what was supposedly a tempestuous relationship, they broke up. The Chinese girl was heartbroken/furious. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that, but I think she wanted people to think she became a lesbian. She got a ‘girlfriend’ and sort of seems to be affectionate with her in public. The strange part is that even though she hangs around with her ‘girlfriend’ most of the time, whenever she ends up at the same place as this guy, she spends most of her time fawning over him. It’s an extremely awkward situation that I, for once, am not involved in. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I have avoided any post-relationship suicide attempts or faux lesbianism.

But there is a new situation that I’m dealing with that has presented itself recently. It’s hardly necessary for me to say that it involves considerable awkwardness. I’ll dive into this situation in the next exciting episode of “The Bold and The Awkward.”