of all the characters I've written or imagined writing about, there's only been one who've I really felt akin to.

the setting is high school, and in fact, for a long time before I moved to Beijing, I really thought my first feature film was going to be about high school kids growing up and out, and the character is the nice guy in love with his best friend (girl) as my friend Kathy use to say before she moved overseas and became a big thing.

This character and I share a lot in common, though to be very frank, in the story he has more friends, does better in school, and actually had a friend girl. I, had almost no friends, did relatively poorly (only 3.9 GPA v 4 point something) and played varsity tennis, not varsity basketball. But those are just circumstantial differences. The important thing is, the poverty factor, the outsider factor and most importantly, the trying to be a good human being factor.

I never claim to have been or am a good human being, though I do try and have had moments. It's just for me and this character, our shared flaw is that it was never easy for us to do ill unto others.

For whatever, ghoulish absurd reason, I blame it on idealism and a blend of naivety and idealism and over sensitivity.

Anyhow, what this post is really about is me wondering why I'm having such a hard time after breaking it off with my (ex) girlfriend Jessica.

I was going to write a long and elaborate post detailing all sorts of things, but in the end, I am simply wondering why its so hard for me to watch her get her heart broken when other people seem so cavalier about these kinds of situations.

Am I reaching when I say, some people just can't imagine other people's suffering? Due to stupidity, laziness or pure selfishness? Can someone enlighten me?

As I grown older, I've come to believe that people just experience "love" differently and by that I mean by different degrees of intensity.

Sometime early last winter, I went on this date. It was my first time trying my hand with the local talent. She worked at my office and I debated a while before I asked her out. I didn't want to be known as that dude that does his co-workers. Anyway in the end, the sexual tension was too much for me to bear so I went ahead and asked her to dinner.

I went all the way out to the WU for what turned out to be a immensely awkward meal. It must have ranked up there with some of the more terrible first dates I've had in my life (including the night I got dropped off alone at Hodori to wait my drunk out by girl who got buck naked inside her car parked in the basement parking lot of her work)

I met her at the subway station and asked what she wanted to eat. She said Japanese so I took her to this sushi place nearby.

I ordered for the both of us (I know my sushi) but when the food came she didn't seem at all pleased. In fact, she looked pretty confused, and kind of disgusted by the raw fish. In retrospect, when she said Japanese, I think she meant Teriyaki chicken or udon.

I think the date was doomed from the start. The problem wasn't just that I didn't speak Chinese well, or that she doesn't speak English well. It's like this:

You make a joke or a comment. Pretend that I said: "like you know, Batman is totally the Horatio Alger of comic book heroes", which I happen to think is clever and funny and witty but my date totally doesn't get. Rationally, I understand that she doesn't understand. I tell myself "maybe she doesn't know who Horatio Alger is or maybe she doesn't know who Batman is either". It doesn't matter. Because emotionally, that is the key here, if someone doesn't get my joke, I feel like I got rejected.

What happens next is that I start to panic and think thoughts like, "maybe I'm not funny or clever" which leads me to think thoughts like "I'm not as cool as I thought" which leads to "I'm probably a loser". And it doesn't help that when I look at my date she's just staring at me nodding. Not in agreement of course but because she doesn't know how else to respond to my Batman comment.

I think to myself "Batman?" was that too nerdy? "Horatio Alger?" was that too literary? Then begins the descent on the slippery slope of self-consciousness. Not only do I begin to question my conversation topics, but I begin to question everything: why didn't I clean my shoes? or is my outfit "too fashion", am I a likeable human being?

Because I'm a fighter, I don't give up right away. I try to recover by sticking to my guns and committing myself to being myself but only more so. By at least 150% more "Peter" than usual. As if the extra %50 will mask the terror and panic in my eyes.

I get louder, crasser, and meaner which only eventually comes off as too much, which I do eventually recognize and at which point, decide it's time to call it a night and or get drunk immediately.

I actually made the Batman comment once. It was in college and I was dating this girl who would later become my girlfriend. In that case, because she had been a literature major, her response was favorable. And when she got it, I felt pretty satisfied. Like she got me. All of me.

Of course, that wasn't really true just in the same way someone not getting my jokes isn't a sign that she doesn't completely understand me. But at the time, in both cases, I had no way of knowing, being too caught up in my own imagination and terror.

I'm not bringing this up because I miss that ex-girlfriend (except maybe in an existential way). What I'm trying to explain is that when you're 20, you think you have a million people you're going to get along with great in your lifetime, that the possibilities are literally endless. And with such a belief, you develop a habit of taking for granted intimate fun moments when you effortlessly click with someone because to you, it's an everyday thing that certainly will happen again.

