anxiety

I'm doing an experiment.

Last September/October, my anxiety kicked into high gear. Like, really high gear. Now, maybe it was the culture shock sinking in, maybe it was the return to school after summer break combined with the much colder (and darker, and more miserable) season. But. 

September/October 2014 is also when I stopped jogging as a form of exercise, because it was getting cold out and I didn't want to spring money for a gym membership. (Still don't.)

Bike by my apartment
complex in Taiwan.

But exercise is supposed to be good for combating anxiety. It has the side effect of making me hungry, so even on bad days where I get so anxious that eating is a chore and food taste like dirt, I crave real food and end up devouring it.




I've been doing Pilates, but Pilates involves a lot of mental work. Keeping a stance, changing exercise moves, focusing on form, that kind of thing. Whereas jogging is mindless; do the same motion continuously, for as long as you want.

Taipei's streets, where I often jogged at night.

Today, I went jogging for the first time in a year. It didn't solve everything, but I came home and ate, and I feel like I'm not so overwhelmed with emotions that I can't feel them. I still feel awful, terrified about tomorrow, but I can feel it. I'm not shutting it down because feeling it would mean being too overwhelmed to function.

I'm also, if we'll notice, writing in my blog again.

Monotonous exercise is like meditation, but with entertainment. The scenery changes. I listen to music. I get to be in my own head, but the world is still moving around me. It's safe, like being at Starbucks, out in the world without the pressure of having to smile and laugh and directly interact with it.

Even cities are quiet at night.
There's anonymity in darkness.

However, my shoes are about two years old (I bought them in Taiwan) so I didn't get very far this evening before my knees said, "Nope," and I spent the rest of my time walking. I'll have to buy fresh running shoes before I can get serious. But it felt good to feel powerful, even for a bit. My mind is a prison, but my body has always been capable and strong. I've always felt that while my mind can handle very little, my body constantly shocks me with how far it can go. After an average day at work, my mind wants to tap out and take a day (or five) off. After a long run, or a swim, or a workout at Pilates, my body has always said, "I can do more!"

Between my body and my mind, I'm glad at least one of us is always full of effortless strength. I need my body to carry my mind through when things like driving and calling people on the phone and deciding on what shirt is socially acceptable to wear to the grocery store tire me out. I'm constantly overwhelmed by the sheer possibility of catastrophe, be it a car crash or burning my apartment down or offending my co-workers by not saying "Ohayo gozaimasu!" loud enough or to the right people in the morning. My mind has never been able to shut off.

The shrine in my old neighborhood in Japan.

I think I felt better, though, when I was routinely going out for a jog.

So I've bought sweatpants, and legwarmers. I have my Under Armour winter shirt and gloves. I have a hat. I'll buy new shoes as soon as I can. And at least twice a week, I'll try to make myself go out in the mornings or evenings and run.

I always did it for the health of my body, but I'm starting to think the real benefit was for my mind.

Anxiety sucks. But I'm hoping that jogging again will make it suck a bit less.

OHIO gozaimasu

"Ohio" gozaimasu. Because I'm in Ohio. Get it? It's hilarious. And it's gonna be hilarious every morning that I say it while I'm here.

Reverse culture shock is possibly the weirdest thing to experience. Because when you leave the West and go live in the East, you expect things to be baffling. You expect your impulses for polite social conduct to be wrong. You expect the common language to be overwhelming and strange. You expect to hesitate when counting out money because you're not used to the shapes, colors, and amounts. You expect to be struck by the cacophony of millions of small details being radically different from what your mind expects.

When you return to your home country, the place where you've been raised and indoctrinated into the culture since birth, and find that your impulses for polite social conduct are wrong, it's really strange. You find that the language you speak fluently and understand perfectly to be overwhelming in such large amounts. (Especially when you've been training your brain to seek out the foreign language for the sake of self-study.) You find yourself pausing when counting out money because you're not used to the shapes, colors, and amounts. You find yourself overwhelmed by the cacophony of millions of small details that are radically different from what your mind has learned to expect.

