I wrote this piece at 26. ;-) I got married a year after and I've been happily married for 10 years now. A fun, indignant piece on how a single girl views life. A lovely "walk" down memory lane. At least for me.
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It had to happen. It was bound to happen but I had been avoiding those secret glances, those looks that went "Well . . . well . . . well . . . " and those busybodies (a.k.a people you call relatives) like the plague.
Okay, so I am not growing any younger . . . but I'm no Ally McBeal either. And unlike Ally, I have no secret hankering to get hitched. Not now, and not in the next two months either. Which brings me back to the question that everyone's asking: "So . . .(this comes with the all-knowing pause) when ARE you getting married?"
It used to be so easy when I was younger. I define younger as maybe, say, 10 years ago when I was still in school and my dreams of boys were fueled by Judy Blume books. I was gradually weaned from Blume to Kathleen Woodiwiss whose swooning heroines always fell gracefully into the arms of the Hunk. The Hunk would be tall, dark and handsome and our idea of THE MAN was a man with a chestful of hair and that was our personal heaven.
But you should have heard the philosophy of my parents then. No, they would say, concentrate on your studies and study hard. Get a good education and then you can think about boys. So we were all goodie-two-shoes who dutifully went to school, mugged like hell and scored at exams. All because we had to carry out our filial duties before we 'did' other wayward things.
Then came university. People like me discovered a few things about university that Form Six teachers never mentioned. You could cause a riot in varsity if :
a) you left home for a far-off university (far-off means any university which was NOT in your home state) and
b) suddenly served with all this freedom to do as you please without having to answer to your parents, and, best of all
c) could date any guy you wished
Sadly, conditions a), b) and c) were valid if university was teeming with hunks. During my four-year course, the guys in my classes were not the type you could imagine French kissing, what more dating! And all of a sudden, parents begin dropping hints when you go home for the semester holidays. Do you have a boyfriend? Why don't you bring some nice boys home?
And finally when you do get a boyfriend, you see the relief written all over their faces. Fast forward a few years - you graduate, get a job, and still date the same guy. Now they start worrying - they worry, especially when your third cousin is getting married and she's younger than you or when the wedding invites start flying about during 'wedding season' and you attend weddings of people you know and the other people you don't know start asking about YOUR big day. That's when all the fun starts.
All of us get curious and uncomfy if one doesn't exhibit the normal desire to get married, especially if they are of suitable, marriageable age (this can be anywhere between 20 and 35).
Okay, I admit I am that type - the unconventional female whose marrying instincts haven't kicked in yet. Being dewy-eyed and swooning at the M word is as alien to me as eating sago worms in the jungles of Sarawak. And yes, I am proud to say that I am still holding out and haven't bowed to pressure.
Mum bugs me each time she sees me (about once every three months) and if her nagging doesn't work, she bugs Dad to 'advise' me. My aunts and uncles cannot understand why I refuse to get hitched. And I irritate half of them by answering, "Who? Me? But I'm only 26!" And they are flabbergasted - they have no reply to that!
But me, I'm not doing it yet because basically I enjoy my freedom. Besides, I'm NOT everybody . . .
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