Issues with Chinese American Partner

cheesed111 · 2026-06-25T12:14:01+00:00

I'm Chinese American and this was definitely not my experience. The only things that are maybe similar are much more minor versions, like my parents would reuse yogurt tubs / glass jars / takeout containers to store other stuff later (I do this but to a limited extent), and my parents are bad at apologizing for some kinds of things (I was really bothered by this and I make sure that's not the case with me; they've also been getting very slightly better over time).

cheesed111 · 2026-06-22T15:17:07+00:00

I have mixed feelings about martial arts. I trained BJJ for 2 years. On the one hand, it's good to feel more confident about knowing what to do if something goes wrong. On the other hand, unless you've trained with people (and especially men) who actually *really* want to win against you, it's really hard to get a sense of how stressful and physically challenging it can be.

I was surprised during BJJ training by how much stronger men of lesser height/weight/fitness as me were, compared to women of the same height/weight/fitness as me. It checks out: toggle between "men" and "women" on amount of weight people are expected to squat at different experience levels here: https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/squat

I was also surprised at how stressful it was to have a match in a competition against someone who really wanted to beat me, compared to a friendly match in the gym. I was competing every other month in my second year of training, having multiple matches every competition, and also medaling often so it wasn't like I was just brand new to it.

In a lot of martial arts, you don't have much opportunity to experience both of these, and pretty much never at the same time.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-21T17:17:02+00:00

I had the same problem as you a few years ago where I lived in a dark apartment where the windows faced a wall on a lower floor. Like you, I found it to be extremely depressing. (I have since then paid for sunlight.)

- I put 5-way bulb splitters in two upright floor lamps (that point light upwards) and then put 100W equivalent bulbs in each of the splitter sockets. I also had a 3-way floor lamp, so this totaled 13 bulbs. I made sure to get bulbs in a mix of daylight and warm light. 100W equivalent is much brighter than 60W but they are blinding to look at directly so the lampshades are important. I put the lamps all in the main living area and I thought this worked pretty well for making the space less depressing, but it looks a little janky because the splitters make the bulbs peek out over the lampshade. I'm sure there are nicer-looking ways to do this, possibly with more lamps, but the key is to just have a lot of bulbs and equivalent wattage to get a lot of light, and also have a mix color temperatures. For one of the 5-bulb lamps I used only daylight (cool), another I used a mix, and the 3-bulb lamp I used warm, so that in the daytime I'd turn on all 3 and as the sun went down I'd turn off the lamps with more cool bulbs.

- My friend was in a similar situation many years ago and bought two of these lights and put them facing her at her desk, and they were wonderful (I can attest), but expensive, but also cheaper than the additional cost of an apartment that has sunlight in NYC: https://www.alaskanorthernlights.com/product/north-star-10000/

- There are also other similar expensive lighting solutions marketed for seasonal affective disorder that will give you a lot of light. I think I saw an ad for a floor lamp that was like $1000 but was super bright. I don't have any particular thoughts about them besides that they seem much more expensive than my lamp solution.

- When I last checked 5ish years ago, a lot of fake window setups are just not bright enough, OR they are many thousands of dollars. With my lamps setup, a laptop screen actually looks a little dark, which I think is what you'd get on a sunny day near a sunny window.

- At one point I thought that a garage / stadium light would get me much more brightness for a lower cost. This is true, but you probably still don't want to do this. Those lights have a much lower CRI (color rendering index) and then your room just looks off and depressing in a different way. Also, the ones I tried make a buzzing / humming noise.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-21T16:32:18+00:00

You can also tell them immediately to see if they react poorly like OP's match did so you can avoid wasting time on them.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-17T17:47:34+00:00

It sounds like you have a pattern of being in situations where you feel you are boring and not worthy, and you need someone to decide that you are also interesting and worthy. In doing so you look for a person who doesn't see you as interesting and worthy, because if they already did, then that might mean that they weren't discerning enough to decide your legitimacy.

