LETTING MY GUARDS DOWN

DISCLAIMER: for those of you who personally know me, i'd prefer it if you guys skip this entry. actually, it's for your own good. you might feel extremely nauseated after you finish reading this.


he's 25. the first time we established contact was when he sent me a message on myspace, asking if he can be friends with me (and he threw in some compliments just to indicate that he was interested la i guess). this happened the day after i got back to d*bai after my raya holiday, about 2 months ago. i checked out his profile. very cute (in my opinion la kan). instant attraction. and i scrutinised his page a little bit just to get an indication of the type of person he is. he seemed decent enough. so naturally, i replied.

after exchanging a few messages on myspace, we exchanged ym ids. started chatting on ym after that.. day by day. he works in shifts, which is convenient to the both of us due to the time zone difference (he's in kl btw) and the fact that sometimes they block ym in my office.

we started chatting on ym. being someone who has been doing this online dating thing for the last 2-3 years, there was nothing that really distinguished this guy from the rest of the guys i chatted with (well, except for the fact that i find him extremeeeely cute). he didn't impress me with his canggih choice of words... neither did he charm me with sweet nothings (aiyoo... i cant believe i wrote that. i told you some of you will vomit didn't i?). but bit by bit, i learned to be amazed by his honesty.. and by him. just by being himself.

his honesty struck me when i first ask for his real name (i usually ask for people's name so that i can google them up..hehehe). this was on the 4th or 5th day of chatting kot. he refused to give me his name then. "too soon to tell you". that's what he said. being an (almost) expert on online dating (can i call it that?), i can tell you that nnot many people would give this answer. they either tell the truth, or they'd make up a name for you. once they think that they are prepared to tell you their name, they'll say "actually nama i bukan .... it's actually ....". but his answer, was unheard of before. i was instantly impressed. (anyway now i know his real name la.. and even his ic no. but nothing came up after i googled the name la).

and he is brutally honest when it comes to telling things about himself. there were some unflattering bits about his childhood and even about his life now, but he was never ashamed to tell me about it. being someone who has been blessed with a comparatively better childhood, i learned a few things from his stories. i learned to be more grateful (which i always seem to forget to be) and i learn to admire him. admire him for being able to pull through. and somehow, it made me feel that he deserves to be loved by someone. and i want to be that person (nausea alert)

it is obvious that we lead somewhat different lives. and he may not be the person who i had pictured myself with before. i guess i've learned that the person i had pictured myself may not even exist. even if he exists, he may not be gay. even if he is gay, he may not be available. even if he's available, he may not like me (i can go on forever with this). i've always pictured being with someone who shares the same level of education with me, same level of 'language proficiency' (for lack of a better word), same level of 'economic status' (also for lack of a better word) someone who is stupendously funny and kind but MUCH cuter than me (hehehe). this guy doesn't really fit the aforementioned criterias (i'm writing smses in bahasa melayu sekarang yeee). but after a few years of searching, i think it's time i throw away all these criterias out the wondow and just find someone whom i think deserves me (wahh!!). and (fingers crossed) i think may have found him.

before, i never wrote anything about my current love interests. i always thought that if things don't work out, i would be embarrassed. so i only wrote about relationships which already did not work out when i wrote them (keeping in line with the 'pathetic' theme of my blog). i was holding back. but i have to say that i've changed a little bit now. this current relationship(?) has changed me. i don't hold back so much anymore. once i got rid of the criterias and learned to go with the flow, i learned to be more accepting of the other party. once i became more accepting, i learned to be more honest with my feelings. and expressive with it too. previously, i'd feel geli just to say that "i miss you" to someone. now with him, i say it like 5 times a day. without the slightest feeling of geli. i realised that i may not be as emotionally unavailable as i thought i was (phew). so in the spirit of being expressive and letting my guards down, i am writing this entry.

i'm going back to kl tonite. to my family, i'm using the hari raya haji as a pretext to go home. the truth is, i'm not really going back because of raya haji. i'm going back because i need to see him. i don't think i can do this any longer - having feelings with someone i've never met. it's not the 1950's where you fall in love with a pen pal but you can't do anything about it (at least that's how things were as my mom told me). i'm going back because i just need to see this person who i have been falling for in the last 2 months. the person whom i can't seem to stop thinking about everyday. the person who has given me enough joy that other people started commenting that i look "happier" nowadays.

fingers are crossed. wish me luck.

oh, and selamat hari raya aidiladha

THE DAY THAT I RODE MICHEAL JACKSON

"what is your name, my friend?" i asked the kid who was manuevring the animal that i was riding on.

