Our Story

OUR STORY:

We met at a transvestite bar. He was doing some stripper move around a pole when he caught my attention. Apparently, I went up to the pole and showed him some stripper moves myself. At the end of the night, he walked us to our car. I vaguely remembered that night until I saw those pictures later of us dancing around a pole.

I saw him on Myspace the following week and had to send him a message. Then I found him on his personal blog. Then I found him on AIM. He thought I was a stalker. I thought I was just being friendly.

He then had a post up of his DYSON. He had me at Dyson. Or was it at the Trannie Bar.

Within a few weeks, I told him I had a crush on him. I didn't ask him if he felt the same but my instinct told me he did. We waited 6 months until we saw each other again during which we developed our friendship. (And also, we were each praying about it - unaware that the other was praying also!) We spent the whole week together while I was there.

I took him out on our first "date". Actually it was more of a group thing, with like 10 other people, but I had organized it. I bought everyone's ticket to get our seats together. Apparently, Phil was pretty ignorant on dating etiquettes and so he never paid for my ticket... or HIS. I forgave him though. He really was naive. My girlfriend had to actually call him up and give him dating advice on ways to impress me, haha!

On my second to last day of vacation, we went to Yosemite (I now live 2 hours from this gorgeous place)! We spent most of the day doing a short hike at Yosemite Falls and laying under the waterfall with our feet dipped in the freezing cold water. Afterwards, we were starving so we went to eat Pizza at Curry Village.

Source

We were sweaty and smelly and tired from climbing rocks all day. I asked him to sing to me the song he especially made for me on my birthday. He sang to me softly in my ear in the midst of the crowd. And afterwards, he asked me to be his girlfriend.

And then we were in a long distance relationship for 2.5 years, with me in Dallas, TX and him in the Bay Area, Ca. People gave me the Uuggh-good-luck-with-THAT-itsnotgoingtolast look when they found out I was in an LD. But you know what. If you have faith and persistance, then YES, you CAN make it work. I won't lie and say it's easy but I think that if BOTH of you work at it and make the effort, the waiting period until you can be reunited will only make your relationship stronger.

I am glad I waited for him. He was definitely worth the wait. I have never been happier.

I was unawares of his facial expression....

And he was unawares of mine...

I fit perfectly in the area of his deltopectoral triangle where the cephalic vein runs through....


My hand falls naturally to his Gluts (or I'm really just checking out his wallet, um yeah)

Pictures taken by Junshien (my paparazzi) in Aug 2006


L to R: Jon, Me, Junshien

How did everyone else meet? I love hearing stories!

The Meeting of Sundance and Duckie

So let me take you back to the circumstances that led up to the meeting of Sundance and I. It was Jan 2006 and I was in the midst of interviewing for graduate school. I had already been in Texas for 5 years at that time, so I was applying to both places in Texas and California since I really wanted to move back home. At this point, I had received interviews to about 6 places in both states. I was set for an interview in the beginning of Feb 2006 in the Bay Area. It was the perfect time for me to go because I had just reconnected with an old girlfriend (Jin - whom I've known since I was FIVE!) and it was her birthday weekend, so I was going to hang out with her for her big birthday bash. Well, a week before the interview, I found out I was accepted to my #1 choice in Dallas, Texas. So, I decided to cancel my interview in the Bay Area and instead went there for a weekend of fun and relaxation! My girlfriend decided to hold her birthday bash at a fun place, called Asia SF. We had dinner there and then went down to the club afterwards. It was so much fun! They had a dance show and everything for dinner entertainment.

With my GF


I'm the one in pink

With our hawwt waitress

Some Dancing Entertainment. Every 15 minutes or so, someone would dance on top of the bar, Coyote Ugly style, with a routine they had. It was awesome! I highly recommend this place for a Bachelorette party!

The waitresses downstairs at the club, after dinner.

The best part about Asia SF? It was a TRANNIE BAR. Yup, all those hawt girls are actually transvestites. It was funny when you saw some of those guys gawking at the ladies when they were dancing on top of the bars. Some of them didn't know WHERE we were. HAHA!

So here I am, dancing on the stripper pole with a friend. I believe I was pretty buzzed at this time. After dancing, I went to go sit down and chill. Some other people took over the stripper pole and I watched them dance a while.

Like this dude.

He was really getting into it. Look at him get LOW.

Getting Lower.

Finally, I went back on to join them.

And watched this guy just HOG the stripper pole.

At this point, I went up to his friend (the other guy) and said, "Wow, your friend must be REALLY drunk!"
To which he replied, "Nope, he hasn't had a drink ALL NIGHT! He's just naturally like that."
I was impressed! He sparked my interest just a little bit...

A group picture of us, which I totally don't remember taking.

Did anyone else meet at an interesting place?

Recipe for a Successful Long Distance Relationship

Sundance and I were long distance the whole time we were together, which was 2.5 years, up until this past mid-Dec 2008. I think LDR for Phil was hard in the beginning. But we got through the awkward beginning and our relationship has been awesome ever since. These are the things that has helped us survive our LDR.

1) Trust - You must definitely trust the other person. Being insanely jealous without reason will cause you unnecessary heartache and tons of fighting.

2) Communicate, communicate, communicate! One big fight we had was when I was going through a mini-crisis and Phil hung up on me because he was playing World of Warcraft. Seriously?!?! I was P.O.'d for days. We made a deal to have a minimum 15 minute conversation each day, no matter how busy we were. This was broken a few times when I was on-call at the hospital or he was at camp with no signal, but otherwise, it worked really well. I thought this was one advantage to an LDR. Because we couldn't be together physically, we had to really communicate with each other to make the relationship work.

3) Have your own life. Please don't bug your S.O. because you have nothing else to do, like 24/7. Pick up a hobby! Have some girl/guy friends! Cook dinner! Watch some T.V.! Develop a fictional crush to Edward Cullen!

4) Have a plan to be together in the near future. Don't just drift in your relationship and think... "oh, we'll see where this takes us in the next 5-10 years." If you don't have a goal to move closer to each other, then you might never be near enough.

5) Don't forget to show him/her how much you DO care. After all, we can't see facial expressions or receive hugs during our down times.

6) Work on your relationship. We used to do bible studies once a week (over the phone) to work on our relationship. It worked out really well and was a good idea. It strengthened our relationship, our communication skills with each other, and our understanding of how the other person thinks. We haven't gone through a relationship book yet, but that is something we have planned for the future. We are also going to do pre-marital counseling, which I think EVERY engaged couple should go through before they get married.

What advice do you have that was pertinent to the survival of your relationship?