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Uncle George's Love Lessons: Before She Walks Out the Door
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"Are you made of wood? I said no, so you actually just turned around and left?" She slammed her shoulder bag down onto the couch, her face ashen and a fire burning in her eyes. "But back in the store ...
章節（4）
第1章
"Are you made of wood? I say no, and you actually just turn around and leave?"
She slammed her purse down hard on the couch, her face livid, a fire held back behind her eyes.
"But back in the store you clearly said that necklace was too expensive and you didn't want me to buy it!" I shot back, feeling deeply wronged, my voice rising before I could stop it.
"I tell you not to buy it, so you don't? Then if I said we were breaking up, would you go pack your bags and get out right now?"
With a sharp smack, she kicked off her high heels, walked into the bedroom without looking back, and slammed the door.
The bang was so loud the living room windows buzzed.
I stood frozen, my head buzzing just as loud, completely at a loss.
A woman's mind was harder to solve than calculus.
A lot of men just never get it. They take a woman's politeness at face value and mistake her reserve for rejection.
The truth is, a great deal of a woman's happiness comes from being pursued by a man, from being chosen without hesitation and favored without apology.
She says no out loud, but inside she's hoping, waiting, for you to make the first move.
So how do you hear what a woman really means?
When a woman shows certain signs, she isn't turning you down. She's handing you a pass.
Only if you learn to read the gap between what she says and what she means will you avoid missing out on real love.
Lately, my life had been a tangled mess.
My girlfriend, Summer Lawson, and I were stuck in a silent treatment that dragged on and on.
It had all started with trivial little things, but piled together, they were crushing me.
At the end of last month, our landlord suddenly texted to say he was raising the rent, an extra five hundred dollars a month.
On top of that, the quarterly building fees and utilities were due this month, and my bank balance hit rock bottom almost overnight.
And of all times, that was when our third anniversary came around.
I'd originally planned to take her to the Michelin-starred restaurant she'd been talking about for ages, but one look at my thin wallet made me hesitate.
That night at dinner, I carefully floated the idea.
"Sunny, money's been kind of tight this month. How about we just make a nice dinner at home for our anniversary? I'll cook you a steak."
Summer's hand paused halfway to the serving dish.
She looked up, her gaze so calm it was a little unnerving.
"Whatever you want. I'm fine with anything."
She said it flatly.
I felt like I'd been let off the hook, quietly thanking my luck that she was such a sensible, understanding girl.
"Then what do you want for a gift? I'll get it ready ahead of time."
I asked.
"Don't buy anything. It's a waste of money. We need to save for a down payment right now, and I don't need anything."
She kept her head down, eating, her voice without a ripple.
And I actually believed her.
I treated her words like gospel. If she was worried about money, I figured, then I'd do exactly what she said.
On our anniversary, I went to the grocery store after work, bought steak and red wine, and hurried home in high spirits to cook.
No flowers, no gift, just a table full of food I believed I'd put my heart into.
When Summer got home from work and saw the table, she said nothing.
She washed her hands, sat down, picked up her fork, and poked at her plate a couple of times.
"What's wrong? Is the steak overcooked?"
I quickly leaned in to ask.
"No, it's fine."
She set down her fork and went straight to the living room to watch TV.
The whole evening, the air in the apartment was terribly heavy.
I tried to hug her, and she slipped away without making a show of it.
I asked if something had gone wrong at work, and she answered coldly, "No."
From that day on, our relationship hit the freezing point.
She started giving me attitude about every part of daily life.
When I did her laundry, she complained that I hadn't separated her underwear from her coats, yanked the clothes out of the washer, and threw them hard into the basket.
"I'll wash them myself. I don't need your help!"
she said, her face cold.
I stood there with no idea what to do, and all I could do was quietly retreat to the bedroom.
One rainy day, I texted to ask if she wanted me to pick her up at the subway station.
She replied instantly: "No need. I'll walk back with my umbrella."
So I really didn't go.
