Romance in the City

Recently, kuja and i had a conversation about some of our dear friends who are reaching the age where they should be seriously looking for their special "someone" to share their lives with.

To be fair, some of them ARE (as far as we know) trying to be proactive in their search for love. We've heard about stories about them going for speed dates, attending exec lunches and such, all in the hope of meeting the person who can set their hearts racing and pulses racing.

And honestly, if you asked me, it's really not easy these days.

Darn... actually it's freaking hard!!

You see, all of us have a circle of friends whom we are very comfortable with. We don't mind meeting them weekly, for gatherings, meals and such. But after sometime, it becomes clear that romance is unlikely to blossom with a person within that "comfort circle", as i like to call it. So, if you want to find romance, you'd actually have to tear yourself away from this comfort circle, and start venturing out to newer circles and to the scary unknown world...

This means developing new life interests thus joining new clubs and societies, or taking time (and money) out to attend pre-arranged gatherings and meals, and some even resorting to taking up a new belief so as to attend the religious gatherings that follows.

Ultimately, the aim is to expand your social circle - far, far beyond the comfort circle of friends that you have.

Like i've said earlier, this is truly a difficult task, for most people at least. But it has its rewards i'm sure. So frankly, i'm not worried for my friends who are the proactive sort. They know what they want, and they go get it (or at least try to get it).

Kuja and I were more concerned for those amongst our close friends, who are -not- so proactive. They are, not surprisingly, usually the shy sort who'd not even venture to get to know a person of the opposite sex better, even if they actually feel a sense of attraction between them. Ok granted, for gals, it might be just a little bit harder, given that we're still very much an Asian society with deep rooted Asian values. Thus, some feel that gals should be more 含蓄,more 矜持, in order to be seen as a well-mannered and attractive lady. Some of my female friends have mentioned on occasion that they are afraid of "scaring off the cute guys" by appearing too "aggressive" and 直接. hahaha.. and I thought 男追女隔座山,女追男隔层纱.

But what about shy guys? I think these days, if you drag your feet about such things, you are bound to end up last. Seriously, my suggestion to all my guy friends nowadays are 喜欢就敢敢地追. 顶多是失败而已嘛. 如果连追人家的勇气都没有,那就是从一开始就没机会成功. 失败也是咎由自取的...

Kuja suggested playing matchmaker (again!), by introducing one of her colleagues (an attractive young lady i must admit) to one of our not-so-proactive friend. But she then lamented, "aiya... we don't have a photo hor... if not can show her first mah ".

hmm.. maybe I should start snapping pictures of all my eligible friends and start building a database ya? hahaha..