Last weekend, while I was standing in a bar lecturing a Chinese friend on the socio-political history of her country, a most amazing thing happened. A woman I didn't recognize walked the full length of the room to say hello to me. As she spoke, the woman rubbed my arm in a familiar way and smiled.
'Who is that woman?' Ling Ling asked, as the woman walked back to the other side of the bar.
'I have no idea,' I said with a shrug before returning to my monologue about China's attempts to harness hydroelectric power on the Yangtze River.
Oddly enough, Ling Ling was more interested in learning the identity of the woman than in hearing my fascinating insights about her homeland.
'Will you stop talking out of your ass and tell me who that woman is?' Ling Ling demanded. And then she added, 'Please!' (The Chinese are very polite.)
I put on my glasses and studied the woman from across the bar. She did look vaguely familiar. Perhaps the older, chubbier sister of an acquaintance.
Just then, Greta walked over with a few beers and slammed one into my hand. 'I saw Karen talking to you,' she said in an accusing tone. 'I hope you're not thinking about getting back together with that moron.'
'That's Karen?' Ling Ling and I exclaimed in unison.
Ling Ling lives in China so she had never met my ex-girlfriend. But she was the lucky recipient of hundreds of tortured emails detailing my humiliating descent into unrequited love for Karen. Since Ling Ling lived on the morning side of the international dateline, I hoped her romantic advice would reach me in time to stop me from making stupid mistakes in Central Standard Time. It never did.
'I had no idea she was so fat,' Ling Ling said. (The Chinese are also very blunt.)
Karen had gained a lot of weight since the last time I saw her. And she had made some very poor choices about hair color.
'Is that what you Americans call 'frosted hair'?' Ling Ling asked, squinting at Karen's auburn hair, which looked like it had been sprinkled with a thick layer of powdered sugar.
'It's what we Americans call 'hideous',' Greta said.
As I slowly recovered from the shock of not recognizing someone I had slept with—and worst yet, someone I had written a poem to (yeah, that's how desperate I was—I stooped to free verse)—I realized that I was experiencing the happiest moment of my life.
Is there any greater thrill than running into an ex-lover who looks older and fatter than you do? In situations like this, it's usually me who is the worse for wear. The last time I ran into an ex, I was wedged against a grimy El window, wiping my runny nose with my shirt sleeve and studying some wax I had recently dug out of my ear.
But that night at the bar, thanks to a recent bout of salmonella poisoning, I looked svelte and fetching. Karen, on the other hand, looked like a peri-menopausal housewife.
'In China, this is what we call 'karma',' Ling Ling said.
'In America, this is what we call 'excellent',' I said.