Great Expectations.

I realize, I was, am scared, just dead scared.

A lot of people say it’s all up to you. Up to you to choose who you like, up to you to find somebody. If you don’t, it’s because you never tried hard enough. But is it true, really?

It’s a little funny perhaps, but the closest analogy I can find for this right now in my tiny limited span of existence was finding my bike Faith. You know when I got the money to buy myself a new bike, I was ecstatic. I thought I had found the one. And then God says, no, it doesn’t belong to me, that money belongs to a deaf girl who needs the money for an operation to hear again- how did that feel? It was terrible. The money was gone, it was over. Nothing else, no matter how much it caught my eye, satisfied me, because I knew it wasn’t mine. It didn’t fit. There was no peace.

People always say, wait for the right one. He’ll come. But you know, at that time, when there were so many right bike fits at the time, none of them were truly right. There was no peace. Until we found the bike called Faith. And God used my friends to perform a miracle. Then things became… right. I could’ve gotten any of the previous bikes we’d gone to view before, but none would have had a story half as beautiful as that which we waited for.

Sometimes I feel there’re so many people out there who could be the right fit. And they could all turn out to be pretty darn good people. So why the excruciatingly long wait?

Two days ago, as we sat amazed at how soon I would graduate to become a doctor finally, my dad asked me how come I "didn’t bother" to "spend some time looking out for someone" in university. It was, according to him, the best time to “find someone”.

“I don’t like boys in medicine,” was my reply.

“What’s wrong with them?”

"Nothing. It's just that I don't like, you know, "chilling" with people from a similar field."

"I'm sure they don't talk medical all the time."

This wasn't working.


“I don’t know, dad. Maybe I find them too busy, too stressed. Too… stuck up.”

Well, obviously, this isn’t true. But I had to say something.

Yesterday, a much older friend asked me, “So dear, how do you find C?” All this while, my friend had been trying to get us to go out. We did, we sort of hung out, but I think as usual, I make a lot of my guy friends feel like a buddy more than anything else.

“I thought you two had chemistry.”

“Yea, we did. But…”

“But what?”

“He’s a great buddy, that’s all. Heh. I don’t know, I mean, you know the guys in medicine? Like people I hang and chill out with? They’re perfect gentlemen...”

“Like how? And so?”

“Like around them, I’d never have to open my own door or clear my own plate or find my own chair. And if it’s raining I can count on someone to give me a lift. These people are only my acquaintances. Haha, so... er... it’s their fault that they’ve raised my baseline cos right now, I’m definitely one spoiled princess with a very high baseline and low threshold for unchivalrous behaviour.”

“Wait a minute. Who are these guys you speak of?”

“Medicine guys.”

“And you told your dad and me that they’re too busy, too stressed and STUCK UP. Look who’s the STUCK UP ONE!”

And we bowled over with laughter because we knew it was true.

The thing is, part of me sort of wonders, if there would ever be that right one. Dad always says I should go out more, be less busy, see more people. But that part of me which sees the end first could never go out with someone without an end in mind. What's the point? Like the time when my friends kept asking me to view bikes with them, I said no. Please don’t make me waste my time, you don’t understand, I’ve given the money away, I’m not getting it back, this is painful. Don't you understand, I can't get a bike anymore.

But they made me go anyway, so I guess when they finally found my bike, I knew just how good it was. It’s not perfect, but I liked it more than any of the ones we’d seen.

My friend had driven all the way from home to the hospital to pick me up for lunch, simply because it was raining and there was no shelter from the National Skin Centre.

"See, people like you.... spoil me!" I laughed.

"Hey, it's not my job to be mean to you. YOU, have to manage your expectations."

So heck, maybe I just should. Go out and see people. Let them take me out.


But that's not the only decision I'll have to make. I'll first have to decide not to be half as stand-offish and resist the urge to put something out there, say something that totally puts sixty feet between the other person and I. I know I'm pretty darn good at that.

Okay. I've decided. I'm taking dad's advice then. But really, I've always found non-medical people more interesting, heh.

Ah well, we'll see.