Dating game- Trần Thuỳ Dương

Dating game- Trần Thuỳ Dương

Dating Game- Part I
Trần Thùy Dương

?o Toil and trouble? is his title for his personal ad. He emails me first. I start reading his self-introduction. It is quite a short one. It actually does not reveal a lot of details. It tells me his age, his education, income, hobbies, and working field. It has a short paragraph about what kind of person he is looking for and his personal observation of people. But it hit me like a lightening. Suddenly, I feel I could see his very soul behind it. It is toiled. It is trouble. It is complicated. Only because he always struggles to understand the meaning of his existence in this world.. Only because he cares so much.
He looks at me. He starts with my earrings. It?Ts a pair of earrings that every girl has one. They are big round white silver ones. I could read in his eyes that they are not of his taste. He scanned my sweater. I wish I wore the one with a little bit more curve around the breast. A man is a man is a man. Maybe it?Ts the light in the restaurant. It is kind of pale light that takes away all the beauty and mystery of a girl. Hey, what if I wear a different outfit with different hairstyles. I can read how I look in his eyes. I look like a plain, long hair, petite Asian girl. Asians are delicate flowers. But she just looks so different. It takes a personality to like an Asian girl.
He is not even handsome, not tall. I?Tm not a tall girl. I wear high heel. When I turn to him, I could see his eyes. For most of other guys, I could only see the neck, or the chest. So he?Ts not tall. He could be cute, though. He has this classic look. He has nice lips, green eyes, blond soft hair. He wore a stripe dark color shirt. It looks soft, could be 100 % cotton. You can get this at Mervin. I see a little bit of his neck with white and soft skin. He eats ?opho? with ?oche ba mau?. He eats pepper with his hands.
I am looking at him sitting there eating and there is a flash in my heart that this is a soul that I have been looking for. This is it. I feel warm and peaceful. I know this guy will treat the girl he loves with kindness, generosity, romance, and humor. At the same time, I know that the girl is not going to be me. But I can?Tt resist a secret hope and joy in my heart that maybe, just maybe someday, he will gaze through the cloud that covers his eyes now and see me. I know he is looking at me but not seeing me now. I know he would never know that I know him. He would never know I know he is one of those special few that we don?Tt meet everyday. I know he has his own world that is far different from that of an average guy. I know he is very intelligent, picky, ambitious, warm hearted, sophisticated, profound, romantic, charming, and has a lot of dreams, lonely, and always has trouble with himself. He grew up not having anybody noticing who he really was. Only he knew that and he talked to himself, built his own world, his own way, his own pride, and fought hard to protect it. I know he has a dry sense of humor. I know he will make me laugh. I know it by looking at him sitting there with a large, stubborn forehead, and bright, dreamy and quiet eyes. I know it by reading his short self-introduction with long, complicated sentences about how he doesn?Tt like pretentious people. It tells me a bout a soul, about a person with a struggle, toiled, sophisticated soul, but a very kind, and very alive soul. And he?Ts sitting there talking about his home state Missouri, where he grew up in a farm, milked cows and bailed hay. He is talking about how he broke the family tra***ion of men getting married and have kids after high school to go to MIT and then Stanford, about how he felt so different from all the big sport boys in school, and how he finally came here working for a wireless company designing chips for the very cell phone that I have in my hand. He looks so peaceful and reliable. For a flash of a moment, I feel that I could cry because I feel so safe, so protected, and so peaceful with him and because for very first time, I don?Tt have to try to feel that joy. I don?Tt have to pretend. For a moment, I feel as if the material world doesn?Tt exist, there?Ts only my soul connecting with his soul. I feel light and actually happy. I try to resist the urge to tell him how I know him, how I feel about him. There is this voice screaming inside me. You have to let him know. Let him know! But I ignore that voice with all my humanly possible effort. After all, this is only the second date. I should just keep my manner. I should just keep my mouth rambling about impersonal topics like the weather, and family, and work. I should keep displaying my pride, and pretend that I am only interested in this encounter to the extent that he is. He would never believe me if I tell him anyway. He may as well think that I am a lunatic. After all, all the information I have about him to this point is a picture and a brief self-ad on a website, and several exchanged emails. Why do I have this feeling that I have known him and waited for him for a long time? And everything that he wrote me and he is going to tell me about himself, I already knew. I know he had a lot of trouble growing up. I know he never got the girl that he liked in high school because she belonged to the big football player. I know he knew he was smarter but people were shallow and he was lonely because he was different. I know he likes to read and falls asleep on the beach on sunny days and there are days that the kids playing on the beach surrounding him looking at him sleeping curiously and he wakes up, looks at them and smiles. I know sometimes he just sits there by himself on the beach and talks to some strangers and finds it interesting. I know he loves kids and desires a family. I know he?Ts still quietly waiting for that one girl who will opens the door to his heart. I know he has lots of dreams. And he still does. And he is quite different from rest. And he knows that.
It could never work out anyway. I told myself. This kind of happiness that I feel sitting here with him only reserve for angels in heaven, not a normal person on earth like me. A person on earth like me will go on with her life, find a guy who loves her, whom she will learn to love, get married, has a couple of kids, continue the act of a good wife, a good mom, and sometimes vaguely remember that there were moments in her life that she was actually herself and in love, and happy. Secretly, I feel myself treasuring every moment of this date because I know I am going to remember that one time I meet a man whom I am naturally attracted to. I know this person will treat his girl right. I know I could respect his mind and trust his heart. And it hurts, too, knowing that he is slipping away without ever knowing that the person sitting in front of him could as well be the one who understands him and loves him all his life. Life is really unfair isn?Tt it? How do people fall in and out of love? How do they ever learn to notice that one person that God sends to them to love and cherish and friend with them all their life? It?Ts hard to find that right person in the crowd.
I say good-bye to him in a parking lot. I know that there won?Tt be a third date. I
know that I won?Tt call because he won?Tt call. I know that sometimes I will find myself looking for anything that relates to his home state Missouri. I will quietly read about how people grow up in a farm, how they milk cow and how hay smells. I know that sometimes, I will find myself walking on the beach where he usually spends time reading. I know that I will find myself looking around when I go to the mall or restaurants quietly hopping to accidentally run into him to just say ?o Hello, stranger!? I know that when the weather changes, when it suddenly becomes rainy and everything smells fresh, or when it?Ts windy and the wind plays with my hair, I will miss him and this heavenly feeling of joy, hope and peace will revisit me and remind me that there are moments that are worth a lifetime. I know that there will be days that I secretly hope that every other person on earth will disappear leaving only he and I and he will get to know me and see my soul then.
I give him a hug. I feel his shoulder and smell his perfume. I say ?o Thank you for a lovely evening?. I watch him walking away to his car. It is a dark and cold winter night. My eyes are dry and my mouth is cold. Good-bye, my dream.

