Blue Moon

"Blue Moon
You knew just why I was there for
You heard me say a prayer for
Someone I really could care for
And then there suddenly appear before me
The only one my arms could ever hold"
~ The Platters (Blue Moon)

Technically, I asked Bee out for our second date.

Coming from a small town that still has the mindset of 18th century and a family that doesn't believe in kissing before marriage (okay, I'm exaggerating, but you get the drift), I've been taught since childhood about The Rules.

Girls should never ask boys out. Girls should never call boys first. Girls should never make the first move. Girls should be put on pedestal and worshiped by boys. Girls should turn down boys for three times to make sure they are serious. The list goes on. Any form of behaviour outside The Rules is considered highly inappropriate and disgraceful.

Therefore, I have always been the girl who waits painfully by the phone, the girl who doesn't reply love letters, and the girl who will never tell a guy she likes him first. We have been programmed to believe that no guy would take you seriously if you didn't follow The Rules and remain an unattainable fairy-like creature.

At the age of 23, I broke The Rules and had since lost the magical glitters on my wings.

After our first night out, Bee sent Bridget and I back to her place.

Bridget got out of the car first to rescue one of her puppies that had fallen into the drain. Me, still an aloof and divine enchantress back then, was left to have a moment alone with the guy whose smile made my heart beat double time.

Under normal circumstances, this would be the perfect timing for a guy to make the next move. I clutched my purse tightly, waiting for Bee to ask me out again.

It didn't happen.

I then realised that I had a choice. I could ask him out and risk having him thinks I'm easy, or I could play hard to get and wait for him to call me again.

The Rules were flashing red warning lights in my head. But that night, Bee couldn’t have looked any cuter in that maroon shirt of his. Oh what I wouldn’t do to see him again.

To hell with it! I was leaving KL in 3 days and I didn't have time to play games.

So I smiled and said, "Would you like to see me again before I leave?"

Of all the clever things he could have said, a very-nervous-yet-seemingly-calm Bee replied, "Sure, if you want to."

(Oh don't worry, to this day, he still gets shit from me for saying that.)

The most wonderful thing happened that night. For the first time in my life, my inner monster didn't come out and play.

Every girl has a monster called insecurity. Some small, some big. Well, mine was gigantic. I always knew that the monster was a big disaster to my relationships, I just didn't know that it was waiting to be tamed by the right person.

Does he like me? What if he doesn't like me? If he does, does he like me for the right reasons? Is it going to work out? Will he end up breaking my heart? What if he is just playing? How would I know whether he is serious?

A thousand and one questions a girl could ask, none of which bothered me that night.

All the unnecessary voices were blocked out. I heard nothing. Not even the slightest sound of it.

Only the beats of my own heart.

No over-analysing, no questioning, no worrying, no trying to define what was going on, it was all taken away when I looked into his eyes and saw the answers to my questions.

I learned that a girl doesn't have to sit on a throne or be locked away in high tower guarded by fire-breathing dragons in order to live happily ever after with Prince Charming.

It works the other way around.

When the right boy comes along, he will put his crown on your head, calls you his princess and loves you like there is none other.

On 14 May 2004, every girl in Australia stayed up to watch the fairytale wedding when Mary Donaldson married Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. So did I.

And then I messaged Bee.

"Mary looked breathtakingly beautiful in her white duchess satin gown and Irish lace veil. Her groom wept as she walked down the aisle. It was the dream of every girl. But baby, mine came true when I met you. Some need to marry a prince to become a princess. But I only need to look at the reflections in your eyes to feel like one."

Blue moon may not come by easily. But it does happen, every so often.

First Date

"How do you sustain a relationship without the "zsa zsa zsu"?
You know, that butterflies in your stomach thing that happens when you not only love the person, but you gotta have them?
Isn't that what gets you through the years?
Even if it fades, at least you have the memory of the zsa zsa zsu."
~ Carried Bradshaw (Sex and the City)

Bee and I never really had an official first date.

In the early stages, we were always chaperoned, for the simple reason that he's the guy I met on internet and I'm the girl who has always been over-protected by friends and family.

He rang me the next day after we chatted. We decided to meet up for a movie the following day.

"This way, even if we totally can't stand each other, at least we'll have an excuse to not talk." I said.

We had no expectation. It was just a casual date for fun.

He was 27 and I was 23, we knew better than to expect romance after just an interesting conversation in cyberspace. Besides, we were both at a stage of our lives where we would much rather be single, which is exactly the reason what happened next really took us by surprise.

The funny and fun thing about life is, great things often happen when you least expect them to.

I still remember exactly what he wore and how he looked the night we met. A deep maroon shirt and casual white pants.

He walked towards me in Mid Valley Megamall, I smiled, and the rest was history.

Bee says it was love at first sight for him. I never told him that actually on my side, all I could think about was how good looking he is.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not as superficial as that sounded. Really.

As a matter of fact, I had never been attracted to pretty faces after the age of 18. But that night, Bee completely swept me off my feet with his good looks and unpretentious charms.

We watched a really bad movie.

It was a lame supposedly-scary thriller called Dead End. As un-scary as it was, I still had to hide my face behind the popcorn box for the whole time because I am the chicken-est person you can ever meet.

Bee didn't talk much. I thought he was concentrating, which naturally led me to believe that he has really bad taste in movies. I had completely forgotten about how I told him on the phone that I hate people who talk during movies. Ha!

