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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I'm not sure about you but I was taught to have only one boyfriend before marriage. It could be religion, or our culture but I definitely wasn't encouraged to go experience love. 
To the Chinese, if we have more than one boyfriend, its condemned as "she's loose/ easy/ slut". My Spanish girl-friend once enlightened me with a different perspective, "doesn't it make you a lot more interesting, having different experiences?" She is currently in a relationship of 8 yrs. 
If we were born as babies with zero knowledge and skill except to suckle or swim, how likely are we to know love and to love without experience? 
I've never used "i love you" frivolously in relationships because "best friends 4eva" written in graduation books were not true. 
When my first boyfriend at 19 said "i love you" within 3 months of relations, i wasn't sure how to react. He surely didn't know what he was saying, as love was meant to be accepting but he frowned at my dressing, speech and behaviour. 
My second boyfriend at 23 was abit more like me, we don't use the word love in vain. There were no "i love you" until we broke up. The first time he used the word love, it was with a marriage proposal. But surely he didn't know what he's saying, because of the inconsistencies in actions. If he loved, he wouldn't leave me behind when we were snorkelling. If he loved, he wouldn't mind my bag spoiling his style (by carrying it). 
For all the men who taught me what love is not, there was one who taught me what love is. Love is giving up pre-planned and paid trips to spend more time with you. Love is not minding how uncomfortable, ugly and tiring it makes him so you can be not. Love is asking you for your opinion on everything not because he can't decide but to make decisions with you. Love is making plans with you in it, love is wanting to know and understand everything of you. 
Have i then loved? I thought i haven't, but my friend who've observed me in my times with relations said i have. Love might be a universal language but the ways of expressing love is very different between cultures. The Chinese are alot more reserved in demonstrating love, "have you eaten?" is more commonly said than "i love you." The Chinese's demonstration of love is, protecting you at all costs, ensuring you're well-fed without lack and caring for the finest details of daily life. Love to the Chinese is not words of affirmation and touch. 
Love is not as simple as we wish it to be. There is parental love which is sacrificial, Godly love which is all-accepting and romantic love, filled with lust & more. Love fills this Earth and in this journey of finding love, i learned to love myself & i found i had passion within. 
Born a Gen Y Singaporean, I never had to fight to live. I was groomed to excel in academics, I was not nurtured to think out of the box. I never had a strong passion about a topic, subject or person. We were like carbon copies.  
In the last 6 months, preserverance brought me to Bangkok and passion gave me reason to fight for someone. 
Women wished their romantic life would be like the movies. Mine is like a drama that doesn't end and i'm relishing every twist of the plot. 
They say a son looks for a wife like his mother and a daughter looks for a husband like her father. 
I used to be attracted to chauvunistic men, a total opposite of my father. It turns out they are the worst lovers and i grew wiser. 
As i come of age, i recognise traits of my father in my boyfriends in later years. My father thinks my mum is still beautiful even when she doesn't shave. He massages her legs as they run thick with varicose veins. He calls her perfect when her belly hangs loose with skin after 3 children. 
She yell words of hate and shame, he loves her the same. He goes to work where there are other women, but nothing changed. 
Gen Y's love is nothing like before. We give up too easily when the tough gets going. So i'll wait. Wait Christine. Wait for that "him" who'll wait for me. Protect my heart as its the most valuable thing.

2 comments:

  1. I think exactly the same. May yiu find your special one.

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  2. I read your article I enjoy the reading.The written skill is so good.I appreciate to this one. It's looking interesting. You shared this with us thank you for this.

    ReplyDelete