Have not read this story yet but look over it. It''s too long no paragraph. It makes the reader tired.
You can break it in to smaller paragraph, so everyone can read easily.
Anyway thanks for contribution.

Được storylover sửa chữa / chuyển vào 12:36 ngày 12/04/2006

I''m waiting for continue part...

em nhà quê , thật kô đọc được các bác viết gì, sao kô dịch ra hả các bác.

Dating game ( Part II)
Trần Thuỳ Dương
?oSitting in a bench in front of the ocean, he folds the book and look up to the sunny bright blue sky that mirrors itself in the ocean. The wave sounds happily playing with the shore. He gazes further away where the sky merges with the ocean. He can see some white boats that look brighter under the sun. He looks at the sandy beach with all the fat & lazy seals lying on the shore, the breathtaking rocky coast area, with seagull, and many different kinds of birds enjoy being there on the rock under the sun listening to the ocean. People passing by him speak all different kind of languages. Sometimes they startle the birds and make them all fly up together. The older guy sitting on the bench next to him is painting picture of this beautiful Saturday afternoon on the beach. A little further to the right of him, there?Ts a wedding on the ever green grass area where the bride and groom are exchanging vow. The sun makes her white wedding dress spackle. In front of her is the groom. Behind her is the ocean. Birds flying above her head. She wears a white dress standing on the green grass. They hold each other?Ts hand. People gather around watching the ceremony. It?Ts a perfect picture of a day just like heaven. Most of the day is like that here in this amazingly charming beach town. He parks himself on a bench with a cup of coffee, an ocean view and feels as if he is just frozen here enjoying this slow, beautiful laziness afternoon with the ocean breeze where you can actually smell its freshness. The smell is so real that he feels as if he can taste it. The sun is so bright that everything looks spackling. This is one of the routine he usually does on weekend, get his coffee, read his book on the beach, and then go check out one of those restaurants on the street. Sushi is his all-time favorite. In this extremely health conscious, upscale neighborhood, there are several sushi restaurants on each street. Eating sushi is fresh and light and really helps you to keep your weight in check, The street is hilly. Walking up the hill from the ocean, there is a rich neighborhood where there are many small art galleries, specialty clothes store, jewelry, coffee shop, and chocolate store, comedy club, expensive Italian, Japanese, American seafood restaurant with live music, world-renown chef, and breathtaking ocean view. All the girls dress extremely nice and fashionable even just for a walk. People are slim and healthy. There?Ts always somebody running along the ocean. Somehow, under the perfect presentation of outfit and manner that people display, he can see that they are pretentious. These girls passing by with perfect outfit, perfect curve, perfect shoes, perfect hair, and perfect look sometimes feel like armies of mannequin.
Living here for almost eight years, he is indeed in love with the area, the perfect weather that is never hot and never cold, the ocean?Ts view, sound, smell, breeze, the coffee shop right by the ocean where the waitress always ?oget mad? if he doesn?Tt get the regular black coffee, the nice restaurants with distinctive names like George, Top of the Cove, La Veliencida, the attractive rocky coastal line, the cove, the excitement of summer where tourists are every where, the peaceful quietness of winter where he feels there is only him with the ocean and the wind.
Still sitting on the bench, he opens the book getting out folded letter. Looking at the letter, he is thinking ?oLife is full of surprises. You never know what to expect?. He starts reading the letter again:

