fathers & daughters

In Los Angeles I saw my twin - and it was my father. For years the Ding Family has said, You're so much like your dad. I shrugged it off. I mean, yes, there is a physical similarity - I look like my dead grandmother, I have the Ding chin, the Ding mole, the Ding complexion, the Ding eyes and fingers. But beneath the skin, there is something else binding me to my father - the Ding Distance.

The Ding Distance is the vast emotional gulf between anyone from the Ding Family and everyone else (except that lucky lucky person we happen to be in love with.) If you are not loved by a Ding Family Member, then we will look at you with all the puzzlement and bwilderment of an alien landing on another planet. But if you're loved, if a DFM has decided to love you, then you can't get rid of us. We love hard and deeply. No matter what. (My sister is proof of this; she ran her husband to ground like a hound after a stag.)

So Dad and I are driving down Sunset, toward the ocean, at the best time of the afternoon when Los Angeles feels like a cool hand across your brow. We're talking relationships:

Papa Ding: I told her. God as my witness, I told her I wasn't
attracted to her.
ding: But then you invited her to a wedding.
Papa Ding: Well, I needed a date.
ding: But you knew she had feelings for you.
Papa Ding: But I told her there could never be anything between
us!
ding: And then you asked her to make tamales for your party?
Papa Ding: I can't cook!
ding: But that's a special thing. You asked her to do a special
thing. You cannot reject someone and then ask them to do special things for
you! That's not right!
Papa Ding: I didn't reject her. I never said that.
ding: You said, I am not attracted to you. That screams
rejection. That's not exactly a big Yes, I want to be with you.
Papa Ding: I never used those words. I never said I rejected her.
ding: Oh, that's right - because you keep asking her to be your secret
girlfriend!
Papa Ding: No!
ding: You need to understand some women's feelings, Dad. You may reject us but what we really do is look at what you do. If you say No but then ask us to be your date and cook you special food for your friends you're either in love with us or you're taking advantage of us. A woman in love - what does she want to believe? That the man she wants returns her feelings? Or that he has a hole where his emotional center should be?

I've had conversations like this before with my friends about a few boys in
my past; I've said I am not responsible for their feelings, even after I've just
stomped all over their little bitty hearts with my stiletto heels. I have said, 'But I made it clear where I stood! It's not my fault they chose to misunderstand me!' It was cool to be so flippant when it came to another person's emotions; my indifference turned me into an impervious tower. I was not moved by emotion. All my liaisons were rational, I thought. Everything was understood.

But then I think about this woman who hankers after my father, who plays by the same rules that I do. (And let me say my dad is not a bad man; he's just a man relearning what it's like to date again after 33 years of marriage and 5 years of being a widower. He has no idea what he's doing.) These are the rules that say, If you don't really care about the other person the most you can do is make sure they know where they stand.

So I think about this woman and these untenable rules and I think about how crazy she's become because of loving someone who doesn't see it or won't see it and can't love her back and how no one is putting her out of her misery.
And I think that I don't want to be the type of person who draws out the pain so much when just a quick snap of the neck will do.