After the movie, Bee asked whether we wanted to have dinner. (Yes, we. Bridget had finished her exams and therefore was there to "supervise" our non-date.)

Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant, where we discovered that we share the same love for sashimi.

As the night went on, the chemistry continued to intensify.

There wasn't any titillating of feet or eyelashes fluttering though. We talked, we ate, and we laughed.

I couldn't recall exactly what we talked about. We were teasing each other with sarcastic remarks, aka giving each other shit. But apparently, it was called flirting in layman's term, (which Bridget later pointed out to me).

Bee sat across the table from me, unaware of how charming he was. My heart skipped a beat whenever our eyes met, and I was almost certain that the sparkles in my eyes gave my secret away.

The weird thing is, I felt extremely comfortable around him, even with the thousands of butterflies flapping their tiny wings in my stomach. No trying-hard-to-be-someone-great-because-I-was-head-over-heels-about-him, no suddenly-became-overly-quiet-because-I-was-afraid-of-saying-something-wrong, no constantly-worrying-whether-my-lipstick-was-intact.

Bee always has this ability to make me feel that it's okay to be just me, even from the very first beginning. Another reason why I love him.

At the end of the night, I was convinced that Bee must have either read First Date Tips religiously, or he was a natural born player, because he played the entire night flawlessly.

He was polite, sweet and laid back. He didn't seem too eager to impress, and you could tell that he was comfortable being who he was. He was the perfect gentleman, down to details like opening doors for the ladies and giving way on the road (come on, people!). He had a great sense of humour, yet he didn't talk too much nor tried to crack jokes unnecessarily. Most importantly, he was so attentive in nature to both Bridget and I. Did he know that I'm disgusted by guys who only focus on girls they are interested in and ignore the friends?

When I got home (alias Bridget's place) that night, I sat in daze for a whole minute.

Then I sighed in disbelief.

You know, that feeling when you heart beats irregularly and whispers, "Oh my God! How can he be so perfect?"

Definitely zsa zsa zsu.

Definitely.

One Fateful Night

"I had planned my life
To the last detail
With a story book romance to fill my days
But the funny thing about answered prayers
Is they come to you in unexpected ways"
~ Dana Glover (Plan on Forever)

Bee and I met on 14 January 2004, in the most unexpected way. Unexpected, in the sense that I never thought I would meet someone through the internet. To date, not many friends know exactly how we met, because we both think that it was too lame and do not have the guts to face the 'you-must-be-really-desperate-huh' look. (Bee is more than happy to tell people that he picked me up waiting in line to buy sushi in Jusco supermarket though. -_-)

Back to the story.

It was my summer holiday.

On my way back to Swan City, I stopped by Kuala Lumpur for a short shopping trip. Unfortunately (or fortunately, rather?), the friend whom I was staying with was having her exams. Therefore, she got her neighbour to entertain me.

One night, the neighbour took me out to meet up with his friend for supper. His friend was running late, so we had to wait for him in this cybercafe somewhere in Old Klang Road. (We must be the only two people in the cybercafe who weren't playing online games and swearing out loud every other second.)

To keep ourselves occupied while waiting, the neighbour and I logged on to MIRC. We were competing to see who gets more hits and he was trying to prove that, in cyberspace, he's a more attractive woman than I can ever hope to be.

Somewhere between one night stand invitations and lame pick up lines from random strangers in the chat room, a decent conversation started brewing when Bee clicked on me.
Our chat soon took on a life of its own. We were talking about absolutely nothing, yet suddenly the smell of cigarette smoke and the loud noises in the cafe no longer bothered me. I felt like a 17 year-old girl who is chatting online for the first time again.

Time flew by in no time. Before we knew it, it was wee hours and the neighbour was already having supper at a mamak store nearby with his friend because he couldn't wait any longer.

I told Bee I had to go. He politely asked for my email address and my name.

I was relieved.

If he had asked for my phone number, I would have blacklisted him right there and then. And because he didn't, I decided to serve my phone number on a silver platter. (Girls are weird creatures, I know.)

However, in my worthless effort to salvage my pride from voluntarily offering my number to a guy for the first time, I refused to reveal my name. (Again, girls are weird.)

So, that fateful night, Bee went to bed without knowing my name, and I slept at 7am not knowing that I had just met the leading man in my life.

Starting Off.....

I've had this in my mind for quite a while now. I wanted to start a blog, as a gift to Bee for our 21st-month-anniversary. (Childish, I know)

So I finally got around to doing it. And this is what I wrote in our goodnight sms tonight:

One major down side of long distance relationship is doubts. (Though I see it happening in real life too). An idle mind is the playground of devils, they say. But a mind that never rests is much worse. I'm often exhausted by these waves of emotions that eat away the better of me. I've had my fair share of it, I'm tired. I long to be somewhere where the water is calm and the mountains stand tall and proud, where there's no clouds in the sky and the sun is always shining. What we have is as close as it comes, but I begin to think that I may never get there. I'm sorry that I cant do better, but I'm so afraid of you hurting me. They say when you choose to love someone, you give them the power to hurt you. I often wonder where does this cruel game end. Of course, in my case it's often self-inflicted injury. (And I pray to God it stays that way). Goodnight now, bee. I love you too. Keep safe of my heart or return it in the mail. Seriously. :)

Great.