Very weirdly, I find myself being mildly offended and annoyed with the large, boisterous, and abruptness of American society. I was in a bathroom in Honolulu, just outside the entrance to Customs, and one of the workers started calling out "Next!" and waving people over when a stall was empty. (There were, like six stalls total. It was a small bathroom. You could see when one was empty.) I wanted to tell her, "Lady, 75% of the people in line are Japanese. When it comes to collective, courteous self-organization, they excel. Trust me, you don't need to push them around." I also couldn't believe how many people on the Stateside planes were chatting to each other like old friends over things as simple as helping each other put carry-ons into the overhead compartments. It felt like an invasion of space. Japanese people are very quick to assist you when it looks like you need it, but they're also just as likely to leave you alone to accomplish it yourself or--if you absolutely must--ask for assistance. Preferably from someone who works there, not the other customers. Japanese people are wonderfully kind and helpful, but they also know how to leave other people alone.

I also find customer service workers in America frustratingly apathetic; like they can't even fake pleasantness. Moreover, there aren't a lot of phrases in English (at least in the States) that you can use to show an attempt at courtesy. While English has a ridiculous number of verb tenses to show time, Japanese has an astounding number of conjugations and suffixes that can be used to show deference and courtesy. There are a number of ways to say "Please" and "Thank you" alone, to show how courteous you're being and whether the person you're speaking to is higher or lower than you in status. I've started saying "___ o onegaishimasu" when I order things because it's mildly more polite and courteous than "____ o kudasai," even though there's nothing wrong with "kudasai" to begin with. Japanese people even say 'please' and 'thank you' once or twice sometimes. In America, I feel like every "please" and "thank you" from people is ripped out of them with extreme reluctance.

I don't know if this is how Japanese people perceive American society, but it's really weird for me. I don't feel as safe in the States as I did in Japan. Quite literally, the moment my ridiculous amount of Japanese yen was exchanged for a ridiculous (but sadly much less, damn those exchange rates) amount of American dollars, I felt my paranoia over theft increase tenfold. When I go to the Hitachinaka Starbucks in Japan, I leave my computer and purse at the table and go to to the bathroom all the time. (I take my phone with me, but that's because it's small and would be easy to quietly steal.) In Japanese coffee shops, people will leave their personal belongings at tables and chairs before going to order their food, as a way of claiming the space. In America, you'd do what with something you could afford to have stolen; like a cheap jacket. Or you'd have someone physically sit at the table to guard everyone's things. At the Sawmill Starbucks in Ohio, I'd often lock my computer to something before leaving it to go to the bathroom. Things like this make me wonder how many Japanese tourists experience theft in the US because they don't realize you have to be fifty times more cautious and 100 times less trusting of strangers.

My instincts for social interactions are all wrong. I went to order at Starbucks and had to remember how to order in English because I've done more Starbucks ordering in Japan than in America. I bow and say "sumimasen!" or "gomen nasai!" when I have to nudge people out of my way in crowded areas. Just now I said, "Thank you!" out loud and it felt really uncomfortable to do so without at least a little head bow--like I was being inauthentic. I feel less polite in English than I do in Japanese.

I also cannot manage American money for the life of me. I keep thinking the copper coins are 10 yen pieces, and the fact that the large coins are worth $0.25 instead of 100 yen (technically about $0.86 but in Japan treated the way $1 is in the States) confuses me so much.

My mother and I went grocery shopping briefly and the size of a regular Kroger grocery store was astounding. Just... so much food. So many varieties of each food. Who even needs that much pasta sauce?!

Also, due to the fact that I slept for nearly 14 hours since getting home about 24 hours ago, I stayed up most of the night, and the sun is only just now rising at 6:30am. In Japan, I see shadows on the ground by 5am. The actual sunrise is at about 4:20am now that it's summer. It feels a lot earlier to me than it actually is here.

I think the hardest thing for me, though, is how afraid I am of losing the many ways I've become integrated into Japanese culture. I'm afraid I'll lose my Japanese instincts, and more importantly, my Japanese language ability. The reason I never studied Japanese in high school or college is because I always figured I'd learn it and then lose it, because where would I ever find consistent Japanese practice in the States? (And, of course, why learn Japanese if I was never in a million years going to get the chance to live in Japan, right?) I've worked really hard to become integrated into Japanese culture, and the thought of losing the many ways I've become Japanese is frightening. Moreover, there are many things about Japan and Japanese culture that I appreciate and prefer over American culture, and I worry that I'll be frustrated by American culture while I'm here.

