All right, so I'm an American student living in Lhasa, Tibet. I am studying Tibetan here, but to make a little extra money on the side, I also tutor English. During our winter vacation, which runs from the end of December to the beginning of March, I tutored a really great Tibetan for a little less than two months. I know two months isn't a long time, but we spent at least four hours a day together for five days of the week, and more than once, we, and a couple other friends went out of town to visit monasteries and other historical places on the weekends.
It took a couple of weeks, but I started falling for him. Despite the communication barrier, we managed well, in a mix of Chinese, English and the dialect of Lhasa (he speaks a different Tibetan dialect).
Here's the thing, the signals between men and women here are different. Hand holding many times just means friendship, as do kisses on the cheek. However, I felt there was some mutual attraction. I don't usually trust me feelings, but later find out they were correct.
It is not uncommon here for a guy to lie, say he doesn't have a girlfriend, or isn't married, so that he can date another girl, not unlike the West. So, that is what this guy did. He kept saying he didn't have a girlfriend and wasn't married. In my desire to get the point across that I liked him, and knowing that the old adage, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" still works here, I learned how to make one of his favorite foods, a traditional soup made of yak meat and homemade noodles. The day I made it the first time, he ate, then told me he had a girlfriend, a Chinese woman, but that they weren't very compatible. He volunteered this information after claiming for over a month he didn't have a girlfriend.
When he left to return home, (he doesn't live in Lhasa, but rather in a Tibetan village three days away by bus,) he said he would call. This he did, and when we spoke, he asked me if I was making thukpa (the traditional soup) because my thukpa is delicious. Then, he informed me his girlfriend hadn't called him, and then he asked me if I missed him, which I answered in the affirmative. He told me he would call me from his home. I found out later, he had called another of our friends first and found out how to say, "do you miss me?" in English.
Well, he didn't call me. I called him on Tibetan New Year, which was the middle of February, and have heard nothing since then.
I can't get him out of my head. I don't think about him obsessively, but he is in the back of my mind. I can't shake the feeling there was mutual attraction, but I don't understand the men here. The game is a little different and I have been told by others that sometimes, it takes a long time for a Tibetan guy to say anything about his feelings. It's frustrating, and a little draining emotionally. I think maybe I should try to forget about him, but I don't have the first idea how to do that. I can't keep calling him, and he won't be back here until July.
Any advice on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
M