When she got home, her pant legs were soaked and her heels were caked with muddy water.
She looked at me sitting on the couch playing video games, and a flash of deep disappointment crossed her eyes. Then, without a word, she went into the bathroom.
After that, she didn't say a single word to me for three days.
Night after night, she slept at the very edge of the bed with her back to me, leaving a gap between us wide enough to fit another person.
I completely fell apart.
I couldn't understand what I'd done wrong.
She was the one who said she didn't want a gift, she was the one who said I didn't need to pick her up, she was the one who said she didn't need my help!
Why was it that when I respected her wishes, she only got angrier?
I ranted wildly in my head, with all that frustration and nowhere to let it out.
Every day after work, walking into that cold apartment felt like being sent to the torture chamber.
I decided women were simply unreasonable creatures, forever picking fights over nothing.
That pent-up feeling kept building, right up until the family gathering that weekend.
That weekend was Grandpa's eightieth birthday.
The relatives had booked five tables at a big hotel downtown and threw him a lively celebration.
After lunch, the grown-ups found the private dining room too stuffy and moved up to the upscale tea lounge on the hotel's top floor.
The lounge was huge, divided into several sections.
Some of the uncles had set up a poker table over on one side, and the clatter of shuffling cards never stopped.
A few of the aunts sat on the couches cracking sunflower seeds, chatting about where housing prices had dropped again and whose kid had gotten into a top school.
Feeling miserable, I hid by myself at a tea table in the farthest corner of the lounge, head down, scrolling on my phone.
On my message screen, the five texts I'd sent Summer had still vanished without a trace.
The last one I'd sent two hours ago: "What do you want for dinner tonight? I'll cook for you when I get back."
Next to it, the word "Unread" glared at me.
Irritated, I flipped my phone face down on the table and let out a long, deep sigh.
"What's this? A young guy like you, sighing louder than an old man like me?"
A deep, rich voice sounded beside me.
I looked up. It was Uncle George.
Uncle George had done better than anyone else in our family. He'd gone into business years ago and now held several companies in his hands, a textbook success story.
What made everyone even more envious was that he and Aunt Linda had been married for almost thirty years, and they were still as sweet on each other as newlyweds.
Aunt Linda had a bit of a spoiled temper, but Uncle George could always coax her into a good mood.
He pulled out the rosewood chair beside me and slowly sat down.
He didn't look at me. Instead, he picked up the tongs from the tea tray, lifted several small teacups, and dipped them into boiling water to scald them clean.
第2章
Steam curled up from the cups, blurring his sharp, knowing eyes.
He dropped a pinch of loose-leaf Earl Grey into the cast-iron teapot, poured the water from high and served it low, every movement smooth and practiced.
I forced a smile. "It's nothing, Uncle George. Work's just been a little exhausting lately."
Uncle George let out a soft laugh, fine wrinkles fanning out at the corners of his eyes.
He poured a cup and nudged it toward me with the tea tongs.
"Work? If it were work, you wouldn't be checking your phone every two minutes. And every time you look at it, your forehead scrunches up tight enough to crush a fly."
He lifted his own cup and took a small sip, and his gaze finally settled on my face.
"Fight with Summer?"
He had hit it dead on. I felt a little awkward, but all the grievances I'd been holding in seemed to have finally found a way out.
I picked up the cup and downed it in one gulp without caring how hot it was.
"Uncle George, tell me. What do women actually think?"
The complaints just spilled out of me.
I told him every bit of the mess from the past few weeks, holding nothing back.
How she said she didn't want a gift and then got angry, how she said she didn't need me to pick her up and then gave me the cold shoulder, and now this endless silent treatment.
"I do everything she says. I respect her decisions. So what gives her the right to freeze me out like this?"
The more I talked, the angrier I got, my fingers drumming hard against the table.
Uncle George listened quietly and didn't interrupt.
Only after I had vented everything did he pick up the tea pitcher and refill my cup.