Then one day you're 29, wasted in WU, drinking a full bottle erguotou, not just the mini xiaoer's, by the subway with some random dude because your date went terribly and the possibility that you're never really feel close to any one again is too much to bear so you must get drunk before you go home but you drink so much that you miss your train and end up having to walk home drunk from Dongzhimen and by the time you get home it's like 4:30 AM and your feet are numb and when your homies look up from the xbox and ask "how did it go?" you just lower your head and walk into your room without saying a word but you don't have to because they all know and you just take it like a man and sleep it off.

stills from my short short 24 Hours Beijing.

Tomorrow we shoot the ikea scene. wrap up the whole thing + editing by the weekend. Shoot Ziggy's music video next week. I'm drunk right now. I wish I had some stuff to smoke.

"your face is like a mantou
your fingers, tiny pork sausages,
you remind me of a little furry animal
hiding in the forest
your voice is as deep as the night is dark
and despite all this
I love you"

I handed this to her, written on a napkin at a bar while I was drunk. She read it and was not moved at all.

In your humble opinion, what is the best restaurant in LA right now? Ivy league man inquires. I want to be seen not just heard and my clients need to know they are in good company. You understand don't you?

At the party, there are out of work actors. They huddle around one and other it would be faux pas to look like they were looking around waiting to be noticed. They are acting like they are not trying to hide in plain sight but they are which makes sense to me watching them because if they were better actors, not only would I not be watching because their portrayal of not caring would be more convincing but they would also be working actors instead of standing around at this lame party hoping to find a job.

Jacky, the most famous of the unemployed actors stands next to me. Next to her are James and Tyler, two wanna be producers/directors/actors/photographers I've known for about 2 years pitching a reality web series to no one in particular. I turn to her and tell her I have some weed in my car. She declines, faking looking uninterested. But I know better, I know she wants to go with me to my car but I guess the timing is off. Still, I am disappointed.

I spot my friend Laura the M.F.A. film student at USC. We lock eyes for a brief moment but then she turns away pretending not to see me. She folds herself into the crowd and disappears. I worry that she's mad that I didn't call her after we fucked last month, but then I realize she has probably already forgotten about the whole thing. She has the attention span of a planter's peanut and anyway it doesn't really matter that much. I heard somewhere she recently started dating David, my best friend who works at Morgan Stanley. He drives an red M3 and is totally inane. I've known him since junior high and even back then he was a total douche bag.

David appears from nowhere and slaps me on the back. "What's up bro!" he says. "Double fisting brews again as usual huh?". I double fist your girlfriend I think to myself. Instead I tell him in my most outrageously happy voice: "cool party right!?"

* * *

Anyhow, I'm no longer high or drunk. It's afternoon now and I'm having lunch at this cafe in SOHO. Mariah Carey's greatest hits are playing in the background (a hero lies in you!) and the two worker girls are behind the counter gossiping. One of them has terrible acne and I wonder how long it's been since a man has touched her intimately.

I think about two girls that stopped me on the street last week and how they asked me for bus fair back to their hometowns. Assuming it was a scam I refused to give them money outright, but I ended up buying them McDonald's in the case it wasn't. In line, they thanked me and it sounded very sincere. Though what was most strange was how the second, less-talkative one looked at me. She stared into my eyes and looked inside as if she felt sorry for me. As if there was something wrong with me. Curious; looking back, I think I should have asked them both to come back to my apartment with me. I wonder how much money it would have taken to purchase an hour of their company. That would have interesting.

* * *

I know that it's not a good idea to have sexual relations with a girl that works at your office in the same way I know it's not so good to get high and then drive across town to go clubbing. As I walk past a bakery I hink of my exgirlfriend who complained in the last months we were dating that I never brought her snacks like I use to. "You use to bring me cupcakes randomely. What happened to us?" she said with a defeated voice.

I haven't seen for a long time now and remember suddenly the day she went back home to California and how I sat in her empty house looking out the window at planes passing overhead wondering if I'd ever see her again.

I meet up Jessica up for drinks at a tiny Japanese whiskey bar in SOHO. She smells really good and I tell her I like her outfit even though it is awful. "I'm graduating next year". Says Jessica. "What are you going to do?" I ask. "I don't know" she says, trying to give me the impression that she hasn't thought that far ahead, which of course is a lie.



* * *

Anyhow really, seriously now, I need to get past this month. I'm doing all these projects, some for pay some for fun but really I need to get started on my feature projects. I'm beginning to go crazy. I need more drugs, more alcohol and more money.