Today is Eid Al-Adha, I Googled that because I am only familiar with the local term "Hari Raya Haji" and my Indonesian friend thinks the way we called it is cute. I was invited to my neighbor's parents' house for lunch but I was too exhausted after not sleeping for 26 hours and decided to decline the invitation. As usual, it was hot and humid in my room and I woke up feeling a little cranky. However it was transient as I pulled up the blinds to see dark frowny clouds pasted on the sky and it looked like the sky was going to weep at any moment which made me happy. The weather reminds me of a lesson - too much of a good thing is good for nothing. I used to hate gloomy weather as a child and whenever dusk comes it often gives me a feeling of sadness especially when it rains. I cannot explain any reason for it but I do recall feeling sad whenever the sky is painted by shades of grey. As an adult, I continued to love the sun until the warmth from it was unbearable which drove me to appreciate the gloomy skies and its showers.
I was singing to my heart's content to the lines "Lord I thank you for sunshine, I thank you for rain, I thank you for joy, I thank you for pain, it's a beautiful day~ it a beautiful day~". I had my door and windows wide open as I enjoyed the huge downpour and breeze and thought to myself "How nice if this is the weather before I go to bed daily". I was caught off guard when I heard a voice so near calling out my name and it happened to be my neighbor. She took the trouble to bring me some food from her outing and I had no other choice but to invite her into my messy room since it was raining and it felt right to invite her in. I was feeling rather embarrassed as I was not ready to have any visitors and the past week I have been busy so I was very conscious of the strands of my hair on the floor and the unsorted items I took from my friend who went back to his home country. I can hear my mama's voice echoing in my head "Always keep your room spick and span...bla bla bla", mama was right.
So as we spent some time talking, she shared with me her new experience of having feelings towards a man she met from a dating app. I listened to all her concerns and questions carefully before deciding what I should say to her. I am very skeptical about meeting people online with the purpose of a relationship so I told her to be cautious. Then she told me that everything the person says seems to resonate with her and he just knows the right things to say and is eloquent. Somehow I did not have the heart to burst her bubble as this is the first time in her life she is falling for someone. She had a lot of reservations when it came to relationships due to witnessing a lot of relationship failures among her siblings (a victim of priming) and had stayed away from any romantic relationship all her life. It was rather adorable listening to her girlish excitement and she does look different being in Love and I told her she was glowing! She did not believe me and tested me by asking me when I realized the change and I somehow got the timeline correct as per my observations. Her demeanor made me think about how I used to be when I was in the phase of being "in Love" and it was indeed a great feeling. A feeling that I wish would last forever.
I cannot let my personal experience ruin someone else's experience and eloquence shouldn't be a red flag but somehow from my very minimal encounters, it was. The examples she gave me seem to cause a lot of high-priority alarms to go off in my head. An example would be "What is the type of woman that you prefer?" which was answered by "A woman like you". Trust me, this sort of answer works very well for any woman who is in a state of vulnerability. Yes, being in love does make one vulnerable and my friend proved my point when she admitted to pouring her heart out to him. While listening, I wonder why matters of the heart seem to always appear at my door. Although it is not about me and all about her, everything she shared made me feel like I am now an observer/ critique of my past. I told her that there are no blueprints in life and some things you just have to navigate on your own. She felt like a crazy person asking chatGPT for answers and was baffled to learn about pieces of advice from social media which confused her more. I shared with her my own belief that if you can't be who you are in front of a person you love then that person is not meant for you.
I postulate that since she is very academic herself, it is her nature to probably be sapiosexual and that is why just by online conversation she could be attracted. I had my sapiosexual tendency watered down after I learned that intelligence itself is just one of the traits I admire but beyond intelligence there are more important traits such as kindness and resilience. Well, it is her canvas and she is the painter, I just hope she doesn't get her heart toyed with or broken because a broken heart heals with scars and some scars heal poorly. I also told her to avoid making the mistake of trying to give meaning to things because it would cloud her better judgment. It was funny hearing myself as I was trying so hard to not give meaning to the birth date and month of the guy she is into since it coincides with the person I am missing. I had to self-rationalize that there's a 1/12 and a 1/31 probability to get the months and dates right. It would not make sense though to have 1/372 probability when there are only 365 days in a year(I need a math teacher stat!). Anyway, there's this thing called the Birthday Paradox which is interesting and debunks the idea that the likelihood to share the same birthdays is rare.
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