That time I accidentally appeared like I had an Asian fetish!

Or how my date got the wrong idea about my intentions.

My flat is my sanctuary. I’m not a person who enjoy hosting private parties or gatherings. My hair rises at the thought of someone possibly spilling their drink on the carpet, inadvertently messing up my delicate bathroom plumbing, or leaving footsteps’ marks all over the corridor. In the past year, I’ve allowed in only a handful of cherry-picked friends, a few Couchsurfing guests, and a couple of dates.

I like leaving my space as messy or neat as I feel like it, and I don’t like curious eyes ogling around my stuff. Even if those eyes are attached to the optical nerves of my friends, I can’t help but feel judged when I sense their gaze going through my apartment. I know that despite following several interior design Instagram posts, my decoration skills are close to pitiful.

I’m mindful of who I let in because I already lost a ‘friend’ for the sole reason of having shared pictures of my flat with her. When she commented about how fancy my furniture looked and kept pushing me to tell her how I could afford all of that, I let her believe I had money rather than admit I had gathered most of my furniture from the streets and completed whatever was still needed by bargaining on Facebook market. She blocked me immediately after. We had bonded over our modest status, but I never expected that she would end our friendship after virtually seeing my place. That traumatized me.

Afterwards, letting someone in my place became a more exclusive event than making one’s way to the VIP section of a fancy club. I heavily filtered who entered. I didn’t bring dates in for a casual hookup, and I’d go somewhere outside to meet up with friends. However, winter came and I became unemployed. That meant inviting people became my default option.

Gradually, it became a new habit. First, one friend came for a ‘pre-party’ — understand a chat downed with diet coke before heading out to dance. Then another friend came in for a spa time — visualize a nail polish session without fancy foot massage. A third just needed a break from the cold and I provided it — along with a hot beverage.

Soon enough, I fearlessly told a date, ‘let’s just pop by my place so I can drop my bike, and we can keep on walking along the lake. No funky business though. We just drop the bike and off we go’. My date agreed, and within less than two minutes, we were outside my flat. The problem is, within three seconds of being in, my date spotted my Sexy Men calendar. Amongst the other decorations up my wall (a map, a painting saying ‘Love’, pictures of my family, Hockey memorabilia,..), that’s the item he outed!

Sorry for being racially descriptive, but my date that day was Asian. I date without borders and have absolutely no preference in terms of ethnicity or background. What gets me is their personality. But, coincidentally, the man on my calendar was also Asian. Asian and half-naked, showing off flawless abs. Coincidentally AGAIN, my date had on his dating app profile a shirtless picture also showing off his muscular abdominal range. When he pointed to the calendar, my face went tomato color. Yes, it was on my wall, but I barely ever looked at it, spending most of my indoor time watching through the windows. Still, he had spotted it right away.

Not to let him think I had a fetish for his body race and type, I quickly started turning pages of the calendar. They were all gorgeous men, but I figured that at least he would get that I wasn’t an Asian fetishist who had ‘trapped’ him in my flat, so he wouldn’t feel THAT objectified. I realized my mistake too late when my hand rested next to the naked butt of another model.

The other pictures were more vulgar — or sexier, depending on the beholder! — than the current month. Shame got the worst of me, and I briskly shut off the calendar before quickly dragging my date out to the balcony, to admire what I actually look at 99% of the time. This calendar had seemed like an innocent purchase as my Xmas gift. It’s not like I had a Youpo** page open on my laptop while asking someone to browse the web for a movie. And yet! Probably with no relation to that (though I can’t help to wonder), I never got a second date.

Yesterday, I invited a friend over and as I told her that story, she blamed me for ‘advertising myself as a sexual creature’. Slightly in defense-mode, I replied, “I know I have generous boobs, but it’s God’s design, not an enhancement from a surgeon. I’m only putting one of my best assets forward, just like the way I use makeup to highlight my eyes, rather than my lips. I keep the attention where it’s the most worthy”.

My friend explained further, “even though you might not be aware, that translates into a sexual energy and you’re projecting it. That’s the reason why most men interacting with you are only interested in that aspect of you. You won’t find the right boyfriend if you keep using this as your seduction technique”. Does that mean I need to say bye to my fitted tank top?

I’d argue that I have plenty of male friends that enjoy spending time with me under other circumstances, and when I go out, it’s extremely rare when someone approaches me, thus I don’t believe I’m that erotic mermaid… but I can’t deny that more often than not, men I get from the dating app are quick to offer ‘cuddles’ as an activity for our first date. I honestly thought this was only the general trend, but my friend immediately corrected me, “No, it’s just YOU! It’s really your vibes… Look, it’s even on your fridge!”

I turned towards the designated appliance. For an instant, I believed that my friend referred to the picture of me dressed up as a sexy Spiderman. I was about to justify myself by saying that this Spiderman bathing suit was the cheapest Cosplay outfit I could get to attend our local Comicon but I stopped myself when I realized what she meant. The magnetic letters on my fridge spelled out the word S.E.X.

GUILTY! I hadn’t done it on purpose. I had merely picked them at random from the box. Or maybe one of my visitors had played a prank on me? Regardless, the Universe was helping my dear friend to prove her point! This sexual energy was seemingly truly what I was broadcasting out to the world.

Anticipating my next move, my friend warned me, “and don’t you dare remove these from your fridge!” I sighed. It’s been there for months without me ever noticing and now I’m probably gonna spend the next months unable to unsee it! What a joke…

How about you? What is the Universe reflecting back at you? Let me know in the comments 🙂

Thanks for reading, and if you would like to discover some of my other writings, don’t hesitate to:

• 🤗 Follow me, Aurelie B, my handle here, on Medium.
• 🔔 Subscribe to get all my stories… and win a chance to smile!
• 🏠 Help me pay my rent… or my morning coffee thanks to Ko-Fi.

PS: Did you know you can clap up to 50 times for the same article!