What Do Women Want (Part 3)

The Ultimate Soul Mate
Yani often tell the person dearest to her, in her precocious way:
“Why do you have to make life so complicated? Either you do it, or you stop thinking about it. Be positive about life!”
BRAT used to get just as exasperated when her mother was indecisive; and now she thought: “I have become my mother”. With all the possibilities in the palm of her hand, she should be feeling on top of the world, yet she feels misunderstood, depressed and suicidal. Not suicidal as wanting to take her own life, just feeling pointless in going through life.
“You don’t understand people, and people don’t understand you.” Oh, shut up, Master Chin. You’re not faced with all these people who either don’t speak or speak in ‘tongues’ that would drive you up the wall!
“I just want to write a best-seller and live on an island with my clones, people who think and talk like me,” she told her confidante, and he smiled. Given a choice, she would rather be Rowlings than Queen E, but then again, she may want to be both. Who knows exactly what goes on in her mind? A girl can be so spoilt for choice that she cries on her bed alone at night.
But now, she doesn’t even have a writing contract, or a finished manuscript. For the first time in her adult life, she has to rely more on her charm than her brains, and it makes her feel like an airhead. It may be flattering to have someone doting on her - pouring her drink for her, paying for her meals, her hair and her nails, giving her pocket money for Christmas shopping, offering her a ticket to join him overseas, or pick a lakefront property in Cyberjaya.
But she never wanted to marry a foreigner. All that she wants is someone who understands her, someone who she could relate to, a Mr. Right who treats her right, a properly worded invite. She heard Master Chin’s voice in her head again: “You are selfish, and you like to show-off.” No, Master Chin, she countered him, you wouldn’t believe it; but actually, I’m very shy and timid. Or, at least, I used to be.
"Egoistical or egotistical?" EOW used to throw that question to the class. But I am not MT or MN to walk several steps behind and follow you to your office. Is the issue about obedience or dignity?
As far as her memory could take her, she had always wanted her own way, or “to be right”. Her mother and sister used to take delight in recounting the story about how they locked her out of the house when she was just a year plus. She had insisted that they take the bridge instead of the short-cut via the monsoon drain. What a little control freak! And what child abuse.
And yet she is once again at this crossroad or crucible in her life where she is torn between principles and nascent feelings of empathy for someone whom she thought is the Ultimate Soul Mate - the Absolute Real Thing. But she had had the same thoughts about others before him that she just couldn’t trust her instincts or judgments anymore. As HS would ask her:
“What would you do differently today?”
Would she finally be able to stop, get out and get in? First, she must check her eye sight and, secondly, step on the brakes. To be continued.