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I was like, “Oh, shit. I’m on vacation and I’m about to go back home. I really like you, too, but I can’t say that yet.” I didn’t know if I truly felt that or if I was caught up in the holiday romance, and I didn’t want to say it unless I could legit back it up. So, I didn’t say it back.
He wore a necklace that I thought was just lovely: a simple chain with a coin hanging from it. He gave me his necklace and said, “I know if I give this to you, you’ll see me again one day, to return it to me.”
The whole flight home, I kept thinking, I like this guy so much. Why can’t this work? As soon as I got back, I told him that if he wanted to come to the UK, we could spend some more time together. And a month later, he came to visit me for ten days.
I was living in Manchester at the time, but I wanted Rob to see London, as it’s one of my very favourite cities. As soon as Rob arrived, I felt so connected to him. I felt so much love for him that when we arrived at our hotel, I told him that I was falling in love with him, too. That set the tone for the rest of his trip. We were young and in love and at the start of what was to be a wicked holiday.
I showed him around London for a few days, and then we went on to Tenerife (a small Spanish island off the coast of northwest Africa). While we were in London, I introduced him to some of my best friends—the Ali sisters—from the north of England. We went for dinner, and during that time, Rob smiled and nodded as I looked on knowing full well he hadn’t a darn clue what the heck my friends were saying. They’re from Leeds and have the strongest Leeds accents, but Rob was so sweet and only once leaned over to me to say that he had no idea what they were talking about. My friends loved him instantly.
It was Rob’s first trip to Europe, so every sight we saw blew him away. It was lovely to see the city through the eyes of a newbie. I so wanted him to extend his stay, as ten days just didn’t seem long enough, but by the end of his trip he was exhausted and needed to feel normal again, so he went back home. I missed him immediately.
Before he left, he said, “I’m positive you’re my person.”
To which I replied, “I’m positive you’re my person, too.”
Rob went back to America, but the following month, I decided I was going to go to America for three months to try to live with him. When I look back on it now, it’s insane that only after two months of dating I would want to live with him. But it made perfect sense to me at the time. I got a work visa, and we lived together on and off for the next two years. It was bliss. Every three months my visa would expire, and I’d have to go home. Our relationship continued that way; three months together, six months long distance, on and off for another four years.
To anyone who is currently in a long-distance relationship or who is considering it, if you want it to work, it can. From the first week we met, whenever Rob and I were apart, we would communicate for two or three hours a day, seven days a week, via Skype. When you’re long distance, the emotional connection is very strong because you take the physical aspect out of it. All you can do is connect emotionally. We got to know each other very, very well. In a way, it’s why ten years later it still feels like we’re in the honeymoon stage.
TAN’S FIRST DATE DOS AND DON’TS
DO
• Be showered, deodorized, and spritzed. Fresh as a daisy.
DON’T
• Go with natural deodorant. Don’t think for a second that that shit will cut it. It won’t!
DO
• Pick an outfit you feel your best in. I wore an outfit that I’d worn before, and that gave me the confidence boost I needed.
DON’T
• Overdo the look. Make sure the outfit is appropriate for the venue of your date. You don’t want to come across as too try-hard.
DO
• Be on time to the date. I was ready to go.
DON’T
• Be late because you think that gives you the power. That, in fact, makes you a douche!
DO
• Be engaging and light-hearted.
DON’T
• Talk about how much you hate your ex / job / best friend / mum / cat.
DO
• Convey confidence. I wanted Rob to see that I had my shit together, or at least was on my way to having my shit together.
DON’T
• Be too self-deprecating or too arrogant. It’s a fine balance, but one that can tip against you if you’re not careful.
DO
• Offer to pay the bill! This is important, whatever sex you are. It’s good manners, whether you end up paying or not.
DON’T
• Just expect the other person to pay, without offering. You do not want to seem entitled.
DO
• Communicate. I texted Rob shortly after the date to thank him, even though I hadn’t yet made up my mind if I was going to actively pursue it. It was the kind thing to do!
DON’T
• Play that lame-ass game of waiting three days to text or for the other person to text first. You don’t want to be the reason you’re still single. And, lemme tell you, these kinds of games will ensure that you are!
DO
• Be yourself. I was myself with Rob. I let him see the real, true me!
DON’T
• Catfish that bitch. They will see the real you eventually. May as well be yourself from the get-go.
After following these rules, Rob and I continued to have many successful dates, which turned into marriage. Ten years later, we still play by these dos and don’ts.
PSA: SIGNAL YOUR INTENTIONS
One thing I say regularly in my life is “Signal your intentions.” How is anyone supposed to know what’s going on unless you signal your intentions? This is especially true in dating.
