Is it better to preserve your dignity or your face?

This is just a question ai raised today at dinner with my younger sister. is it better to preserve your dignity (being true to self) or your face (looking good to others)? the thing is, to look good, meaning in today's society, who you go out with and how many, are such important personal questions that everybody feels they have the right to ask (everybody meaning people OTHER than your close friends and family). and because to say ONE or NONE is such a humiliating matter people go out of their way to claim that they've had multiple, SHORT relationships...and therefore people end up with 11 bf's in a year..and so on.

Personally, I do not think anything shorter than a month SHOULD be considered as 'going out'. DATING, maybe, but definitely not a legitimate relationsihp in which two people feel close enough to form emotionnal attachment to each other, but that's just what I THINK. and i believe, the world doesn't agree with me.

So the thing is, a while ago both me and my younger sis decided to go to a fortune teller in tw just for fun. And the response she got regarding her romantic life was something less optimistic. So it came down on her really hard because she was worried about the lack of chance of ever being married. so today she was telling me about the importance of 'casual dating", and taking things less seriously and just have fun with your life. and of course, i gave her a good, long lecture about that being BS.

and may i add, her change of values was the first thing i expected when i heard her results, because, as someone with less mental maturity would believe, lowering your standard MIGHT actually help with the situation (sense the sarcasm here). so i tried to talk her into some sense, saying that to 'casually date' is to give the a**holes a chance to mess with you. to go out with anyone who isn't what you're looking for jsut because you think you can have more fun in life is just stupid, becuase ultimately guys ahve the better end of the stick. We girls are not getting younger everyday, and yet we are spending just as much time (if not more) on this relationsihp that eventually leads nowhere if you choose to go out with the person in the first place. YES IT'S TRUE that if you keep having standards as if you are looking for your marriage partner, you could be single, for a VERY VERY long time. but to be with someone less sensitive and have the mental maturity of a 5 year old who just wants to get laid because most girls give it up so you should is just friggin retarded. and he will NEVER marry you because no one will ever marry someone who s/he doeesn't respect. but most importantly, if you are stuck with your dumbass boyfriend who abuses you all the time and is such a insecure freak, the nice guys will NEVER comem along because you just have this bad karma/reputation around you, and eventually, the fortuneteller might actually get it right, because you WILL end up single and miserable.

This is not to say that I will be better off, because I am not. i do have somewhat old-school standards for a guy, but nothing impossible. I do believe that if i respect myself enough one day i may or may not find someone who respects me, but at least i wont have regrets about living my life the stupid way. Everytime you break up with someone, a part of you dies, and to go through that multiple times in life and eventually get used to it is just not my idea of growing up. neither do i believe in cheating on people because you've been cheated on, or that if you dont cheat, the other person might cheat on you, anyway.

It's true that i have less fun in life, because during my past experiences abroad, i could have had so much fun hooking up with foreign guys all over europe or whatnot, because people in my study/tour group tend to enjoy that a lot. And yes, the idea is tempting, having a local, french/italian/british bf who shows you around and take to you places otherwise you would never have been by yourself. But is it worth is? i guess that really depends on your moral code. I personally feel that i cannot whore myself in order to have the best times in my life. The best time in my life will happen when i am completely happy with my life and with the person i am completely in love with, but not with a guy who i meet at a bar in Rome telling me how much he likes asian girls.

So yes, although its mortifying to always say that I am STILL single year after year to my friends and relatives in taiwan, but i know i can sleep well at night because i dont have to answer phone calls from abusive bf's, or the girls who i steal their bf's from, and most of all, i save myself a lot of money from not getting STD's.



(and i wonder why i ever tried to make this a happy blog.....there ARE happier things in my life, i swear, i just like to analyze things.) I suppose i can write about the bonfire party i had this past wednesday, which was A LOT of fun, i just never got around to writing it down. :P )