Yesterday I was aiming to buy some new shoes. Some of my current pairs are too worn out that they would fall apart any second, so I need a pair of basic black and slightly bling shoes for special occasions.
Possibly one good (or weird, depending on how you see it) thing about me is that when I have a shopping target, I go to shopping malls by myself with only that target in mind and I don't get sidetracked easily by other things like clothes. I went to 5 shopping complexes yesterday just focusing on this one goal, and I've found some other shoes I like, but not the type I need. And after few hours of walking around, my right knee started to freeze up on me (old taekwondo injury) and I wrote the first part of this post sitting on a bench at Subang Parade waiting for it to get better (continued the rest of it at home on my lappytop).
The whole time walking around by myself puts me in my usual contemplative mood. Now I contemplate my plans for the rest of my life, assuming that I will always be single. I wonder if I should stay in Malaysia or go overseas, probably to Australia, most likely to Brisbane coz' living next door to the Gold Coast would be awesome. If I stay here, I have three important things, which is family, friends and good food, unlike the boring stuff in Aus. But right now, I so want get my own place coz' living with my folks is a bit of a drag. I'm almost 30 years old, I should have the freedom to run my own abode, decorate it however I want, put things wherever I want, without being nagged at every now and then for not following someone's occasionally ridiculous rules (even putting the shower head facing down is wrong? Sigh). Also, there's this dog outside my office now which I've grown to love to bits, but I can't keep coz' he's too big for a condo and my mum would complain about him anyway. My office mates call him Lucky, which I think is a boring name, so I call him Friendster, coz' he's really friendly and I spend way too much time on social media than I should. So I have this little dream on my own place where I will steal him away and it'll just be the two of us (and my other mini animals) at my place, where Friendster will be the 'man' of the house. Right now, that's the most exciting prospect I have in my life staying here.
If I go the Australia, it's much more of a gamble. Aus is a beautiful place, I would enjoy the sights and sounds, of course, maybe earn enough to set up good investments back home, help pay for my nieces' education, travel around the world, stuff like that. Plus working life is not as stressful. Socially, I could make a whole bunch of new good friends, and possibly even meet that elusive dream guy that is so hard to find. But I could end up being more of a loner than I already am, be taken for a ride by guys are just like the 'exotic-ness' of Asian girls but really aren't interested in the long run, and be strapped with high cost of living. So not really sure if it's as good an idea in practice as it is on paper. Aus would be nice to go to, if I had someone in my life to go with. At least starting a new life with someone makes it easier if things don't work out. Going by myself with no real idea of how things will work out is just really scary. Decisions decisions.
Some people might envy the fact that I still have this freedom to decide what to do with my life. Financially, I am secure enough to do a lot of the things I want to. I was even asked by a friend once why I need do I need a guy in my life when I can obviously take care of myself. I can afford to travel, go diving, do pretty much whatever I want, etc. The friend who asked me that was also the guy that recently blew my emotional stability out of the water for a few days, but he asked that question a long time ago, way before he ever got into my radar as a potential partner.
I have since also been asking myself the same question. Why hope for a guy when I don't need him and I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself? Why would I want to make myself accountable to a guy when I don't need to be accountable to anyone. I can just do what I want without worrying if he's not happy with it? I am quite comfortable being alone, in fact I am used to doing a lot of things by myself, like shopping for shoes, having meals, even watching a movie alone is fine by me. I know some people who can't even stand having a meal alone, and I have trouble understanding why these people hate being alone. I can only deduce that they are uncomfortable with the thoughts they get when in solitude, which most likely go along the lines off 'I'm so alone today, nobody loves me, sad sad sad'. I am tempted to write such people off as insecure weaklings, but I also realize that the good thing about such people is that they make the extra effort to be with family and friends, thus reinforcing relationships, which people like me aren't really bothered to do because we'd usually rather do some stuff alone than have someone tag along which sometimes is an inconvenience.
So again, I keep coming back to that question. I don't need a guy, I can handle myself alone, why can't I just be happy with that? If I could break that desire for companionship and just enjoy my singlehood, life would be so much easier. Wouldn't it? The problem is that desire is still not broken. My whole mental zen room that I created recently helps me to ignore that desire. But the desire is still there, jumping around my head, putting niggling thoughts in brain, whereas previously those thoughts would bring me down, now I see them in a disconnected manner, with a mixture of amusement and annoyance, like watching puppies whine outside my room trying to get in. But I cannot get the puppies to go away.
I now believe the why I can't get rid of that desire is because it's not just a desire for me at this stage. It's become a need. Logically speaking, there is never really a 'need' for anyone to have a partner and get hitched. The only things we really need to survive are food, water, shelter and security. Get all that down and you're set for the rest of your life. But of course, people are not that simple. Here's a little something I've been thinking about which I way back in university in a side subject I took called 'Managing Organizations'. It's a little diagram called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Physiological need, as I mentioned, are right there at the bottom, after which is the need for shelter and security. Then you have all this other stuff above those needs, which funnily enough if you think really logically about it, aren't classified as 'desires', which would imply that they are unnecessary to survive. They are all also needs. Of course, you need to meet the basic needs at the bottom first before prioritizing the upper level needs, but of course, I and most of my peers have got the bottom parts settled, no problem. And most of us would already have, to some extent, the other stuff at the top. But the problem for me is that middle tier called 'Love and Belonging'. Yes, I know I have friendship and family right now, which meets that need in part. But in the long term, friends will not necessarily be around forever, my parents will not be around forever, and the rest of my family will have their own little families to take care of. And it is that worry of reaching that point in my life when I am well and truly alone that fuels the existence of those whiny puppies outside my mental room.