In conclusion, reverse culture shock is weird. In Japan I worry about committing a faux pas because I'm unaware of the Japanese way to do something, but now I find myself worried that I'll act "strange" in America because I do something the Japanese way without thinking about it.

We'll see how things go.

it's all about that ace

I haven't been writing here in over a year and I know why: it's because I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear what I have to say.

Taiwan was fun. Taiwan was an adventure. Taiwan was not the stress-fest that my daily...weekly...monthly... life often is here in Japan. And the number one thing nobody wants to hear about is someone else's problems. So, you know. I keep that shit to myself.

I do want to talk, though, and probably about something nobody wants to hear about: sexualities that aren't their own.

I'm ace. (Asexual.)

A little over a year ago, I was four nights away from moving to Japan, and I finally got around to googling "asexuality" beyond its dictionary definition, which is "a person who doesn't experience sexual attraction." The problem with that dictionary definition is that nobody ever explicitly describes to you what sexual attraction feels like. The entire world assumes that everyone feels it, so when you begin to realize that (as far as you know) you are the only person you know who doesn't want to express her affection for someone by fucking them, you do your best to mistake your own feelings for sexual attraction in the hopes that maybe that desire to fuck people will kick in.

If this sounds sarcastic and a bit angry, there's a reason. I had to google my sexuality at the age of 27, and it took me ten fucking minutes on the FAQ page of AVEN (the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network) to figure out I'm ace. A lifetime of media and information and education at my fingertips, and not one bit of it ever answered the question I'd always asked myself: What's wrong with me?

The answer turned out to be: nothing.

The reason I want you to know how difficult this was for me is because there are a lot of people around me with babies, toddlers, and small children in general. When I was growing up, there was no information around me about my sexuality. There were no people in my life (as far as I knew) who felt the way I did, who could identify with me and reassure me that there was nothing wrong with me. Nobody in my life knew to explain to me that there are different ways to be attracted to people, or to not be attracted to people in any way at all, and that it was all okay. Nobody in my life (including me, and I was on the internet all the time) knew the words aesthetic attraction, sensual attraction, romantic attraction, or asexual, gray-asexual, demisexual, aromantic.

I don't blame anyone around me for being ignorant, because there was no information there for anyone to learn from.

Here's the thing, though: you know an asexual. You know me. You can't claim that ignorance of this. Heck, you can't tell me that you're 100% sure your kid is cis-gender and heterosexual. Because, see, everyone (including me) was 100% sure I was cis-gender and heterosexual my whole life, until I found out otherwise. (And these days I take issue with the secondary sex characteristics of my female gender because they're basically useless to me, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

I don't plan to have kids, ever, because I don't want them. I'd rather get a dog. And hey, your kids are your kids, I'm not going to tell you how to raise them. But do me a favor, and make sure you're educated on this stuff. Make sure you have the vocabulary to describe different kinds of relationships, different kinds of feelings, different ways to be comfortable in your body, different nouns to use in reference to one's self. Make sure your kids know that you're open to new interpretations of what it means to be themselves. Make sure you know, and that you let your kids know, because knowledge is power, and by God do I this information had trickled down to me a decade sooner.

Don't assume this is going to come up in health class. Don't assume your kids will tell you if they feel this way. I felt this way for nearly two decades. I read books voraciously, I wrote in excess, I aced pretty much every spelling test every put in front of me without trying for years because I knew so many words by heart, and it wasn't until I was twenty-fucking-seven that I had a word to describe myself besides "broken."

Don't assume your kids will know how to describe their feelings to you. Don't assume your kids will even tell you. This information is available to you now. I'm right here, telling you that this is something real. So now you know.

Please make sure your kids know, too. Give your kids words to use to describe themselves (and those around them) besides "broken."

Resources:

AVEN (Asexuality Visibility and Education Network): Asexuality Overview

What is it Like to be Asexual? BBC News

Am I Asexual? 10 Things You Don’t (But Should) Know About Asexuality, Because It's Not All About Sex

A Parent's Guide to Asexuality

home sweet not-Japan

I'm not moving back to the States this year, and probably not next year, either. I haven't gotten my fill of Japan yet, and I have a long ways to go in learning Japanese. That said, when I finally do go back to the States, I will definitely be bringing back some cultural baggage and expectations of what belongs in a home. These things include:

1. kotatsu
   A kotatsu is a low, heated table with a removeable top so you can drape blankets over it. When I'm back in the States, I will search high and low for one until I get my hands on it, and if I can't find one I will figure out how to make one. What does a person need central heating for when they can wrap up in blankets like a burrito and stick their feet under a heated table? My feet are usually the only part of me that get cold, and a kotatsu is so effective at keeping them warm.
   
