Love is a Tinder thing

If you're on Tinder and happen to be in Jakarta at some time, it won't be strange if you come across my Tinder profile. Just like others who portray their personality as: 1) that perfect friend surrounded by a lot of people (so you may not look like a lone, miserable human being), 2) adventure-seeker or trend-watcher drenched in curiosity-inducing activity (you're not going to THAT concert? Or, oh hi, I like to do bungee jump in my spare time), and 3) all featuring your own face in the most stunning way possible (that perfect angle? that God-just-so-flawless-lighting accompanied with #iwokeuplikethis #after25minsofmakeupofc), then you will see a photo of me, wearing Minnie ears headband complete with the bow... sitting right in front of my office desk.

Okay so, the first thing I need to clarify is: although the photo suggests otherwise, I am a die-hard fan of the Duck couple. Since Daisy's pink bow is less iconic than mouse's ears, also up to this point Disney haven't invented wearable beak (in which I'm 100% sure it will help me to get more matches), so I chose to wear the headband that I bought at a Disney on Ice event a couple of years ago.

Looking at that particular photo, a guy from Japan, according to his personal standard, asked if I happened to be a supermodel. For a split second, I thought he really needs to take an eyesight test.

Talking about another Japanese expat (now you can guess my type!), which actually also the first time I met someone from Tinder—I ended up alone in my rent room, confused at how rude he was when we were having a light drink. He was talking in his broken English about going to have a farewell party thrown for him at his apartment and occasionally emphasizing the word 'FUCKING' several times in his sentences, like, '...my FUCKING friends are going to have a FUCKING farewell party for me,' and I sincerely couldn't recall the rest since he hadn't mentioned anything that worth remembering and had the meaning of 'oh I should come with him'. The only good thing was, he left me, frustrated, with two Rp100k bills to pay for our drinks (which cost less than that and as a broke first-jobber, I kept the change. HA!) Later I learned two things from my poor ability in reading social cues: 1) that perhaps God had saved me from going home with that weirdo, and apparently, 2) this is also the reason I never had a boyfriend in my entire, soon-to-be 27 years old life. Dang it! (I'm so sorry for the guys who ever got close to me during my school and college years!—as I internally shout into the void of my memories.)




(to be continued)

26 out of 23

She's about to turn 27 soon, and she never believes in girls who long for a happy ending with a guy.

'Ending' itself is a sad word to her, a period—so why would they, the girls, be looking forward to something that ceases to exist? Especially, why would it only happen with a 'guy'?

And 'why only girls' you would ask? Because admit it: how often the term is used toward the opposite gender? Hm? Is it next to nothing?

It's infuriating already being born in the world as a girl, for it's only them who've been constantly reminded that their sole purpose in life is to find a knight in shining armor or a prince charming, perhaps even a Messiah—as if they're completely helpless and continuously need to be saved, or else they'd grow old and die a tragic death, as witches and stepmoms (the actual rebels) usually do.

To her, the conclusion is always this simple: that looking at marriage as a finish line is a questionable act.

'You just don't understand the context,' others would say when they heard her opinion about this. 'See it as something wonderful that finally happens to their long, mundane existence.'

She moves her body forward and smiles. 'What if I can propose a new idea?'

'Imagine if the mundane existence is something that other people—I mean, and please note that, people aside from anyone who identifies themselves as a woman—created because they knew we are way more superior than them?' she continues to babble with her hands wide open, rapidly moving here and there as if to catch something out of her reach. An idea, or better, an unimaginable idea, at least towards this girl who just happened to be thinking about it out loud.

'Like, how would you react if you knew from the beginning that princesses—who are, girls like us—could've had our happiness without competing with each other,' she coughs for a second and adds, 'Cinderella and such,' then proceeds her rant, 'and that the idea of...

(to be continued)

The hands that held too tight

Still taken from Crumb — Bones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD3iG6m44g8

Back in 2015, I wanted to clench happiness so hard I didn't realize that I had hurt my hands instead. I was trapped in the idea of happiness is something that you can feel with your hands but certainly forgot to read the asterisk that says handle with care because the next thing I knew, I already smashed it to bits.