"You young people these days,"
Uncle George shook his head, a teasing note in his voice. "Always going on about 'respecting women' and 'boundaries.' Did all that schooling turn your brains to mush?"
I froze. "So respecting her is wrong now?"
Uncle George set down the teapot and leaned back slightly in his chair.
"Respect isn't wrong. But treating politeness like a royal decree and reserve like rejection? That's just stupid."
He pointed at the cup in front of me.
"When I poured your tea just now, you said, 'Don't trouble yourself, Uncle George,' but your hand pushed the cup toward me."
I was startled. I thought back, and he was right.
"That's called being polite," Uncle George said, cutting straight to the point. "A lot of what women do in relationships works the same way."
He narrowed his eyes a little and looked over at the lively poker table nearby.
"A lot of the time, when a woman says 'no,' she doesn't really mean no. She's waiting for you to prove you're going to do it anyway."
I couldn't make sense of it, and my brow furrowed even deeper.
"Uncle George, isn't that just being fake? Why can't she just say what she wants?"
Uncle George burst out laughing, so loudly that my uncle over at the poker table glanced our way.
"Fake? That's called charm. That's the art of push and pull!"
His laughter faded. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes turning serious.
"Remember this. What makes a woman happy is being pursued. But that doesn't mean cheap flirting. It means seeing through her front and walking straight toward her without hesitating."
He held up one finger.
"When you see a woman show these three signs, she's practically screaming at you inside: hurry up and come after me."
He had me completely hooked. I sat up straight, like a schoolkid waiting for the teacher to start the lesson.
"What three signs?"
Uncle George took his time pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He slid one out and held it under his nose, but didn't light it.
"The first sign is the most common one. She flatly refuses your kindness out loud, but her actions don't push it away at all."
He tapped the table with his finger, making a crisp sound.
"You said earlier that Summer thought the necklace was too expensive and told you not to buy it, so you just turned around and left?"
I nodded, feeling wronged. "Yeah. That necklace cost almost two thousand dollars. She usually hesitates forever over a hundred-dollar top. I figured she really didn't want to spend the money."
Uncle George shot me a look of pure exasperation.
"Sure, she didn't want to spend the money. But she also really wanted that necklace!"
He fiddled with the lighter in his hand and drifted into memory.
"Back when your Aunt Linda and I first got married, we were dirt poor."
"One winter, I picked up a construction job and made a little money. Walking past the department store, I spotted a red wool coat."
"That coat cost over three hundred dollars. That was more than half a month's wages for me back then."
"I gritted my teeth and bought it, then rushed home all excited to show your Aunt Linda."
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he got to this part.
"Guess what? Your Aunt Linda reacted exactly like Summer."
"One look at the price tag and her face went green. She pointed right at my nose and called me a spendthrift, said I was throwing our lives away, and insisted I take it back."
I was hanging on every word. "So did you return it?"
Uncle George gave a cold laugh. "If I'd actually returned it, the grass on my grave would be six feet tall by now!"
He paused, then went on.
"I watched her closely. She was cussing me out, but her eyes kept drifting back to that coat."
"I told her to try it on. She grumbled, 'Try what? Just take it back,' but she didn't dodge when I reached out."
"So I just draped the coat over her shoulders and did up the buttons for her."
"She was still muttering, 'It's ugly,' but then she turned around and went straight to the mirror, and stood there fixing the collar for ages."
He slapped his thigh to wrap it up.
"Get it now? That's what I mean by refusing out loud but not pushing it away."
"If she really hated the thing, or truly didn't want it, she'd resist physically, and hard."
"She'd shove you away, she'd dodge, she'd throw the thing on the floor."
"But if she just stands there and lets you put it around her neck, or drape it over her shoulders, that's a quiet yes!"
I stared at him, stunned, as the scene at the jewelry store came back to me.
When Summer said, "It's too expensive, don't buy it," she really hadn't pulled me away from the counter right away.
Her eyes had stayed on that display case for several more seconds.
And me, like a complete idiot, I'd said, "Okay then, let's go get something to eat," and dragged her out.
