Like at the formal dinner we had on Wednesday.

Perhaps Fatboy thinks talking about sex all the time and reducing the women around him as sex objects is proper masculine (boor!) behaviour. He spent the entire dinner with a digital camera trying to capture on camera this guy�s (who I shall call Boy because of his cute round cheeks and boyish face) love interest.

I think I shall call her Eye-Candy, (at the risk of labelling myself one of those people who reduce people to sex objects), one of the fore-mentioned beauties in this entry. She was very popular in the sense that every Asian guy wanted his picture taken with her. Probably to send home to his buddies as a statement about the pretty girls they get to meet. But anyway...

Then Fatboy and his cronies proceeded to start talking about, erhm, personal self-sexual gratification or masturbation, using those pictures. Very droll and witty, I�m sure, for someone with a dung heap for a mind.

I got irritated with him but decided to hold my tongue because Boy could handle that issue by himself (didn�t want to embarrass the poor Boy), and Paladin was trying to coax him to do something else by then. Of course, Paladin wasn�t too successful and since I was one of the only two females at that table, I felt terribly outnumbered and out-maneuvered.

Yes, I�m a coward, so sue me.

Fatboy then decided that he had to top that obnoxious behaviour by insulting me through insinuating that the only reason why Paladin spends a great deal of time with me was only because I was giving him free happy hours in bed. Very cute. You mean I can�t entertain the male sex other than stripping down to my birthday suit and shagging him silly? Or be a friend equal in status to the almighty atomic Fatboy? I think I am more than equal to him, even with me being half his size.

Blah. And by the time I got worked up enough to start contemplating making a scene at what was ostensibly a happy get-together, he had intelligently made a getaway. Nah, more like the instinctive sense animals have since they aren�t logical enough like human beings.

And because I was trying to drown my anger through glasses of white wine I didn�t feel like going after him. Moreover, it doesn�t take much to get me inebriated; one glass was able to make me loosen up enough to start tearing. Ooooo, something else I would like to lay at his door but that was my own stupidity. And crying isn�t going to get me anywhere with such a bully.

And that�s not the worse thing. I had to content with the unwanted advances of the Taiwanese guy whom I shall call Tar Baby, after the Brer Rabbit folktale because he�s so sticky! On normal days, I hate being touched, and I don�t touch men unless I feel really comfortable around them (women have a different criteria for familiarity). And to have some guy come up to you and try to put his arms around you or touch you on the arm once too often is something that I do not like! Quit invading my personal space!

And to make things worse, he�s a friend, just not close enough to touch me, and it is already tedious and tricky enough to explain things to someone when you are sober and fully in control of your mental faculties (as much as I ever am), much less when you are tiddly and woozy with wine. Blah. I did shy away so deliberately that even the rowdy people at the other end of the table noticed. He still tried after that. Talk about persistence, and talk about my patience.

And I tried telling it to Fingers a couple of times and he doesn�t get it as well. He still has that incomprehensive look on his face sometimes when I tell him not to touch him after he moves his fingers across the nape of my neck. Like I am some kind of puppy.:(

Bleah. I never touch Fingers at all, but he, like Tar Baby and several other assorted males seem to think that they are in same category as Sweet Teeth, Hamlet or Paladin. Hah, Paladin doesn�t even have the permission to touch me. I don�t even touch him casually, except to punch him, and it does not happen the other way round.

Grrrr�

The best way to shut Tar Baby up is to make vocal acknowledge of my BF and that the "sweetie is coming up next week to see me". And that only works for a quarter of a minute before he is at it again.

Argh. Someone save me from all these foolish males.