Dear W.
?oChanges always comes a long, in big or small ways. I don?Tt know what happened that this sudden change has turned my world upside down. I don?Tt know exactly what it is, it just hit me, but there is something really special about you.
It started casually as an online date. We didn?Tt even make it to the third date. But I have thought about you more often than not. Never before did I meet a person who inspires me so much that I actually sit down and write him a letter.
I have been thinking about what attracts me to you even before I met you. The moment I saw your picture and read your brief paragraph, I knew that it?Ts you t hat I have always wanted deep down in my heart, secret in my dream. It?Ts not what you talk about yourself, it?Ts how you write it that reveals who you and charm me into your world. I see behind the words a fascinating person that I have been looking for.
It could be that I am attracted to your intelligence, your brightness, your intellectuality, your sophistication. It could be that I am amazed by your curiosity, your openness, and your excitement, and your forever young mind. It could be your quirky sense of humor that makes me smile. Or maybe I?Tm touched by your kindness, consideration and your desire to be sincere. It could be that I was won over by this romantic feeling that I met this person who lives each moment to the fullest, who is excited to discover the unexpected and who will be hopelessly devoted for the one he adores.
The feeling I have for you is almost unreal. I feel as if I k now you. I feel as if I could talk about you exactly the way you describes yourself. I know how you look at yourself, how you feel, what you desire to experience, what you are longing for. Maybe because back in my mind even before I met you, I have always drown and idolized a person like you. When I look at your smile, I have an eternal feeling of peace, warm, safe, protected. If feels light as if the material world doesn?Tt exist; only my soul is flying what it has been longing for. It?Ts so special, so private, so relax, so joyful, and so happy. For the first time, I know that real attraction happens and exists, how my heart can be touched and how I can touch others?T hearts. There is a place inside of me where my sweetest dreams resides, my highest hopes are kept alive, my deepest feelings are felt and my favorite memories are safe and warm, where you are.
It has been a year since the first time I read your writing and was attracted to the person behind it. It has been 8 months since the last time I met you. I have done a lot of changing in my life. I have changed job, moved to a new place, made a lot of new friends, learned new hobbies, died my hair, and even taken out my braces. Only my feeling for you hasn?Tt changed. I now realize how deeply my soul has been touched by you. I don?Tt know what the future holds but I choose to follow my heart and am sending you this letter. I want to let you know that I think you?Tre a special person and I hope to get to know more about you. ?o
. He would never imagine receiving a letter like this. He remember her, the young girl with yellow sweater, wear brace, and likes movies. They went to Asian restaurants, saw the movie closer, and hung out at a bookstore together. He remembers the food was really good. He touched her knee during the movie. She didn?Tt make any move. He thought she might not be interested.
He stands up, slowly walks home, feeling moved by her passion as never been moved before. He turns on his computer and starts his replying: ?oIt?Ts a surprise to receive such a genuine, heartfelt, passionate letter. ?
( to be continued)

Chào bạn storylover,
Minh rat thich truyen Dating Game cua ban Tran Thuy Duong. Minh doc di doc lai nhieu lan va rat ma cach tac gia dan truyan, phan ma ta cung kha muot ma.
Ban co the post tron ven cau chuyen nay de moi nguoi (nhat la minh) cung thuong thuc, please, please!!! Thank you very much
Được demdiudang sửa chữa / chuyển vào 11:10 ngày 21/04/2009