With Heels, Come Balance

Valentine's Day. A day where couples everywhere are somewhat guilted into buying things for one another to proclaim their love, regardless of how long they've been together. The day that reminds you that if you survive it, your reward is discounted chocolate. So when you're in a country that has not one, but three different versions of this holiday, you're single, and it's the tail-end of Chinese New Year, there's only one thing you can do. Get some friends and go to a night club.

In reality, it's quite rare for me to go to a nightclub. I don't like being touched by people I don't know, nor do I like feeling like a piece of meat. But that night, I wanted to dance and see friends and simply have a good time. So I put on a black outfit donned some makeup, and a pair of heels. Pay attention to the heels. They're actually part of this story later.

That night, my friends and I went to three clubs and danced the night away. I, myself, realized just how shy I really was when out of the three men at approached me that night, only one of them I was comfortable with talking to. In fact, I was so unused to the attention that when one person invited me to dance, I grabbed one of my friends and had them come with me cause I wasn't sure what was happening. On the plus side, it was quite the confidence boost. So kudos to the confident men that kinda freaked me out at first!

Moral of the story: Learn not to be so shy.

But wait! Why did I say to remember the heels? They weren't brought up again to this seemingly pointless story. Well, here's the reason.

With decent parties come alcohol. With thirst-quenching, comes bladder release. With bladder-release in China comes one of the funnest games to play, especially when you're a little buzzed. Squat or No Squat? The game is actually pretty simple. When you go to the bathroom and look for a door, make a mental guess in your head if it's a Western Toilet or a Squatty Potty. Then when there's a stall free, you go in to see if your guess was right. I've never actually played this game with other people, so I'm curious to see how well this would play out as a drinking game, but I'm getting off-topic.

There I was, staring in the stall, mentally cursing cause I'd guessed wrong. My feet were already starting to hurt from the heels as I stared down at the porcelain hole. I already sucked at keeping a good balance when I squatted cause I tend to be on my toes. If I ever found myself at a squatty, I'd need to literally hold on to the walls because my balance sucked. And now here I was about to do this again, slightly buzzed and in heels.

In the two years that I've been in China, that was the first time I didn't have to hold on to the walls for balance. The heels actually helped. For the first time, heels had a real purpose in my life.

Moral of this story: Learn to keep my feet in heels so I can go out more often. But man, did it feel good to finally take them off once I got to my apartment.