2. removing shoes before going in the house 
   I've gone from "Eh, I don't wanna take them off just to get that one little thing on the kitchen counter" to being scandalized at the thought of walking through my own house in my "outdoor" shoes. The other day I followed a teacher outside while we were both wearing our indoor shoes and I was internally cringing. If I ever work in an American public school, it's going to drive me nuts wearing my outdoor shoes into the building.
   
3. hot water heater
   Americans do not have the tea obsession that some countries have, and so it's not common for Americans to have an appliance in their house that is specifically for the sake of heating water. We've got hot water from the tap, and if we really want something steaming, well, there's a microwave, isn't there? Since moving to Japan and buying a water heater of my own, I've been converted. There is now a difference to me between tap or microwaved hot water and hot water that was boiled in the heater. I can't even explain it. There just is.
   
4. bowing
   I'm going to bow at people when I get back to the States, I know it. Whether I notice it or not remains to be seen. I've gotten really used to bowing as being a catch-all gesture of deference, and it's kind of comforting to have a gesture that indicates humble courtesy and respect. I give a little bow when I say "sumimasen" (excuse me), when I greet and give farewells to my co-workers, when I talk on the phone to Japanese people.
   
5. the peace sign
   The truth of Japanese people throwing up a peace sign for every picture is not even a stereotype, it's an observable fact. And I really love it. Because I hate getting my picture taken. Hate it. I hate smiling for pictures, I hate posing for them, I hate the way my hair and clothes and body proportions look in them. I almost universally hate any picture taken of me that's not a selfie. (And even then there are duds.) But the peace sign solves one of my major problems: what pose to make when someone aims a camera at me. Do I give someone bunny ears? Do I wave? Do I hunch? Do I jump in the air and hope it doesn't look stupid? No. I make a peace sign, and arrange it somewhere near my face. Problem fucking solved.
   
6. a million and one tea cups
   Raise you're hand if you'll be surprised when I come home with half my body weight in Japanese ceramics.
   
7. sleeping on the floor
   Even back in the States, I dismantled my bed frame and piled the mattresses on the floor, and then slept on them that way. I loved it. Here in Japan, I sleep on two foam mattresses under a futon, and I love it. I'll probably sleep on the floor when I go back home, too. Also, bonus: it's cooler down there in the summer.
   
8. soba
   If I can't find the ingredients to make soba when I get back to the States it's gonna break my heart because soba now ranks up there with Italian pasta and cheese.
   
9. kawaii everywhere
   If it can be made cute, somewhere in Japan, it has been. There are stores called zakka that just sell adorable home goods that have been personalized within an inch of their life, so that if you want, literally every aspect of your life--from the chopsticks you eat with to the notepaper you write on--can be imbued with some kind of charm and personality. My city, Mito, has an official mascot that is a natto bean with hair and clothes named Mito-chan. I cannot make this shit up. It's fantastic.
   
10. calling the US  'America'The word for The United States in Japanese is アメリカ or "amerika," which is exactly what it looks like. I can't tell people I'm from "The States" or "The US," so I say I'm from "amerika." When talking to other foreigners, I'll still say I'm from America. I honestly don't know which I'm supposed to call it when talking to people anymore.
    
11. public transit
    With the exception of small pockets of sensibility like Chicago and New York City, the majority of America has shitty public transit compared with a lot of places. Taipei city had bus stops almost literally every hundred feet in some places. The subway system was a place of magic, and the land trains literally circled the entire island, going both ways, so you could get pretty much anywhere without trouble. Japan is the same. There are local buses that go through the towns, and highway buses that go between prefectures. There are local train systems, regional train systems, and the shinkansen bullet train that'll take you pretty much anywhere, and fast. I remember being back in the States after being in Taipei. It sucked. It sucked really bad. Hitachinaka is pretty much the exact same as Columbus, Ohio, except we're spread out in the suburbs and it's pretty much impossible to get anywhere without a car. I'll probably move back to Ohio, because family, but man, it's nice to just take the train or the bus when you don't wanna drive.
    