After our date, Rob texted me almost immediately afterward telling me what a lovely time he had, and I immediately reciprocated to tell him how much I enjoyed the date and how I wanted to see him again. One thing that infuriates me is when people play this game, like, “I can’t text you too soon!” Or “I should wait a day!” Or “But he should text me!” Get the fuck over that. If you’re going down that path, you’re in for a shitty, shitty time. You could get six months in and discover you’re just playing a part in a game with a person you don’t even know.
If I like someone, I’m going to say, “I like you, and I’d like to see you again.” If they get freaked out, that’s on them. Don’t get me wrong; if you declare your undying love right off the bat, that’s a problem. But if they aren’t willing to match your excitement, that is not your person. Move the fuck on. Next!
I think signaling your intentions is something you need to do early on. Many people disagree, but the notion of declaring exclusivity is something I’ve never understood. If I’m dating someone, I’m dating them. We are exclusive until I tell them I don’t want to be with them anymore. I don’t want to make out with someone who wants to make out with everyone else. I think there should be a universal rule that if you’re intimate with someone, maybe just keep it in your pants.
If you’re just casually seeing someone out and about and that works for you, that’s okay. But that is not dating.
Another thing I hear a lot is “I met this guy, and he’s great, but…” This irks me more than anything in the world. It’s usually followed by something like, “I don’t like his style, so I’m going to encourage him to dress like this…” or “I don’t like his job, so I’m going to encourage him to do something else…” No. Wrong. You can’t change him. You’re not that formidable. And he may be happy exactly the way he is.
If you want to change that much of a person, they’re not your fucking person. This is especially true if the thing you want to change is a fundamental thing, like if the person doesn’t believe in marriage, or doesn’t want kids, or doesn’t share your religion. Your be
auty and your humor will not convince him that there is a God. Next!
COWBOY BOOTS
When I first met Rob, he was wearing slippers. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that I started buying Rob clothes within the first few months we knew each other. It wasn’t to change his style, necessarily. I actually really liked his quirky, individual style, and I’ve never wanted to change that. I obviously like to shop for clothes, and I liked buying him nice things. I loved spoiling him. He had mostly been buying clothes from thrift stores and wanted to look like he was making more of an effort to look refined. Since he said he wanted help, I was happy to provide it.
But here’s the thing about Rob. For years, he would tell me he wanted my advice, because I was more comfortable with style. But giving your partner advice is difficult, especially when your partner is Rob France. He would ask me what I thought of something he was wearing, and then when I gave him my opinion, he would throw a strop and get kind of moody. These were the only times we ever really fought. It was all so stupid.
Eventually, we had to sit down and have a come-to-Muslim-Jesus moment, where I said, “Do you want my advice, or do you not want my advice?”
I realized part of the problem was that he would have already owned and worn something for a while, and then I would tell him I didn’t like it. To say “You’ve already bought something, and now I’m going to criticize it” doesn’t help anybody. By that point, it was too late. So what I started to do—and I still do this with him and my friends—is to go shopping with him instead. Then, you can give your opinion about something when they haven’t spent the money on it yet. It’s amazing what a difference that makes in the reaction it receives. When they haven’t already parted with the cash—and decided on all the ways they’ll wear that troublesome item—that’s the time to say, “Maybe that’s not the option for you. Let’s continue on the hunt.”
I also offered to go through his closet with him and tell him which things were working and which things were not. There weren’t a lot of things that he couldn’t make work, but every now and then, when left to shop on his own, he would go for loud pieces. Statement pieces. The problem with that was that they were hard to style, as they were bold for him. So they’d inevitably take up prime real estate in the closet and never see the light of day. Like the wool winter coat with the dramatic fur collar. Where was my Wyoming husband going to wear this coat in Utah, and for what occasion?
This process of working through his closet was way better than telling him to change before we were headed for a night out, which would only hurt his feelings. Again, I never offered my unsolicited opinion on his style. It was only ever after he asked me what I thought, and honestly, the only times he asked me were when I could tell he knew the outfit wasn’t working for him.
Back then, Rob would hold on to special-occasion clothes for a wedding or a birthday party or a nice dinner date. He’d look great in them, but you’d only see them every three months. One day, I said, “Why do you hang on to special-occasion clothes that you could be using every day to make every day feel like a special occasion?”
The same is true for everybody. Let them out! Don’t you want to feel great every day? I’m not saying to wear a ball gown every day, but if you have some nicer pieces, there’s nothing wrong with wearing them more often. It’s never made sense to me to keep shut away in a closet the items that make you feel attractive and look your best. Why save that feeling for once every few weeks? Buy more of those kinds of pieces and work them into your everyday wardrobe so you can feel that pep in your step way more often.
I would also make a point to compliment him when he wore something I loved, and just not comment if he wore something I didn’t. Now Rob is stylish all on his own, but I’ll go through the same process with my friends, and I find that’s the best way to give my opinion on someone’s wardrobe if I know they’re struggling with it. I compliment when it’s great, and I don’t when it’s not. This process is tried and true and seems to have caused as little conflict as possible.
