Why I Threw My Family Out of My Life

Back in October, I stopped non-essential communication with my parents. It started by not returning their phone calls and responding with short and terse replies to their emails. Eventually, I would start screening their calls and set up a filter to send their email directly to spam. Two months ago, right before Christmas I told my sister over text I no longer wanted to talk to her.

As of right now, I essentially have no immediate family to rely on. In fact, the only reminder that I even have a family comes in the form of forwarded mail from my mom.

Growing up things were never bad at home. My parents always paid the bills on time, made sure I had more than enough to eat and bought me the things I wanted once in awhile. I never abused physically outside of the spanking I received once in awhile and was always pushed to do well in school. It was very much the stereotypical upper middle class Asian household, where money was in ample supply but emotions and respect were sorely lacking.

Short of walking out, my father was probably as detached from my life. He would go to work and come back home, only getting involved in my life when it was necessary to discipline me or my mom nagged him enough. Being around my father always felt like a burden and as a result, most of father and son time was spent in silence usually in the car.

Aside from the total lack of things to talk about, there was another good reason for the silence. My father had a knack for making me utterly worthless and incompetent. If I shared any dreams or passions with him, it would quickly lead to self doubt. Sharing achievements with my father would quickly lead to the downplaying of them. Sharing failures would immediately lead to pointing out of incompetencies and subsequent worthlessness.

My sister told me during thanksgiving my father had asked if I would even care if he died. When my sister told me that, it struck me that my father was more interested in being the victim than trying to figure out what happened.

Is it too much to ask that my parents share in my dreams and ambitions? That they can respect the choices that I have made and we can say nice things to each other without having it disdainfully called "sweet talking." It seems at this point in this time, it is too much to ask and that is why I have chosen not to participate.

As I am discovering as I get older, earning money is pretty damn easy if you start at the middle. It's the extra things in life that you are not paid to do that are the most difficult.

Emoinacloset and Robocop always shake their heads and tell me that I am always looking for a family wherever I go. And the sad truth is that is completely true.   

You can never have enough money

Come Friday, I will have over $10,000 in my bank account. I have never been worth more in my life and it's just the beginning.

It is hard to imagine that I first came to San Francisco on a $1,750 per month salary. It's hard to even think I survived off my $30,000 full time salary. I wonder how I ever made ends meet in those days.

However, with more money comes more problems. My $80,000 salary though much, much higher than I ever hoped to make straight out of school feels inadequate. This is partly because I am in constant fear of losing my job and as a result am trying to save as much money as possible for unemployment. However, no amount I save seems enough and the thought of not have $10K in my bank account is depressing. Sometimes, I think I am collecting money for the sake of it, as if those ever increasing numbers on my ATM receipt are all that I need in the world.

The other half of the equation is just that it really just does not feel like enough money! When you have developer friends that make six figures, your high salary suddenly doesn't feel that high anymore. In fact, it feels downright inadequate. Never mind that $80K is more than the median household income in the United States (hint, that's with TWO people working under one roof).

The funny thing is, as much as I want more money, I have no idea what I would do with it. Already, I am having problems spending more than half of my current salary. The problem is that I still have this mentality of earning $30K a year and as a result I still try to keep all my meals around $10. I have splurged twice on meals and drinks over the last two weeks, but that doesn't seem like it is going to be trend. I have a sudden interest in purchasing non-Ikea furniture, but I still balk at price tags that exceed $200. All in all, I am still pretty frugal as half of my salary goes to savings. So why am I so obsessed about getting more money?

I told my friend Linda when I got laid off that all I wanted to do was make a lot of money, then I would be set and could enjoy life. I told her that I was tired of being broke and that making a lot would change everything. Well, it turns out when the first paycheck hit my bank account, my world wasn't turned upside down, it didn't make me happy and worst of all, I was still worrying about money.

This has led me to ask if there a magic amount that I can earn that will let me stop worrying about money? I want "fuck you" money so that I can focus on other things in my life.