12. the weather
    It's June right now, which is called tsuyu or the rainy season in Japan, because it rains all the time. Here in Mito we're averaging 75-77 degrees during the day, with some mugginess. You know what the temperatures are in Ohio right now? Smack in the 80s. Ohio's been hotter than Japan for about a month now, and you know what, I'm kinda fine with that. It feels like spring has extended all the way into June. I mean, sure, we'll hit July and it'll be like a sauna and because the Japanese government wants schools to conserve energy we won't be turning on our A/C units like at all, but aside from that, the weather's not bad. Spring is a pleasant explosion of flowers. Fall is mild. Winter isn't nearly as bone-chilling as it is in Ohio. Hitachinaka gets four seasons but it doesn't go overboard about it, and I appreciate that. I'm going to miss this sensible weather when I go back to the land of ice, snow, and snowstorms in goddamn April, what the hell, Ohio.
    
13. shrines
    Shinto shrines are an unobstructive part of Japanese life. People visit shrines for major holidays, such as New Year's, but they visit them casually, too. It's such a quick and easy thing to do, going to a shrine, tossing a coin into the collection box, and saying a little prayer for whatever it is you want. I mostly go to shrines because I feel like it, sort of a way to renew my own commitments to staying strong and hardworking and dedicated to whatever tasks going on in my life at that time. I don't know if anyone's listening, but for me that's not really the point. There's no pressure in visiting a shrine; visiting one is a personal experience of peace and relaxation. In comparison, I've always felt like going to church was like taking a test; all these people to converse with before and after the service, and all these inquiries: Do you have a job? What job? Do you have your own place? Are you dating? What have you achieved with your life since we last saw you? How well can you pass for a heterosexual female who never talks about feminism, or heteronormativity, or white privilege, or rape culture? Please, talk about yourself, but not so much that your honesty makes people uncomfortable.
    Shinto shrines don't put me through that. They're just nice, quiet spaces where natural serenity is sacred and everyone is there to have their own personal spiritual experience, not to bother everyone else about theirs. It's public introvert space, and it's glorious.

Japan the second year 'round is proving to be just as fascinating as it was the first year, but without all the stress of being bombarded with it all at once. I understand a lot more now. I know where to find things, how to spend my money, how to read some major kanji, and my brain is getting a lot better at retaining Japanese. I'm starting to learn grammar from listening to my kids and the teachers in the teacher's room, although a formal class would probably help me get farther faster. Japan's not as terrifying in its newness as it was last March, or April, or even June. I'm in a much better apartment, and I feel less like a frightened child and more like an competent, able adult. My biggest fear in the world is that I'll go back to the States and have to start all that from scratch, or find that I can't make this kind of living there. I've never been a financially stable adult in the States, only abroad. I've never felt like a professional woman with a career in the States, only in Taiwan and Japan.

Hopefully my time in Japan (and Taiwan) will give me the leg up I need to keep being a successful adult when I finally (whenever that is) return to America.

being invisible

I just realized that quite often, I forget who I am.

I can't look around and be reminded. I don't see myself in any of the ads on TV, or in magazines, or before Youtube videos, or in movies, or in songs, or on the marketing for in-store products, or on billboards, or in the conversations people have about their lives and relationships.

I don't see myself because the world is all about sex, and I'm asexual.

The words I use for myself don't exist in the vocabulary of the population at large: heteromantic, asexual, ace, aesthetically attracted. The divisions I draw between romantic feelings and physical actions are seen as superfluous and strange to people for whom intimate love and sex are one and the same. The conundrums I face on a regular basis when it comes to determining how much casual contact is considered casual by others is ridiculous. "Well, can the contact be considered sexual?" I don't fucking know.

I just read a fanfiction tonight about an older character who was already in a sexual relationship when he discovered he was asexual. Which, people might think, is about the time he'd tell his partner he's asexual, isn't it? No. When you don't want sex, and the world sees it as love, saying you don't want sex feels akin to saying you don't feel love. Whether you have a word for your feelings or not (I didn't until I was 27) you ask yourself if it wouldn't be better to suffer this emptiness in silence, because the alternative might be rejection and loneliness. You make yourself act the way you're told you should. You go into situations knowing they'll repulse you and you make yourself smile. You're supposed to want it. You'll make yourself. You will.

