Fumbling To Salvation

Fairytales. Everyone's heard them. They play familiar (and comforting) tunes to the wretched masses. There will be light at the end of the tunnel (just hope that it isn't an oncoming train). Prince Charming will save you from your eternal sleep, or that poisoned apple lodged rather unglamourously in your throat, or those evil stepsisters with large, ugly feet. All you have to do is wait and never give up hope. Because hope springs eternal. Or does it?

In this age of instant gratification and ever soaring expectations, is it still worthwhile...indeed does it still make sense...to wait for our Prince to save us? Will he come riding in on his white horse to sweep us off our feet, or are we better off taking control of the damn reins and charting our own course through the forest of life?

Last year I was desperate to get into a relationship...ANY relationship. I had only ever had one before, and it lasted for all of a week so I never really counted that as a proper long-term relationship. To give you an idea of how desperate I was, I actually considered revising my definition to include above-mentioned pseudo relationship as a proper one. There, I had one ex! I was constantly whining to friends about how lonely I was, or about how so and so wasn't attracted to me, and how a relationship was all I needed to be happy. My first resolution for 2006 was to find a boyfriend. Right now I'm wondering if I should really be writing all these TRAGIC (yes this is my new 'it' word) secrets here, but let's just continue...

So when the opportunity presented itself at the beginning of the year, I jumped at it. The guy wasn't exactly cute, and he didn't speak really well, and his friends were cheenapoks, but I was willing to give him a chance. Why close the door before even exploring what's inside? I even bought CHOCOLATES for him once, which I had never done before of course. Buying stuff for your date. And I thought "Ooh so this is what it feels like to be seeing someone..." I know it sounds so dreadful, but it actually goes back to when I was with Tong and he was buying chocolates for his girlfriend. And he told me, "Simon, one day you'll know what it feels like to be buying things for your...boyfriend." I clung on to that and wanted to experience it for myself very much.

It didn't last beyond 10 days. I grew more and more ambivalent as time went by. Why am I doing this? He certainly wasn't going to be the last one, I couldn't see myself living with him and introducing him to my parents. It just wasn't going to work in the long-run. And I was unable to continue deceiving him...and myself. His name was Anthony. LOL. He was of the opinion that being in the dating game for nearly a decade gave him the right to analyse your every action. He loved to compartmentalize your behaviour into different boxes, like office stationery, each box belonging to memories of some ex or another. It made me want to scream, I AM ME. Once again, Ashlee comes to the rescue with rays of light and guidance.

A month after that fiasco I found myself in another one. Jeremy. Hmmm...I don't really want to talk about it because the memory of it all still makes me want to cringe. He wasn't exactly unattractive. Just very young looking. And I'll never forget the time my mum asked about my "young friend" and I felt like some dirty pedophile. He was only 2 years younger but for the record I'm not the kind of person who can date younger guys. He was, in a nutshell, weird. Strange. Queer. Peculiar. Odd. You get the idea. He liked to sing, and sing he DID, including one very public performance of his own composition at the Yamaha shop at Plaza Singapura that made me want to bury my head in the ground and never come out. He also had these very strange religious beliefs about spirits and being able to see them that made me very uneasy. I also hated the fact that when I wanted to go out with my friend (Jireh actually hahaha), he presumed that he would be part of the party. I can't tolerate that feeling of being trapped by someone. My freedom is very important to me. Freedom to do what I want without being questioned, freedom to hang out with who I please, freedom to have my own personal space once in a while. It just seemed so stifling. And at the end of the day, he wasn't someone I wanted to be stifled by unfortunately. It lasted 10 days. Again. My journal entry for that day was Oops!...I Did It Again.

So here...here I am again. And I'm staring at these same four walls alone again. What have I learnt really? I still am waiting for the right person to come along. I'm not really bothering to actively search for him. Because my hope doesn't spring eternal and it's been expended over the past year. But if there's anything useful I've learnt from these quagmires, it's that a relationship is not going to save me. It's not going to be the one-way ticket to happy. It can't validate me as a person, because only I can do that.