I was doing another soul-searching thing within myself the other night at work, since it was so slow.

I’ve discovered the root cause of me not wanting a boyfriend in any sense of the word, right now, or possibly ever.

When I was 14, my pregnant older sister, along with my then four yo niece, moved cross country to move back in with us. Why? Because she was leaving the Army, and because Mom and Dad said we needed to help her out. Thus, I spent the next five or so years, helping to raise two kids. Do you know how difficult it is to get through adolescence when you’re doing something like that?

Granted, those kids are more like my little sisters than anything sometimes. And I can’t be away from them too long. I took a week’s vacation to Cali once, and all I could think about was them enjoying the gifts I bought especially for them.

They moved here to Las Vegas in ‘02 to start a new life. All fine and good, but I wasn’t off the hook.

The year before, my mother - without consulting me - “volunteered” me to babysit her co-worker’s infant girl a few days a week (overnights included). Since my parents never pressured me to get a job (not that I wasn’t looking) and since the state paid my tuition, my mom would pocket my babysitting money and give me a $50 allowance every week. Back then, that was more than enough to buy a few CDs, magazines, whatever when I felt like it, and pay for schoolbooks (since the program I was under only covered tuition).

Then we moved here in 2003, to help my sister out again and to get her out of apartments. Moving here did what it was supposed to. Shake me from my shell and grow the fuck up. I got my first job here, my first car, my first credit card, first of 3 iPods and all the subsequent bills that came with it. Being an adult is a bitch, but I’m surviving, rofl.

So for the last 4 years, I have again been responsible for my nieces.

So how do this relate to boys?

rofl, I’m getting there.

I have mildly threatened to move out for the last 2 years, because I can’t stand living with my family. I love ‘em, but most of these days, I can’t stand being in the same room. I’m financially unstable, and unfortunately, they know this and use it against me in a passive-aggressive manner.

I am sick and tired of being responsible for the people in this house, made to feel guilty because things aren’t getting done, made to do things because no one else can. I work a full-time job and go to school full-time. I barely have time to wipe my ass, for God’s sake (not really, but you know what I mean).

I like him - I do - but he texts me at all the wrong times, and whines about how he misses me. That’s tantamount to bothering me, and if there’s something I hate, it’s annoyances I can control. My time is my time. I hardly get any “my time” anymore. Fact of the matter is I don’t want to be responsible to anyone but me.

And that’s how I feel about relationships. You are made to feel like you owe ‘em something, to tell the person how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, and all that shit. No offense, but I can live without it. This is how I see my life going for a really long time. I’ve lived with so much familial and societal pressure my whole damn life, and I’m fucking sick of it.

As soon as I can, I’m gonna find a job 1000 miles away from anyone who knows me, and start over. I lost out on a lot of my childhood, and I’m just supposed to grin and bear it?

Fuck that.

Because that’s what good little Asian girls are supposed to do?

Fuck that.

Because “we support each other in this family?”

Triple fuck that.

I want to be left alone so badly. You don’t even know. It’s a hard thing for people to grasp. If I could wake up one day and not be bothered by anyone, I would swear I had died and gone to heaven. I can’t decompress when I come home because there’s something that needs doing that someone can’t do without me. It’s retarded.

So if I were to become his girlfriend, I wouldn’t be a very good one. I’d be aloof, distant, antisocial, and cold. He doesn’t deserve that. No one does. So I’ll spare humanity the blight that I am and just be a lonely, antisocial crone somewhere.

I’m gonna waste my breath forcing myself to be something I don’t ever wanna put my whole heart into, which keenly applies to every facet of my life. Bless the ones who can. I don’t envy nor worship you. Do what you gotta do.

I hope someday to have someone in my life, and kids. Will definitely have at least 1 before 35. I’m in no hurry ’cause my parents already have 5 grandkids. If I could, I wouldn’t even go through childbirth. I’d adopt some fabulously sassy kid I could teach my tricks to, haha.

*le sigh*

?: “Can you live without people?”