"my name is abdulla. and the camel's name is michael jackson." he said non-chalantly.

there i was, riding on michael jackson, trying to absorb what i was seeing in front of my eyes. i looked to my left - it was the pyramids. i looked to my right - more pyramids. amidst the clear blue sky, they look so majestic. in my mind, i kept on saying "chances are, you are not going to see this view again for the rest of your life. so absorb it, goddamnit! absorb!!!" but i didn't know how to absorb it. it was so surreal. and with me riding the camel (while clinging to my life as i held on to the small handle-thing in front of the pedestal) in between the pyramids, the view was just astounding.

the OTHER thing that was going on in my mind was whether the camel owner (the kid's boss) just ripped my off or not. 200 bucks for a 20-minute camel ride? what do these camels eat? caviar?

yeah - i'm in egypt now. it's the first time i've ever stepped foot in africa. i'm in my second league of my company-sponsored holiday (hehehe). since it's the weekend, i decided to do what every single visitor to this country must do (or forever hold their peace) - visit the pyramids. since i'm alone here, i decided to engage a tour guide to help me with my little adventure. spoke to the concierge last night and requested him to arrange for a tour guide. "make sure he's very good in english ok?" i said (i realised that the people in this country may not be as proficient in english as the people in lebanon, or dubai for that matter. so there was a need to stress that point). "yes, sir. of course".

so today exactly at 8.30 (i'm always punctual, i don't know why i'm ranked no. 6th as "the most punctual" in facebook! tipu betul) i went down to the lobby. i was hoping to meet a handsome young man who would be paying 100% attention to me (i arranged for a private one-to-one tour guide), guiding me to the tricks and turns of the city and the pyramids. but instead, what greeted me, was a handsome young woman. ceh..

so off we went to the first destination - the egptian museum. there was a whole lot of people there (which was a stark contrast from my visit to the lebanese museum where there had more staff than visitors). this place looked like jusco on a jcard day! most of the people came in groups (there was actually a group from malaysia, who looked like they were trying so hard to appear intelligent for no apparent reason) and accompanied by a tour guide. i on the other hand, looked like i was on a date with an egyptian chick.

the egytian chick's name, by the way, is margo. she was by far the prettiest tour guide in the museum. and she appeared quite knowledgeable too (she told me to be a certified tour guide in egypt, one needs to take a 4-year course. gila kan?). the only problem was, she spoke english with a very thick arabic accent that you really need to strain your ears and pay attention to understand what she says. whenever she spoke, i had to look at another direction and really concentrate to pick up what she was talking about. penat ok? and to make things worse, since i do not speak english with a arabic accent, she had a problem understanding me! so much for my special request kan..

the museum was interesting enough to me. it would have been a lot more interesting if a had more interest in history. the problem is i had very little interest in history, especially ancient history. i mean, how do we know that what the experts interpreted are actually true? could it be that the dudes back in ancient egypt just wanted to play a prank on us (the future civilisation) by inscripting purely bogus stories on the monuments? just because tutankhamun had a hole in his skull, does that mean he was killed because someone banged his head with a hard object? couldn't he have died from an overdose of viagra and THEN had his skull punctured for some unknown reason? if it could happen in csi, it could happen in ancient egypt ok?

but even with all the skepticism and ear-straining, i did learn quite a few things about ancient egypt (but i'm also quite sure that i'm going to forget most of it in a couple of years' time). so knowing that my memory may not able to serve me well in the later years, i concentrated on things that would be able to serve me a longer. that's right, photos. i took lots and lots of photos in the trip. and margo became my victim. she must be cursing inside (maybe even out loud - i wouldn't know. i couldn't understand her), but she pretty much obliged. unfortunately, she's not a very good photographer. i made her take SIX shots in front of the sphinx because she kept slicing the sphinx's head in the photo.

all in all, it felt like one of my dreams coming true. ok la.. maybe not a dream. just a vision. i had always wanted to visit the pyramids, had my photo taken with the pyramids as the background. and now i've done it. but it would have been much better if i had a friend accompanying me in the trip to share the experience. AND if i had a better tour guide. AND if i had not been conned by the camel guy (just found out from a friend that he paid HALF of what i paid for his camel ride a few months back). THEN it would have been perfect.