Ah, it is the year of the Dog according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, and for some reason, I've been hearing quite a bit about what a great year it is for people born in the year of the Boar to get married. And of course, people born in the year of the Boar includes me. A friend just said the other day that 'Boar' people should get married in the 'Dog' year coz' the marriage will supposedly be good. I also read in the Sun chinese horoscope that 'Boar' people will meet their soul mate this year. Ironically, I also read an article in the Star today about the growing phenomenon of working women in KL putting off marriage later and later coz' of work or because they don't wanna be bogged down with a family.
So all this talk about marriage and stuff really got me thinking... damn, I really am old enough to get married! I'm going to be 23 this year, which logically speaking, is just about the best time to get into a relationship. Coz' if I started going out with a guy now and date him for the next 3 years, that would be a sufficiently long grace period for us to find out each others annoying habits and decide whether we're willing to deal with each others annoying habits for the rest of our lives. Once we've both passed the ultimate test of love (aren't I such a romantic?), I'd be about 26 years old, and my guy would be my age if not a few years older, maybe around 30 (I'm not much into younger guys coz' of the whole immature thing, and also it's not uncommon for the male eye to look for younger models, so being older than my man won't help. The only good thing about younger guys is that if we really grow old together, chances are we'll die around the same time coz' the life expectancy of men in shorter than women. Hence we'd get to enjoy most of our lives together, as opposed to if I marry an older guy, coz' he'll probably die way before me and I'll end up wasting the rest of my days away as a lonely, wrinkled old woman. Bygones. So even though I prefer older guys, I'd rather not have them more than 5 years older than me. :)). So then, me and my 30 year-old-ish guy would probably work for a while and wait a couple years or so before having kids. By then, I might be around 28 or 30-ish myself, so by the time our first kid gets to college, I'd be almost 50 and my man would be over 50. In a few more years, if the Malaysian government is still run by people who do nothing but insult each other in parliament and impose ridiculous laws such as all people must retire by 55 or something like that, me and hubby will be out of work, and hopefully by then we would have earned enough to send junior(s) off to college and uni. By which time, we can enjoy retirement and spend the rest of our days in our dream house (hopefully by the beach, on an elevated shore to avoid tsunamis). Therefore, should I get into a relationship now, it would be the perfect time, while the later I wait, the older I'll be by the time the kids get to uni, and hence the more financial problems me and hubby will have.
Sounds all nice and dandy and all, except for one teeny tiny problem. I'm not going out with any guy. And I don't see any potentials in the horizon any time soon. I hardly bother to try and meet new people, and the ones I do meet are either not particularly attractive males, not old enough males, not available males, or simply... not males. And statistically speaking, the odds aren't looking too good on the love-O-meter either. According to some hopefully reliable websites, the current Malaysian population is slightly over 25,000,000. Ideally I should be married to a Christian guy (not that I have anything against people of other faiths, but you know, it's nice to be able to share my faith with the guy I love instead of being at loggerheads about our different beliefs. Plus, I'm perfectly happy being able to eat pork and beef and whatever else I want to eat. Bygones.), but only about 9% of the Malaysian population is Christian. And since half of those are girls, that leaves only about 4.5% of the Malaysian population as possible suitors, which works out to about 1,125,000 guys. Still quite a lot, I guess. But of course, minus off the guys that are younger than me and the guys that are a tad bit too old for my taste, and I would estimate about 15% of that number is between 23 to 27 years old. That works out to about 170,000 guys left. And then at least half of these guys would be either already taken or already married, so that leaves only 85,000 guys left. Some might even be complete jerks masquarading as Christians coz' their parents forced them to go to church, or so they could pick up chicks. Or some just plain crazy. So that would leave maybe around 70,000 left. Ok lah, maybe 75,000 (I hope they aren't really that many jerks and lunatics running around churchs). And most of them would be living outside of Selangor, making my chances of meeting them much, much lower and thus reducing the number to probably 20,000 or less. And since I'm gonna be quite picky about whose annoying habits I have to endure for the rest of my life, I'd say only about 10% of those guys would be reasonably interesting to me. That leaves about 2000 guys. And then most those guys that I'm interested in probably won't be interested in me, so that leaves maybe around 200 guys with mutual interest.
200 is still quite a lot of guys (I mean, I'd be happy to have 5 guys going after me...200 would be like Woo Hoo!). But then there's another issue to throw into the mix, which is that I don't even want to have kids. Not that I don't like kids.... I love 'em. I just don't think I wanna deal with having my own. I'm sure it's a wonderful experience and all to see a life come out of me and fall totally in love with my own kid... but then there's also the whole pain of childbirth followed by sleepless nights due to baby crying, followed by the toddler tantrums, followed by the teenager rebellion, followed by the emptying of my bank account so can they get bored at uni. And then I'd be constantly worried about what I say or do to them that might possibly scar them psychologically for the rest of their lives. And then there's the shear amount of time I'd have to spend with my kids to make sure they grow up right, coz' far as I'm concerned, if I had kids, I'd wanna be the one taking care of them for at least the first 5 years before going to work, instead of leaving them in the hands of some maid. But I'd probably die of redundancy if I was stuck at home for at least 5 years (that's not even counting additional kids). I'd much prefer giving all my attention to my man, earning the money and using up that money to go on holidays and enjoy visiting other parts of the world.
Having said that, being an Asian I unfortunately have to deal with the annoying stigma among the Chinese that once married, must have kids. Therefore, my lack of desire for these little people would severely reduce my marketablity to most Asian guys. I'd say probably up to 80% of guys, thus making the number down to 40 guys. Unless of course, I try to extend my horizons to guys outside of Malaysia, in which case there would be plenty more prospects. And I'm sure a larger majority of non-Asian guys wouldn't mind not having kids. But even so, I'm never going to meet most of them anyway when all I do is spend my freakin' time stuck in front on my computer blogging about ridiculous statistics and projecting on my love life, or lack of it.
Well, I got another 10 months and 3 weeks to go before 2006 is over, so I have that much time to see if that Chinese horoscope turns out to be right. But since those things are mostly hogwash, I'm predicting I'll start the next year in singledom, as I always have. La dee da. But since I'm not interested in kids, I don't have to worry about planning out my financial future for them and I have more time to wait for that supposed Mr. Right to come along, instead of settling for Mr. Almost-Right-But-Not-Quite-There or Mr. Completely-Not-Right-But-I'm-Too-Desperate-To-Give-A-Damn. Bygones.
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