Also, I used to think that being comfortable with solitude means I do not need to be with people, which should logically make it easier for me to dispel the 'need' for companionship. I realized recently that I was quite wrong. In addition to Maslow's hierarchy, I'd also been thinking about the 5 love languages. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please see here before you continue.
In theory, different people express and experience love using one or more of the 5 love languages. For me, I had the problem of never being quite able to figure out which of those 'languages' are mine. I used to think that one of my love languages was Physical Touch, coz' with my ex-es, I really adored the physical intimacy of it. But I was not quite sure about the rest.
It was only after getting to know this guy recently (yes, that one who blew my emotions out of the water) and letting that little hamster wheel in my brain go crazy analyzing the whys and whats of everything that happened, that I think I finally figured out what my love languages are. I have three, Physical Touch is one of them, but it's not the main one. My main one is Quality Time. I need someone to spend time with me and really get to know me. I don't need a bunch of people like that, but I need just one person who makes the effort to get to know me, and whom I can talk about anything with without inhibitions or worry of being ridiculed. Which is why I enjoy all the little chats we had, even though for the most we were supposed to be doing something else at the time. But instead of doing that something else, I was getting his attention, which was nice. Physical Touch, for me, ranks pretty much 2nd, together with another love language which is Words of Affirmation. Another thing I also really enjoyed about him, is that he encourages me to do things I dream about. I never thought encouraging words was something that I needed, but when he did it, I realized that having someone to support you in your crazy dreams is really... pretty awesome.
Quality time, encouragement (words of affirmation), and hugs or other physical acts of affection is something I never gotten from the people whom I think I should have gotten it the most from, which is my family, especially so my parents. They show me love in another way, which are NOT my love languages, which is Acts of Service, which is the typical love language of Asian parents. And perhaps because I haven't really been getting the first two, that's why it took me a long time to realize that these are some of the things I need the most.
I know that I can get by without these things, as I have been doing for a long time. So long that I didn't think I needed them. Or worst come to worst, instead of being in the ideal situation where I have one guy who can speak my love languages, I can always just get them fulfilled through different people. But you know, it's not the same, and it would be kinda weird socially ("Oh hey, by the way, meet my two boyfriends. Hehehehe"). So until I get that need fulfilled, I think I will always be just a little bit listless in life.
I also wonder about what could have possibly led that guy to ask me that question, about why I need a man in my life. And now I think in some way, his inability to understand that reason is because the level of needs he's at now is different from mine. I suspect that he's missing out on two tiers on Maslow's little pyramid, which is safety and esteem. Because, as I mentioned in a previous post, I know he has not achieved what he wants to achieve in life, whether that be financial goals or something else, and his time is running short. I suspect that he feels he needs to achieve those goals first before he even considers a relationship, because he's a guy who would want to be able to take care of his family. Again, this is a suspicion, but based on what I know of his character, I don't think I am far off the mark. And it also makes sense since he has mentioned that he does want a family.
I also suspect that the fact that I am more financially secure that he is is unsettling to him, and perhaps makes him feel inadequate to be with me because in his world of logic, I do not need him because right now I can provide for myself far better than he can provide for me. Which to be quite honest, is true. I don't need him to provide financially for me. I mean, it would be nice to have a guy with some spare cash to treat me with nice stuff... but the one love language that I don't particularly care for is gifts. I don't treasure gifts, and I'm not a material person. I have never had dreams of a fancy ring, or romantic dinner, or a fairy tale wedding. I would rather have a simple dinner with friends for my birthday than receives gifts that most of the time, I don't know what to do with. I'm a girl who thinks giving people roses on valentine's days is stupid coz' they're going to die and there's nothing romantic about having wilted roses in your house. I just want someone to be there for me and keep me company and understand me. Someone who will not shoot down my ideas, even if they are stupid, or shoot me down even if sometimes I behave a little stupid.
So what is frustrating me right now, is that I think he has a completely different interpretation of what I need, which he thinks he cannot provide. And what he doesn't know is that he is already providing for me in the areas that I actually really need. And I would like to be there for him and support him in whatever secret plan he's up to, just coz' I don't want him to think that he has to do it alone.
The thing is, it's all still just a suspicion. I don't know if telling him any of this will actually make a difference to him, or whether it would be enough for him to know I would like to be with him for reasons other than security. I don't think I'm ready to ask him and deal with possibly more vague answers than I can handle. For all I know, he's actually really just not interested in me, and I'm just hanging on to a possibility that is a waste of my time. Heck, maybe he's just being polite because secretly he's in love with another girl that I don't know about. Ugh. So for now, I will continue to deal with these niggling little thoughts in my brain and carry on.
I didn't manage to find my black shoes, by the way. I did buy two other pairs of shoes which I really liked, but still do not have what I need. Seems to be a recurring issue with me, not being able to get the things that I really need. Lol.
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