This fanfic spoke to me on a personal level, and it made me realize that I can't quite remember the last time a piece of media did. There are no asexual characters in the shows I watch or in the movies I see; no portrayals of teen aces growing up feeling different from their peers, feeling isolated and alone, only to discover they're not alone, and that it's okay to be how they are. There's no popular media for me to point to and say, "That's how I feel. I recognize my feelings very precisely in that." There are no coming-of-age stories for aces. I guess if you don't have sex, your emotional journey through life isn't considered exciting. Or real.

Because everyone likes sex. Everyone. Everyone wants it, everyone needs it, it's a basic human need, it's instinctual, it's natural, it's biology, you'll meet the right person, you'll want it, you'll like it, you'll get better at it, you'll love it, you will.

Just because I know I'm asexual now doesn't mean the world hasn't stopped screaming at me that this isn't how I should be. Having read this fanfic, this beautiful, unpaid labor of love, I'm reminded of what it feels like to be me. It's a relief, because I know, but it also hurts. It's also lonely. It's a feeling of being erased, little by little, day after day, until the needs of the world start to overwhelm what you know to be true of yourself at your core. It's a constant fear that who you are will, in fact, be the reason that someone you love--romantically, platonically, family or a friend--might someday turn and walk away from you forever.

I know who I am. More than I ever have, I know who I am, and even better, I am confident about it. I have words for the things I feel, and I with it, I have the courage to say them.

But dear god, it's nice to be reminded once in a while of who you are not just through emotions that are similar enough to be relateable, but words that understand you. Words that clarify your feelings, words that clarify you.

I'm so happy I just read this fanfic. It makes me feel less invisible.

thanks for absolutely nothing

I'm gonna put it right out there and say that the last year has been, for the most part, more stressful than not.

I'm also going to admit that a lot of it likely comes from myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well in all areas of my life: work, friends, family, studies, and hobbies. I don't want to just do decently at my job: I want to make an impact. I don't just want my friends to like me; I want to be a steadfast and healthy presence in their lives. I don't want to just be a member of my family, I want to be a caring, considerate, dependable member of my family. I don't want to just live in Japan; I want to learn Japanese to a near fluent level, and absorb all the Japanese learning I possibly can while I'm here. I don't just want to stay healthy; I want to be noticeably fit. I don't want to just write in my free time; I want to publish a novel. (Hell, at this point, I'd settle for finishing a goddamn story.)

I put a hell of a lot of pressure on myself to do these things, because achieving these goals are insanely important to me. I want to matter.

What wears me down over time is that I have fought for every little bit of confidence and self-esteem I possess, and my grip on them fluctuates between definitive and fragile. Striving for these kinds of goals takes a hell of a lot of tenacity, which is the only thing I have that does not wane. Tenacity is the only reason I make it out of bed (or the shower) and into work some mornings. It's probably the most Japanese thing about me. I'll be exhausted, frustrated, angry, hurt, and hungry, but you will not see a single damn bit of it until I've decided you can. If there's one thing I've got, it's self-control.

I've been exceedingly lonely this whole year. From day one, I've had people forget about me, get mad at me for not hanging out with them enough, and guilt-trip me for not socializing in the same way they were. My Japanese co-workers are wonderful, but I can't speak to them on a deep, emotional level (which, as an introvert, I crave) because we don't have enough common words between us. I just had to break it off with a friend because they couldn't seem to understand that rather than being supportive or helpful, they were essentially telling me that I wasn't giving enough of myself to them.

When I hang out with people, I don't want to "give" of myself. A healthy friendship won't feel like an obligation or a chore. It'll be refreshing. It'll be revitalizing. And when you're introverted and stressed out almost continuously, it's really hard to find and make new friends because you have to keep putting yourself out there when you've none left to give. Worse, you might end up friends with someone who eventually reveals themselves to be petty and passive-aggressive, or selfish and uninterested in any perspective of life but their own. And then it's another chunk of energy you still don't have cutting them out, and dealing with any bullshit fallout that might come your way as a result. Because really, the only reason you're not friends with that person anymore is because you didn't try hard enough to be a social, understanding person. Everyone else likes that person, why don't you?

So after a year in Japan, I'm trying to move to a bigger apartment, when I still don't have enough solid friends to even throw a house-warming party.

I'm just so tired.