I hope this is the right way to think about life.

-muffinman

Dipping My Toes into Online Dating

I finally gave in! Last week, I dipped my toes into online dating.

Bouncing from much too old (Jeanni) to much too young (Shirley, Cathy), I have decided that it might be time to turn to tech for some help.

Certainly, San Francisco seems like the perfect city to do it in. Everybody that I know seems to have successfully found their significant other on OkCupid. Hell, I know somebody who has even gotten engaged from off of OkCupid, and they seem like a lovely couple. Any of my notions that online dating is just for hopeless 30+ year old loners, does not exist here. In fact, online dating seems to be the preferred method of dating in the city for all ages.

If you can't beat em, join em.

However, I haven't totally gotten on the OkCupid train. It is just too big of a step for me right now, since the profile is too long and it seems you have to aggressively message others in order to experience any success.

Instead, I have been messing with Tinder, a very shallow app where you are shown pictures of women located near you. All I have to do is swipe right to "Accept" and if the girl also accepts me then a match is made and we can begin messaging. I have had five matches so far, but have not messaged any of them. Partly because everybody I know that uses Tinder just messes around with it. My coworker told me Tinder is where he A/B tests his pick up lines. Tinder is probably not the best place to find a significant other, but it is still a great way to pass the time and it's a nice ego boost to see that there are girls that "like" me.

More seriously, I created a profile on CoffeeMeetsBagel.com, a dating site that has been making some noise in the startup community. The concept is simple, you get one match a day and either you like or pass on your match. If both of you like each other, then texts are sent and you can start having a conversation.  Hilariously, for my first match, I was given a guy! Turns out, while lazily filling out my profile I had selected  seeking a male. Setting it to seeking female meant that the next day I did not get a match due to a gender imbalance on the site. Since the initial mismatch, I've had two matches with girls, but needless to say, they went nowhere.

Maybe, I'll have better luck next week. Keep you all posted.

-muffinman

Resurrection

You might have thought LifeAfterARC was dead, and you would have been right. For a while, I did not think I would get back to writing about my personal life. I thought I had moved beyond it, this blog was a relic of a younger life. When you are grown up and  working 60+ hours a week and viewing everything not helping the bottom line as a waste of time, blogging just does not seem to make sense.

However, what I am realizing now is that the personal is inseparable from the professional. The lack of personal understanding is very negatively affecting my well being and as a result my work. I've tried to be the robot/model employee that just buries myself into work to stop feeling, but it has just resulted in part of me dying inside.

That is why I am going to resurrect the blog today, in the hopes it will also breathe new life into me.

In addition to actually taking the time to blog each week, there's going to be a few changes in the format. Posts will be shorter and more concise, as well focused around just one subject. Gone are the days of long posts covering multiple subject matters, I will just break those up into separate posts now. Long posts will be reserved for particularly drawn out and dramatic events.

-muffinman

LA Road Trip Reflections

I started this blog post out as a recap of events in LA, but I quickly got bored writing it.  I think a reflection of last week's events is much more appropriate for this blog.

Surprising Robocop was a great idea

Despite what the doubters like Eric say surprising Robocop in LA was a great idea.  Of course, it would have been more awesome had Robocop been home when I dropped by his apartment and also if his girlfriend had not tipped him off.  I think my ability to do things on a whim and pop out of nowhere are one of my more endearing and unique qualities.  Robocop was genuinely surprised and I believe the time we spent together on this trip will be remembered for the rest of our lives.  I can see ourselves talking about it in the future with our kids and family about that one time I randomly came down to LA.

I really love driving

This was the first time in a long time that I drove everyday and I really loved every minute of it.  As great as public transportation is, it just cannot beat the freedom and independence of a car.  I love the peace that driving gives me and I hope that I will be able to afford a car in San Francisco in the near future.