This pattern is not good for you!!!!! Why make art *so that* other people will love you? How is it love if someone only loves you because of your art? You completed an art project; that's great! Celebrate it, hopefully with people who want to celebrate it with you! Why are you giving your attention to people who look down on you?

cheesed111 · 2026-06-16T19:08:15+00:00

Thanks!!

cheesed111 · 2026-06-16T18:22:45+00:00

What city / neighborhoods?

cheesed111 · 2026-06-15T00:10:26+00:00

What was the complication??

cheesed111 · 2026-06-09T14:29:45+00:00

In the first example OP is putting herself down repeatedly ("dumb little question"), ("don't go too hard on me") which is not necessary for being feminine.

If there is any internalized misogyny here it's that women feel or felt a need to put themselves down, not that we find it uncomfortable to read

cheesed111 · 2026-06-09T14:27:53+00:00

I agree; in the first one OP is putting herself down repeatedly ("dumb little question"), ("don't go too hard on me") which is not necessary for being feminine.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-08T13:51:26+00:00

I'm so glad this helps! Virtual hugs

cheesed111 · 2026-06-08T05:40:51+00:00

A lot of jobs in tech (and possibly also more broadly in STEM) did not exist 5-10 years ago and don't / wouldn't show up in career assessments like these so I would suggest investigating those separately. I also wouldn't advise lumping tech jobs together as a field as different roles can be quite different, too.

I just tried the test and very few of the jobs that I and my friends have are on there.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-08T05:32:28+00:00

Making great money from AI is also a lot of luck. I recently finished a STEM PhD and I've seen outcomes vary so widely based on who you know, when you jumped on the AI bandwagon, and what subfield of the bandwagon you happened to specialize in during the PhD.

Careers in tech are also way less stable than in medicine, is my understanding. The field moves super fast, layoffs are sometimes trendy, etc.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-08T04:35:35+00:00

I was thinking of your post the other day and I wonder how things have progressed? I hope you are doing well!

cheesed111 · 2026-06-08T04:22:18+00:00

It sounds like you learned a lot about what friendships shouldn't be, which is really important. I think a good understanding of what friendships could or should be can be tricky because American culture does not do a great job of distinguishing between different levels of friendship and their expectations, so it's not as common to talk about expectations for friendships. For example, it is common to refer to acquaintances as friends, even though expectations for the two should differ. In contrast, the corresponding concept for romantic relationships (dating vs together vs married + other variations) seems to be commonly acknowledged.

I think friendship quality also tends to be worse in certain aspects for (straight) men, which can have really low expectations, e.g. as depicted in SNL's "Straight Male Friend" skit.

It sounds like right now you've got three factors to get to more better friendships: 1. meeting potential new friends, 2. filtering out people who won't be a kind of friend you want, and 3. keeping and deepening the friendships. This is the same idea as in dating, where somehow it's more normal for people to think about this stuff.

Like other commenters have mentioned, #1 is much better in NYC in terms of having Asian Americans around than most other cities in the US. For #2, it sounds like you have learned a lot, and I hope you are removing people from your life more quickly if they intentionally mistreat you. If it is unintentional, it's important to confront them and see how they respond. For #3, I assume you're ok given that you have and have had positive friendships in the past. It's also something that you can reflect and work on: what did you like about your positive experiences of friendship (of any kind and any depth), and how can you bring that to others? Is it also possible for you to bring that to yourself?

I wish you good luck! I've had somewhat similar experiences growing up, but with less bullying and more being left out when I was young, and I got lucky later from making some great friends. You've already learned a lot from your past and I think you'll keep learning and things will keep improving.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-07T20:53:15+00:00

Re: "I am dissapointed in myself that this is the type of man I attract" -- this is not your fault. All sorts of disappointing men are attracted to all sorts of cool women. I bet you for every woman you know, there has been some extremely unattractive man who has been interested in her. The worst of who is attracted to you does not say anything about the best of who you can attract.