No wonder she'd looked at me like I was a fool.
Seeing the regret on my face, Uncle George kept breaking it down.
"Why do women act so contradictory?"
"Because they need a way to save face. They need someone to put the blame on."
"Deep down they want it, but they don't want to carry the guilt of being 'vain' or 'wasting money.'"
第3章
"That's when you, as the man, need to step up and make the decision for her. Firmly."
"You have to show her an attitude that says, 'I know you're worried about the money, but I want to give you the best, and I'm doing this because I want to. All you have to do is accept it.'"
Uncle George took a sip of tea to wet his throat.
"If you'd just told the saleswoman to wrap it up right there in the store, and then said to her, 'I just want to see you wearing it.'"
"I bet you anything, the minute she walked out of that store, she might still have scolded you for wasting money, but inside she'd have been over the moon. She'd have cooked you a whole spread that night."
I covered my face in regret.
So it turned out I hadn't just missed a chance to prove myself. I'd also pushed her into disappointment with my own two hands.
"Get it now?" Uncle George patted my shoulder.
"Point one: watch her body language. As long as she doesn't shove you away hard, as long as she doesn't physically run from you, her 'no' is as thin as a sheet of paper. All you have to do is have the guts to tear right through it."
After hearing Uncle George break down the first point, it was like a light had switched on in my head. Most of the gloom inside me cleared away.
Right after that, though, I remembered all the everyday things Summer did that drove me crazy.
"Uncle George, what about all the unreasonable stuff she pulls? Is that a hint too?"
I asked urgently.
"Like when I help with the housework, she insists I'm doing it wrong and snatches it out of my hands. Or I ask her what she wants to eat, she says 'whatever,' and then when I make something, she won't eat it."
"Any way you look at it, she's just making things hard for me. She's really mad at me, right?"
Uncle George gave a faint smile, his eyes glinting with the knowing look of a man who had seen it all.
Instead of answering me directly, he asked a question of his own.
"Have you ever read Pride and Prejudice?"
I paused, then shook my head.
"Too long. I never had the patience. All I know is Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy."
Uncle George sighed, looking at me like I was illiterate.
"Then let me tell you how Elizabeth Bennet does romance."
He turned the teacup in his hand and launched into the story at an easy pace.
"Put Elizabeth Bennet in today's world, and she'd be the kind of high-maintenance drama queen who gives a clueless guy a headache."
"Darcy says a few words to some other girl, and she's ready with the sarcasm."
"Darcy gives her something everyone else already got, and she turns on him in a heartbeat: 'I knew it. You'd never give me anything unless the others had already picked it over.'"
"There was even one time Darcy made her angry, and in a fit of temper she took every sachet she'd ever made for him by hand and cut them to shreds."
Uncle George told it so vividly that I kept frowning as I listened.
"That's an awful temper, isn't it? Isn't she just picking fights on purpose?"
"Yes. She's picking fights on purpose."
Uncle George nodded firmly.
"And that's the second sign I want to tell you about: she deliberately gives you a hard time, but she never actually cuts you off."
He looked at me, his gaze turning razor-sharp.
"You think Elizabeth Bennet really hated Darcy?"
"When she was cutting up those sachets, her heart was bleeding. She gave him a hard time because she cared about him. She was testing whether she held a one-of-a-kind place in his heart."
"If she'd truly stopped caring, she'd be like Jane Bennet: graceful and composed, not a single flaw to pick at, but keeping you at an absolute distance."
I felt like I'd grasped something, but it was still a little hazy.
Seeing that, Uncle George went on, using the old story to explain the present.
"Take those old-fashioned feelings and put them in a modern woman, and they fit just the same."
"Your girlfriend complains you do the housework badly and grabs it to do herself. Does she really look down on you?"
"If she really did, she'd chew you out to your face, then go back to her parents' place and leave you alone with a house full of garbage."
