Diary Entry: Friday 11th July 2025
Something is not right here at Aussie Burgers.
I can feel it in the air, like humidity before a storm—thick, wordless, and waiting. No one will look me in the eye. I’m sitting down, in full view, but I’ve become furniture—something to walk around, not towards.
Only Pretty Nguyen comes over to talk. Her manner is calm but careful, as if she’s stepping over emotional eggshells I didn’t know I’d laid. Everyone else avoids me like I’m a question they don’t want to answer.
Even Đà Lạt Lee—who normally beams, even on tough days—only stayed long enough to offer a polite smile before walking away. A face-saving exit. Graceful. Practised. Ominous.
And that’s the word that sticks. Ominous.
I don’t know what’s been said. I don’t know what’s changed. But the warmth has gone cold. The air here feels like silence with sharp edges.
Something is wrong. And I can’t fix what I don’t understand.
Update — My conversation with a mutual friend about H
After the frost at Aussie Burgers, I reached out to a good friend with two tangled threads of thought. One was about H. The other… about being lonely enough to start googling euphemisms.
I wrote:
G’day chap. Would really appreciate your advice, if you would. Two things:
1. H. We’ve been seeing each other for a while, and she knows how I feel. But she won’t tell me what she’s thinking or feeling. I’ve tried to see this courtship (?) through non-Western eyes, but all I can see are wildly mixed signals. Your thoughts?
2. I really value the respectful, gentlemanly relationship I have with H, but I miss the physical connection (holding hands, cuddling, etc.) of romantic relationships. I’m looking at setting up a regular appointment with a Vietnamese woman for conversation, and I don’t want to go where a thousand men have gone before. Thoughts?
Ever the blunt oracle, he replied:
I’d certainly take a side trip. I don’t offer much hope on H.
I tried to explain (aka ‘justify myself and my emotions’). How H would sometimes message out of the blue to check if I’d eaten. Or ask if I’d be interested in catching up for an impromptu coffee. About how she would give me little gifts that reflected that she had quietly listened to me during our many conversations, even the throwaway stuff, and missed nothing. How she once, during an almost-romantic dinner, rode off in a rainstorm to get me cash when I was temporarily skint after a rush of bills. And how, just hours after these tender moments, she’d be back on VietnamCupid—profile blinking away like a lighthouse for new arrivals.
Mixed signals? Maybe not. Maybe I was just tuning in to the wrong frequency. Maybe she was always being clear—I just didn’t want to believe it.
Our mutual friend confirmed that the whole rollercoaster with her must hurt me a lot. For my mental health, he commented, I had to acknowledge that Vietnamese women are exceedingly caring, but she would have become even the slightest bit physical by now (such as ‘accidentally’ touching my arm) if she was romantically interested in me. She was likely keeping in touch and going for coffee dates to be friendly and ‘doesn’t want to hurt your feelings’, he said.
Vietnamese are very thoughtful people. I can’t speak to the VietnamCupid part, but she is a genuinely nice person. Ouch, but yes, I’d start looking.
Bugger.
Update — Good old RSD again, huh?
Just when I’d fully convinced myself I’d been quietly cancelled by the Aussie Burgers team and H, Đà Lạt Lee reappeared.
She looked stressed—tight-faced, preoccupied—and for a good half-hour she stood and unloaded. All business stuff. Customer dramas. Financial pressure. Not a word of it was about me.
And there it was: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria throwing a private theatre production in my head once again. I had leapt to conclusions, cast myself as the villain in an invisible drama, and assumed her silence was punishment.
But it wasn’t.
To my great relief, the warmth returned. We shared belly laughs. We called each other ‘family’ again. And with the shift in energy came something else unexpected: matchmaking.
She told me about a woman who had recently confided she was looking for a good man. Speaks English. “Very sexy,” Đà Lạt Lee grinned.
You must contact her. Yes.
Only one photo on Zalo, but she’s undeniably attractive—though not the body type I would have once automatically labelled “sexy”. Still, I’m learning that attraction lives in the totality of someone, not just their silhouette.
After a little (read: much) nudging, I sent the Zalo friend request. She’ll see it in the morning.
And I’ll see what happens next.
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