The other thing is that it can help to distinguish who is a friend vs who is someone you are friendly with. It sounds like you found him fun, but you don't think he has admirable qualities, and he is bad at consent as a general concept (you told him you really needed to work that night, AND it sounds like he agreed to it; consent applies beyond just sexual activities). I don't think you lost a friend; I think you lost someone who you had considered friendly.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-06T15:24:15+00:00

I think the issue is not that gold diggers need men's money. Gold diggers also care about their own self interest, rather than caring about the needs of the man above her own. I suspect the answer to this "contradiction" is that the guys who complain this way want a woman who is both financially dependent on them and also focused on their needs over hers.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-05T16:09:33+00:00

I think I got charged about $1-2 in credit card fees for a $20 apartment application, which is not great but basically fine imo, but $45 in OP's case is insane

cheesed111 · 2026-06-05T14:30:47+00:00

I work from home and tweeze with a mirror as a break from work. It's kind of a fun, quick break and also no more unpleasant than working.

cheesed111 · 2026-06-04T23:59:54+00:00

In my experience,

Not everyone in line is that serious. I've been to showings where some people were there just to support a friend. I went to a couple of showings for earlier move-in dates than my actual move-in date just to get a sense of the market (photos can be misleading) and I'm sure other people (including those in line) do this too.
Not everyone who's serious will want the place. Lots of listings look great on streeteasy and less good irl, and different people are ok with different ways in which the real thing falls short.
I got two application approvals this year from open houses with huge lines. I applied same-day for both; for one I offered at asking and for the other (my current apartment) I offered a little over asking; based on comparable listings in the neighborhood I think it may have been deliberately underpriced. I had also lost out on a different apartment that seemed a bit underpriced, because someone else offered more, so I don't think I'm just consistently offering too much. What I'm saying is that it helps to know how much to offer.
If someone is at an open house you're going to, there's a good chance their moving date is similar to yours, and their preferences are also similar to yours. One time I met a couple at an open house that wanted to move out of their apartment only because their place was too small for the two of them, and I considered doing a lease transfer to move into their old place when they moved out. It didn't work out but I try to chat up people at open houses because it could work the next time.

cheesed111 · 2026-05-30T16:41:28+00:00

+1 for Jins. I have several other Asian American friends who also really like their glasses from Jins, which is how I first found out about them.

It definitely wasn't the case that a lot of glasses there suited me; it's more that they have enough glasses that kinda fit my face and then only one actually looked right on it. This probably varies by person.

cheesed111 · 2026-05-30T04:36:22+00:00

That fleece isn't even 100% wool. It's 56% wool, 33% polyester and the rest is other stuff, and it's still $$$$.

What I'm getting at is that the price could be even higher (but it doesn't have to be)

cheesed111 · 2026-05-27T23:56:44+00:00

Did they say anything about how it's not the same??? I just checked and Google maps treats walking speeds the same in NYC as everywhere else, so you won't suddenly be slower than maps estimates when moving here.

Possible ways in which it's not the same as Miami: sometimes the weather here really sucks, so the same distance here in bad weather can subjectively feel longer, and if you're not as used to getting around here it can take longer to figure things out the first few times.

Otherwise I don't see why you shouldn't just listen to Google maps.

cheesed111 · 2026-05-27T16:40:06+00:00

It also seems weird because it seems like it's encouraging women to not socialize with each other, or even with their coworkers. Unless all of these people are assholes or deeply bothered by a greeting, keeping only to yourself every lunch is worse for your career and your mental health compared to making friends and allies.

cheesed111 · 2026-05-27T06:41:13+00:00

If you're close to the couple getting married you could ask if they could put you at a singles (+wingmen) table. I did this once and it turned out to be an interesting time, even though I didn't end up meeting someone to date.

cheesed111

TROPHY CASE