One thing Rob does that drives me insane—it’s the only thing that drives me insane about him—is that he always wants to dress in the same style as I do. I’ll wear something, and then a few weeks later, he’ll wear something identical. He will have purchased something in order to be my twin. I told him, “I don’t love anything less than having my partner look like my white twin.” But he hasn’t stopped yet.
Still, I’ll wear something I love, and a couple of weeks later, he’ll emerge from the closet wearing the exact same outfit, and then I can’t wear it again. He says I work in the fashion industry, so I should be the one to come up with something new. “If I want to wear what you’re wearing, that means you’ve done your job well.”
So now I’ve been forced to go into styles that I know there’s no way he’ll wear. There are some things that white middle-aged guys can’t get away with. It’s kind of like how Asian girls can get away with things that would look batshit crazy on a white girl. That’s the only way I can keep him off me.
There is one thing, though, that you’ll never see me wear. Since those early days of dating, I made it very clear that cowboy boots have a place, and that place is on a ranch. (Side note to my in-laws—you live in Wyoming, so you get a pass.) Unless you are actually a rancher, you should not be wearing cowboy boots.
I know cowboy boots come in and out of style. If they’re peppered into your wardrobe every now and then, so be it. But if that’s all you have in your closet, you should probably reevaluate. Cowboy boots, even when a trend, are not everyday footwear.
Further side note: I also feel a weird sense of cultural appropriation when I consider wearing cowboy boots, which is another reason I don’t think this South Asian guy needs them in his life.
ODE TO A ONE-PIECE
I think when people go to college for fashion, a lot of them assume they’ll be the next Alexander McQueen or Stella McCartney or whomever they might love. But I learned early on that those people are really the exception. They’re one in a million.
Because I didn’t want to be a starving artist designer, my plan was always to create a mass apparel brand. (I take umbrage at the fact that most colleges don’t teach you how to work for a brand like, say, Topshop. In fact, I thought once I retired, I might like to teach students how to become apparel designers for a brand as opposed to being a fashion designer. But of course that didn’t happen, because now I’m on a show.) I knew I would have to learn on the job, so I started taking jobs where I would learn technical design and what we call tech packs, because I knew that’s what I’d need to go into mass production—I couldn’t just drape something on a mannequin and be able to produce it for the masses in a size XS through XL.
So I went with my gut, and I started working for brands that could teach me. I decided I’d learn as many facets of these apparel brands as I could. I worked for Selfridges, I worked for Zara, I learned how to run a store, how to visually merchandise, how to order product in. Finally, I worked for an American brand called Shade Clothing, which was a modest clothing business catering to Mormon women. It was a niche market and incredibly successful. It was also a smaller company, which meant everyone who worked there wore a number of hats. I started out as the regional manager, but right away they realized I was overqualified, so I became the director of sales and operations. I oversaw everything from design to production to retail.
Shade was successful, and the company was sold to a private buyer in my second year working for them, which meant I was out of a job. At the time, I was on a work visa, and if I wasn’t employed, it meant I would have to leave the country. I couldn’t find a new job in time, because there weren’t many apparel brands based in Utah—shock shock horror horror. And I couldn’t use my marriage to a man to stay, because there was no US law that recognized our UK marriage. So I had to find another way.
At that time, I was twenty-six, and I hadn’t planned on starting my own company until I turned at least thirty.
But I knew that if you had a successful business, with employees and a certain amount of money, you could get a green card. And so I thought, I guess I’m starting my business earlier than I expected! I had about $20,000 in savings to put into this business, which isn’t a lot when you’re talking about launching an apparel brand, but I knew that I could produce a certain amount of product and make it work.
Since Shade had been sold and there was a gap in the market, I decided to start another modest clothing company. I wanted to create something that was more stylish, so the pieces would be cool, commercial clothes that just so happened to cover the parts of the body that Mormon women had to cover.
There were a couple of businesses already making modest clothing, but in my opinion, none of them were stylish enough. So I designed a small collection and stupidly decided I was going to launch my business, Kingdom & State, in England, since that was where I was at the time, and I couldn’t figure out how to make an online store and ship. I designed an eighteen-piece collection, then went to China and sewed the samples. Then I took a six-month lease on a store.
We opened the store, and sales were really tough. It just wasn’t the right market for what we were selling. We made decent enough money to get by, but the overhead with a store was so high that we couldn’t stay afloat. We closed down the store as soon as the six-month lease was up, with a lot of inventory. It was a rough blow for me, but I was determined to make it work. I knew the issue was the location, and that was a problem I was sure I could solve. My product was designed for the US market. I was designing product for Mormon women’s coverage requirements, and the mecca for that was the US, and Utah in particular. That would be my initial market before I could expand to the rest of the US.