The thing that I held dearly to my heart had slipped through my fingers, disappearing from my sight. The day that I was afraid of eventually happened. I couldn't keep it on my hands—heck, I think I was never ready even when it first came to me easily like a simple 'hi' on my screen. Bruises and fresh line of red greeted me as I looked at the place where it had positioned itself months ago. I sat down, and I let thoughts gushed out from my mind.

The words 'happily ever after' had been imprinted on my brain as an abstract concept that I needed to, at least, put it into some sort of shape. I demanded a concrete existence. I cannot be happy, as I said to myself, if I don't know for sure that the happiness I've been searching for has rested its wings in the palm of my hands—and just like that, I'd done everything to ensure it wouldn't go anywhere again.

Turned out, having it doesn't always mean that you're owning it. It was wrong, if not a dumb idea, to hold onto something just because you want to feel something.

I glanced over my hands for one more time. It tingled.

All I need at that time, I guess, were running water and some time to let it heal itself.

Close to the bottom

It was in mid-November that the message first came on her phone's Whatsapp. "Nar, what if you come with me?"

Despite knowing the context vaguely, for a split second, Nara thought it was just some kind of joke. "Come? As in, come to have a lunch with you?" She added a smiley icon just to make it seemingly more lighthearted. You know, in case the recipient didn't get that she's joking. Of course she's joking.

"No. As in, you're coming to work with me." The sender was Sarah, Nara's former boss in her current office. It's only been 4 months since Sarah's departure—a sort of heartbreaking, sort of ecstatic farewell that ended up with Nara vomited in the office's restroom at 3 in the morning because of the booze. And yet, a woman like Sarah asking Nara to join her? Nara couldn't believe it. Not that she's not capable of doing that, she can—although deep down she has this big pile of self-doubt ready to creep in anytime; she didn't think of it as something serious.

Nara replied, 'Nah... I think I'm not ready yet to do that.'

But in mere seconds the reply got in, 'Then I think..." The next chat arrived. "...we should meet first.'

Seven days after the messages, the two women (which one of them thinks she has yet to learn how to function as a woman) met on a breezy night in an intimate, quiet coffee shop in Melawai (when both of them aren't even a coffee drinker).

***

Nara is a junior in an industry that enjoys telling a captivating story, as much as selling it. Her interest in this industry has brought her to many places since her college, so it wasn't a surprise when she got hired in one place that celebrates young blood like her. There, she met Sarah.

(to be continued)

Nowhere in sight

"I don't get it. He has the whole galaxy resting on his palm, yet he's still searching into the vast sea of stars... looking for what? Debris and nothingness?"

But still, just to think that God himself is slightly interested in her, at least with her Tinder profile, makes her heart bloom; although she knows for sure that in his universe, she is the scrap. And just like any insignificant fragment, she longs for God to finally put attention to the detail that he made: her heart.

So she types the first 'hi', but what are the chances of him texting her back? The almighty has bigger things to be taken care of, she believes—like the melodious rhythm on his fingertips; the flowing commandments from his mouth; the galaxy, a she, that constantly creates a new life in his hand—but nothing like replying her simple message, she reckons, is in his agenda.

* * *

Just as she expected, days go by without a single answer. Sometimes, she wants to be an atheist, because the concept of disbelieving his existence is easier than committing herself to an unanswered prayer that, to her (who's never a religious devotee), equals to slow suicide.

Nevertheless, who knows that feeling head over heels with God can be so natural to her?

* * *

It takes less than 30 seconds to make her heart thuds like a beating drum, and more than 2 hours to make it back to its normal rhythm. All because that day when God texts back with a simple 'hi' arrives.

She tries hard not to sound too eager on her response. 'So... what kind of band are you in?' would suffice, she believes—as a conversation starter, and also, as a sign that she pays attention to the last two photos he posted. God and other celestial beings, she would murmur at the night she bumped onto his profile, looking at how youthful the band is. The night that ended with bewilderment and made her late to the class the next morning, with streams of existential questions occupying her head.

(to be continued)