"She grabs it and does it herself, complaining the whole time. She's actually showing you how much she puts in. The subtext is: 'Look how hard I'm working. Why aren't you hurrying over to sweet-talk me, hug me, and tell me I'm doing great?'"
A picture flashed through my mind of Summer snatching the broom and sweeping the floor in a huff.
I really had just stood there watching like a block of wood. I'd even thought she was being unreasonable, and in the end I'd quietly gone back to my room.
No wonder she'd thrown the broom down in anger afterward.
"Another example,"
Uncle George tapped the table. "You ask her what she wants to eat, she says 'whatever,' and you make something she won't eat."
"She's not against the noodles you made. She's punishing you for going through the motions."
"What makes her angry is that you didn't notice how she was feeling. What makes her angry is that you didn't keep her on your mind enough to put in the effort and figure out what she actually wanted to eat."
Uncle George leaned forward slightly, his tone turning serious.
"When a woman starts deliberately giving you a hard time, throwing problems at you, even losing her temper with you, as long as she's still by your side and still interacting with you,"
"then she doesn't really want to drive you away."
"She's testing your patience, testing your limits, and most importantly, she's longing for you to comfort her."
"She's like a kid who breaks a toy on purpose in front of the grown-ups, just to get their attention."
It suddenly all made sense, and a cold sweat broke out across my back.
"So when that happens, I can't hide, and I can't try to reason with her either?" I asked tentatively.
"Reason with her?"
Uncle George stared at me like I was an alien.
"Reasoning with an angry woman? Are you tired of living?"
"When she gives you a hard time, what you need to do isn't argue your case, and it isn't back off."
"You need to catch her emotions."
"If she says you didn't sweep clean enough, don't drop the broom and walk away. Hug her from behind and tell her, 'Babe, you've been working so hard. I'm such an idiot. I'll practice more from now on. As punishment, I'll give you a massage tonight.'"
"If she won't eat the noodles you made, don't ask, 'What do you even want?' Just take her hand and say, 'Come on, I know a new dessert place that just opened. Let me take you there so you can cool off.'"
Every word Uncle George said was a gem, and every line struck right at my heart.
I finally understood what that phrase "women need to be wooed" really meant.
It wasn't about being a smooth talker. It was about the kind of emotional support that could catch her when she fell.
第4章
"Uncle George, I get it. First, watch whether her body pulls away. Second, watch whether she keeps engaging." I summed it up like a student who'd finally cracked the lesson.
"So what's the third sign?"
I pressed him, too eager to wait. It felt like I was about to get my hands on the secret playbook that could save my relationship.
Uncle George didn't answer right away.
He turned his head and glanced toward the main room.
"Read 'em and weep! Royal flush!"
My uncle by marriage let out a roar from the poker table across the room.
Right after came a jumble of complaints and teasing curses from my aunts.
The air in the tea room had turned noisy and stale.
Uncle George frowned and slapped his pack of cigarettes down on the table.
"Too loud in here. Come on, let's get some air out on the balcony."
He stood, smoothed the hem of his suit jacket, and strode out of the tea room.
I hurried after him.
The balcony on the hotel's top floor was huge. The night breeze had a chill to it, and it woke me up as it brushed across my face.
The city's neon lights flickered below us, and the traffic flowed like rivers of light.
Uncle George walked over to the railing and finally lit the cigarette he'd been holding off on for so long.
The ember glowed and dimmed in the dark.
He took a deep drag and slowly let out a stream of white smoke.
"The third sign is the hardest to spot, and it takes the most nerve from a man."
His voice sounded a little low in the night wind.
"Ever heard the story of how Johnny Cash pursued June Carter?"
I paused. I knew Johnny Cash, the music legend, but I didn't know anything about his love life.
"Didn't think so." Uncle George smiled and tapped the ash off his cigarette.
"Back in the day, Johnny Cash fell for June Carter, a girl much younger than him."
"June was the belle of the scene back then. She had enough admirers to fill a stadium, and she wanted nothing to do with a dirt-poor country boy like Johnny."