Deeply concerned for Robocop's future

When I met Robocop, he was very happy and enthusiastic.  In fact, Robocop was so uncharacteristically energetic that it struck me as strange almost as if he was over compensating for his lack of energy in the recent past.  During dinner, I was really shocked when Robocop had feinted an outburst towards the waiter.  Similar outbursts continued for the rest of the week and I am not sure what to think of them.

Robocop had a lot of breakthroughs while I was in LA.  He started vlogging and has even declared that he has found out what he wants to do with his life.  I really wish the best for him, but I cannot help but think that I have seen this before.  There were a few instances over the last five years where Robocop looked like he had everything figured out and on track to achieving his dreams.  A few months later Emoinacloset and I would hear nothing from him and be unable to reach him.  When Robocop finally did respond we would learn that he had lapsed back into depression. The cycles have been a really extremely heart wrenching and frustrating for Emoinacloset and me; and I really hope that this time happy Robocop is here to stay.       

Aside the happiness and energy that Robocop displayed, there were two very concerning things I learned about him during my time in LA.  After admitting that living with his now ex-girlfriend was a huge mistake, Robocop has decided to continue living with her so she won't have to go through the breakup alone.  That to me seems to defeat the whole point of a break up.  Furthermore, it seems that Robocop's depression has severely impacted his academics.  In the past, no matter how bad things got Robocop still managed to keep his grades up, however, that no longer seems to be the case.  

LA's food trucks are infinitely better than SF's

LA's food trucks are just more creative, tasty and all around amazing than what we have in SF.

Visiting friends is a blast
When I started to think about it, it was mind boggling how many friends I had in LA that I wanted to see.  It was even more mind boggling the variety of places and phases of my life that these friends came from.  For me, one of the most exhilarating things is seeing someone I met halfway across the world again and I got to do that with Chinglee.  Considering how Chinglee stopped talking to me in SH because I was too "clingy" makes the meeting seem even more improbable.

The LA trip has made me want to travel, especially to Singapore where many friends that I have not seen in years reside.  I told Eric that two years from now Robocop, Emoinacloset and I should go and meet up in New Orleans.  Now that sounds like another trip I will remember for the rest of my life.    

Money buys freedom

This whole trip would not have been possible without me getting a new job with a huge pay raise.  It is true that money cannot buy happiness, but it certainly buys you the freedom to pursue it.  I really consider myself lucky for everything to work out this way.  Less than a month ago, I was laid off, angry and only had enough money for 2 months rent.  It's nothing short of a miracle that I was able to afford this trip in such a short time. I swear I will give it my all to ensure that I can have further trips like it in the future.  

-muffinman

Serendipitous Shirley Aftermath

The past few months all feel like a blur, I cannot believe it has been so long since my last real blog post.  If I briefly think about what I have done for the past month, nothing seems to stand out.  In fact, I would even say that it has been pretty monotonous and I have been operating on autopilot.  However, if I take a little more time to reflect, I realize there have been some exciting moments and that is why I blog!

Less than a month after Shirley left for SH, she blogged about spending the night with a guy she met at the club.  That blog post hit me pretty hard and kicked off a week where I started strongly reflecting on what I was doing with my life.  I realized I was day dreaming about Shirley coming back a little too much and in the process putting a lot of things in my life on hold.  After about a week of discussing what happened with various friends, I sent Shirley an email detailing how I felt.  This started an email chain where Shirley revealed she wrote the blog post to test how much I liked her, never had any romantic feelings for me and admitted to leading me on.

Needless to say, I felt like I had been played.  All the feelings I had for Shirley suddenly felt stupid and  thoughts about being in a relationship with her seemed like self delusions.  Feeling incredibly suckered, I told Shirley that we could not be friends.  Surprisingly, I don't have any ill feelings about burning that bridge, in fact, I don't feel much nor care at all, which is in itself a bit concerning.

Shirley has emailed me twice since I told her that we probably should not be friends anymore.  I am not sure what these emails say as I delete them straight away, but from what I can make out from the 50 character teaser, Shirley still wants to be friends.  Hopefully, she understands why that is not possible in this lifetime.    

-muffinman