I thought a short vacation could change my world

I went on vacation to England for a couple of weeks.

I think I wanted my world to change. Maybe change by having me get together with Paul. Paul's my English friend, the one I went to visit. When my world didn't change, I began to rage against it and myself.  I got depressed. I hated everything.

So, I then told Paul I liked him, wanting him to step in and change my world.  He didn't.  He was nice and didn't say he was flatly not interested but simply said he was "flattered."

I guess that was worse. I think got angry at myself: for not being skinny, for not being white, for not being English, for not being pleasant enough.   Something is missing.

The funny thing is that I sometimes liked Paul, but mainly I didn't.  I didn't feel any chemistry between us. Our personalities sometimes clashed in a way that made me miserable at just being around him.

I remember sitting in my hotel room one morning and crying. I cried because he seemed so cold to me. I cried because he seemed to cringe at my touch, like when we took the train together. I thought perhaps it was him being British, not wanting any public display of affection, or maybe being disgusted at having me, a dark skinned person, touch him.  I noticed his repulsion from the first day. I tried to control myself, I'm a very touchy person. I think that was just what begun to make me feel too ugly, too fat, too dark, too immature for his sophisticated/stuffy British ways, too playful, too open, just.. too.

The being too dark is of course my own fears of being disliked by white people, or being thought as ugly- all remnants of my colonial scarred mind.

The thing I can't reconcile in my mind is that I thought he liked me before, when he came to America a couple of years ago. Maybe spending so much time with me did it. Maybe he's changed. The only argument against that is that I felt his coldness the moment I arrived.

I then got jealous every time he mention that Hungarian girl he had a relationship with years ago, which lasted two years. I'd get jealous every time he told me about the things they did: going to Monte Carlo, driving from England to Hungary, staying at some beautiful lake.  All things I'd love to do. But would I like to do them with him?  I think sometimes I did, and other times I wanted him to disappear, or just stop being so g'damn polite.  I mean, sometimes he just looked upset with me but instead of saying something, he'd put on a polite Brit smile and be so civil I could've thrown cabbage at him.

Yes, cabbage.