Not sure if this is where I should post this. I just gotta put this out there, somewhere, anywhere.
My best friend since before COVID barely calls anymore. If I want to speak to her, I’m the one that has to initiate that conversation. We’ve gone many days between even a text, unless I again initiate it. We used to be so close. But now I see how close she is with her new friends and cannot help but feel left out. There’s so many times that I’ve felt left out, or forgotten about. I just feel so alone.
They all kind of ditched me to go to the casino tonight. We were all together and they just abruptly decided to leave. I’m not surprised as they excluded me for half of the party anyways. They can all speak English just fine but speak Vietnamese, which I can barely understand. I understand why they prefer to speak it, but it wasn’t always this way. They used to speak English so that I could contribute to the conversation, but now not at all (I’m not exaggerating)
I’m staying over at her place this weekend so I went back to her house alone. My eyes feel a bit raw from how much I’ve been crying since I got here.
So alone. So much for a big sis.
I’ve managed at casino’s and I can tell you from 20 years in the industry that no group of Vietnamese women gambling together produces anything but sadness, debt and heartache.
I’ve seen a half dozen cliques crash and burn, down some dark daaaark paths. Shit I wish I didn’t know and I wish had never happened even if it involved me in no way whatsoever. The kind of things that no one should go thru.
If you decide to try and salvage it, learn Vietnamese, now, like its your favorite thing in the world, and ask the other girls to help you with it, with the idea that it could help build bonds across the group.
(This applies to all group dynamics, either with this friend group, or work groups, or new friend groups) Always have something to change a subject or break up a silence. Ideas, plans, options, about what to do and where to go. Know what’s going on in your area. Be adventurous, be more leader-ish. Liiike…If you want to spontaneously go bungee jumping and none of them do, GO WITHOUT THEM, right then and there. Don’t let shit linger, accomplish shit, with or without them. Notch them posts. Trying and failing - ANYTHING, is worth 3x doing nothing. A yes is 3x as valuable as a no. You 1. Try, 2. Oops, 3. Reevaluate, get back up. You’re taking in all kinds of XP and getting closer to leveling up. Compared to doing nothing? Or to drinking every time you go out? Or to only meeting at the casino? Yaaaaaawn.
This way you won’t, CAN’T, be seen as a follower or a wallflower, but as a fun chick who’s got stories and experiences. You’ll become intimidating to some because of this, after a while, when really, you’re just doing your thing, y’know. Too busy to judge others on their thing, that ain’t your biz anyways y’know?
make them keep up with you, is what I’m saying. If they’re stereotypical Vietnamese girls, all they do is drink, gamble, get their hair and nails did (or do hair and nails themselves), drive a Lexus they can barely afford and have had at least 3 minor accidents in, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, LuLulemon and bubbletea. Maybe they’re none of those. Idk. I just know a lot of ‘west coast, parent immigrated’ and a lot of those that came over as adults. Ive known a LOT of Vietnamese people, I’ve been offered more than a half dozen cousins to marry, with dowries, more than a few of which were ridiculously gorgeous, but no, Im not that guy. But if the new friends are west coast vietnamese gen pop, is that a scene you want to crack or not? Partying and brand names don’t really have any value in my eyes, but those are your questions to ask yourself.
Fuck now I want both, a banh mi AND pho.
Best of luck