"So Johnny started writing her love letters. One after another, each one sappier than the last."
"June found it unbearably annoying. She even numbered and sorted the letters and read them for laughs."
At that point, I couldn't help cutting in.
"If she took it all the way to the boss, that had to be a flat-out rejection, right?"
Uncle George turned his head and gave me a long, searching look.
"That's the trouble with you young people. You only think in straight lines."
"When Sam Phillips read the letters, he didn't scold Johnny at all. Instead, he told June, 'He loves you stubbornly.'"
"And what did June say back?"
"She huffed, 'And I stubbornly don't love him!'"
Uncle George stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the railing and turned to face me.
"Sounds like an ironclad rejection, doesn't it?"
I nodded. "Anybody would've backed off after that."
"But Johnny didn't." Uncle George's gaze turned unusually sharp.
"Not only did he not back down, he kept writing. He even followed her all the way to her hometown."
"Here's the key!"
"Why did Johnny dare to be so shameless about it?"
"Because he'd caught the loophole in how June was acting!"
Uncle George held up three fingers.
"That's the third sign: she puts up a hard wall with her words, but she keeps a private space open just for you."
"Think about it. If June really thought Johnny was a creep, a piece of trash, would she have kept those letters and numbered them?"
"Would she have made a big scene about it in front of the boss?"
"Going to complain looked like rejection on the surface. But deep down, she was announcing to the world: 'This brilliant talent is crazy about me.'"
"That's a kind of hidden vanity. It's also a sign she hasn't fully closed the door."
Uncle George's take was incredibly bold. It turned everything I thought I knew about that famous couple upside down.
"So in today's world, how do you tell?" Uncle George patted the railing.
"Say you confess your feelings to a woman, or you're fighting and she's making noise about breaking up."
"Her words are ruthless: 'Don't come looking for me.' 'It's never going to happen.' 'I need some time alone.'"
"But!" Uncle George put weight on the word.
"She hasn't blocked your number."
"She hasn't moved your things out."
"She even posts sad little quotes on social media, set so only you can see them, or makes sure you'll notice them."
"At that point, she's actually sending a signal: I'm hurting, I'm torn, and I need you to prove you mean it with something stronger, something that breaks through my defenses!"
I sucked in a sharp breath.
I thought about Summer's silent treatment these past few days.
She wouldn't talk to me, but she still slept in our bed every night.
She didn't answer my texts, but she hadn't blocked me either.
Just last night, I'd seen her post a line online: "Some disappointment builds up over time."
At the time, I'd only thought she was taking a jab at me. It made me even more irritated, and I didn't bother to like it or comment.
So it turned out that post was a cry for help!
"Uncle George!"
I grabbed his arm, worked up. "I get it now! She's showing every one of these signs! So what do I do? Rush home, pin her against the wall, and kiss her?"
It felt like something inside me had finally clicked open. I couldn't wait to put all this into practice.
Uncle George looked at how carried away I was, and his face suddenly darkened.
He didn't answer my question. Instead, he stared at me with an almost ruthless look.
"If you go back right now and treat her with the kind of 'taking charge' you have in mind…"
"I guarantee the two of you will be at the county courthouse tomorrow, filing the paperwork to split up."
It was like getting a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. I froze.
"Why? Didn't you just say she's waiting for me to make a move, to be a little more forceful?" I was completely lost.
Uncle George turned away and gazed at the pitch-black sky in the distance. His voice went ice-cold.
"Because you only understood the surface. You haven't grasped the heart of it at all!"
"You think all a woman's testing is just so she can enjoy the thrill of a man chasing her relentlessly?"
He turned back, pulled his phone from his pocket, opened something on the screen, and shoved it right in front of my face.
"Take a look at this."
"If you can't even understand this, then every move you make will look like harassment in her eyes, an unforgivable violation!"
My eyes went wide as I stared hard at the words on Uncle George's phone screen.
It was a chat history, and what it said made my heart clench in an instant.