Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets and Advice for Living Your Best Life

by Ali Wong

And no, I don’t expect a man to take care of me financially, but I want him to want to, to take the opportunity, to make the gesture of doing something nice and giving right away.

Sometimes I feel like a lot of my motivation comes from a need to prove to my parents that they should be gladder they had me.

When I got away from them, I finally felt like I could be the person I was meant to be,

Witnessing all of those hardworking female street vendors in Vietnam also made me understand why my mom felt so passionate about me and my sisters working.

she explained that the country had a history of always being in wartime, so women were expected to rise to the occasion of making money for the family. Vietnamese women were always ready to take over roles traditionally filled by men, like A League of Their Own (but where everyone is Marla Hooch). I also understood why my mom wasn’t into processing her feelings, and how she was taught to just get over tragedy. To survive, she had to believe things like depression and allergies were a choice. In a culture entrenched in wartime, those who chose to be unhappy or to refuse gluten didn’t last long.

It’s sexy when a man is passionate about something because you think that passion will translate into the bedroom. You’ve already witnessed him being committed to something. His passion also becomes healthy competition.

If a man rejects you once you’ve physically made a move on him, he’s not going to change his mind. The dick don’t lie. I don’t want him to kiss me because I wore him down. That orgasm is not worth the price I would have paid with my ego.

We sat down on his bed, in his closet room, as he gave me an envelope. It must be a gift card to Cartier! Even better! He’s letting me choose between rose gold and white gold! But there was no gift card inside. Instead, there was a blank card with these instructions: “Write down all of your goals.” Then he had me recite them back to him. And after every goal I read out loud to him, he replied, “So it shall be.” Like a cheap-ass genie, he gave me homework for my birthday. I shook the envelope upside down to see if there was anything else inside. At the time I would’ve preferred a Burberry fanny pack, something I could actually feel in my hands and show off to people. I remember writing things like “I want to go to the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival,” “I want to heal my rosacea,” and “I want to make a living off of telling jokes.” Looking back, each one of those goals came true.

But a true feminist husband doesn’t see a woman’s money, power, and/ or respect as a reflection of his own lack of success. A true feminist husband embraces his wife’s ability to provide by celebrating her and stepping up.

Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn’t involve worshipping their husbands or taking care of their kids, they’re seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he’s admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he’s lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it’s seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it’s plan Z. That it’s an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he’s a fucking loser. I think it’s one of the most important falsehoods we need to shatter when talking about women’s rights.

Even though my parents were very progressive, and extremely enthusiastic about Asian Americans in the arts, they were not very supportive when I first told them I was moving to NYC to pursue stand-up comedy. When I pointed out that Margaret Cho (who had gone to high school with my oldest sister) was a successful stand-up comedian, and that Maxine Hong Kingston was a very respected writer, my parents said to me, “They are extraordinary exceptions. The chances of all that for you are very slim.” It was hurtful but ultimately, given their backgrounds, I understood why they wanted to be practical. Asians like predictability. We like safety. We want to know that if we work hard, there will be a payoff. Downward mobility and the shame that comes with it is an Asian immigrant nightmare. And in entertainment, you very well might not make it despite all of those years you invested. There is no linear path to success, and no linear path to maintaining it even if you do achieve it.

Introduce yourself to everything there is. When in doubt, go out.

My last piece of advice would be to focus not on the result, but instead, the process and the journey.

But to succeed in a creative profession, you really need to love it. And if you love it and are great at it, and passionate about constantly becoming better at it, you will find success no matter what.