The Coming of Age

To Passerby who has been leaving comments on my tag board, I wish you recovery.

As I pass quarter of a century today, I have come far with self-discovery. Do you believe that our life’s purpose on Earth is to love and to be loved? I do.

I first knew about liking someone at age 7. I was the class librarian and I liked this dark skinned boy called En (ok, I forgot his first syllable). He had a haircut resembling a bowl.

I know I liked him because I look forward to going school where it’ll just be him and me arranging books in the classroom before anyone arrives. It was very innocent. Side by side, without any words, we laid out books.

I think he likes me back because he gave me a bendy figurine like this one morning.

The crush was short lived when we split class the following year and I didn’t like anyone till 10. Read the rest of adolescence puppy loves here.

When I was 16, my best friend Pamela and I often hang out after school doodling our dreams at the back of A&W tray sheets.

This is Pamela’s. She dreams of a perfect husband with the typical cash, car, credit and condo.

This is mine. Frivolous, romantic, non materialistic.

We both agreed we would want to get married at 25. Pamela eventually did. She found Mr. Right (her first & last boyfriend) at 20, dated and married at 24. Cash, car, credit and condo all in tow. She is now a proud mum of a 4 month old.

The Profile of a Cheater

I recently read an article the tell tale signs of a cheater is in the chiseled jaw, hairy chest/arms and over abundance of facial hair. This is due to the higher than average amount of testosterones within, a sign of the alpha male.

Look into the sleazy KTVs and massage parlours, you do not find good looking men with strong jaws. Instead, you find balding men with beer bellies and likely over-the-hill. Cheaters can’t be profiled, but cheaters eventually will be found out.

It’s uncanny how cheaters get found out, I’ve heard stories of a young child accidentally blurting out to his father that mummy brings home a man. The best was when my friend’s husband’s phone accidentally dialed her office line and left her a voice message of him and the adulteress moaning.

Me? I woke up one day feeling an incredible urge to search & I found some darn discriminating visual evidence.

Lessons Learnt from Relationships

I’ve held these memories painfully secret and have never written here as I respected the privacy of the persons involved and also I never believed in airing dirty linen. Yet, I write today for the coming of age. I hope that my writing will speak to you in seeking out the right partner.

As a teenager, I fantasized about the fairytale romance, I still do. I imagined myself to be marrying my first boyfriend at 25, settling with 2 beautiful kids (a boy and a girl). I would live on a farm, milk cows and bake pies. 

At 19 I stumbled into my first relationship. I stumbled because I was naïve and a newbie. He kissed me on Mt Faber and I thought that sealed the deal. At that moment, it didn’t matter that I didn’t know him well. He was a year older.

6 months into the relationship I stumbled upon evidence of flirtatious messages. I confronted him about it but instead of him being the guilty one, I felt guilty. He manipulated the situation and turned the tables on me, accusing me of disrespecting his privacy.

I only see that now.

Like a wounded puppy, I begged for forgiveness. Looking back, I am disgusted with myself.

I should have walked away at the first sign of infidelity, when little has been invested but the traditional Asian woman in me believed stubbornly that he being the first boyfriend has to be THE ONE. Still I didn’t walk away when a year later, infidelity happened again. This time with moving visual evidence that made me sick in the gut.

I stuck around, tolerated other antics of disrespectfulness and ungratefulness, and in a blink of an eye, 3 years passed. In these years together, I supported him as a dutiful partner; I cooked and cleaned while he concentrated on a future. A future more for himself, rather than us. I only see that now, he was a selfish man. One winter, I went to my neighbour’s house to shower after a waitressing job (that pays our grocery bills), arriving home to find him waiting outside. He accused me of staying to chitchat and was furious to find dinner not laid on the table. That was the deal breaker.

• I learnt I do not want a selfish man.
• I learnt never to let anyone manipulate me mentally.

In another relationship, I repeated the cycle of losing MY self. An easy-going person, I often kept mum about many things that irked me. I suppressed issues, not wanting to be quarrelsome. I was afraid of not being accepted if I voiced them, an insecurity stemmed from childhood. 

For another 2 years, I lost my own personal wants, needs and visions because I adapted myself to suit him. Subconsciously, that wasn’t meant to be.

• I learnt I want a man of stability, a man of caliber to stern my ship.
• I learnt to not neglect my personal needs, to be fulfilled by my chosen partner for without him, I am without an arm (don’t get me wrong, an amputee can still function fully).
• I learnt not to rush into relationships, better to have quality than quantity.
• I learnt that relationships result from friendships, like a good bowl of goulash stew, it needs simmering.

Many friends have been though too many break ups that they became jaded with love and life. Women now look for a meal ticket because that is more reliable than faithfulness. Men are commitment phobic and monetary guarded.

To love is to give freely. It is better to love than to never love at all. Whilst I am careful, I am still hopeful.

I believe in sticking to a partner in illness and in health, in riches and in poor, though thick and thin. That is the commitment and union of marriage.

Until I find someone worthy to walk beside me, I won’t falter.

This birthday, I take a leap of faith.

Happy birthday to me.