*My Passion: Food & Travel*

(It's a re-post from my old FS blog dated on Aug 14.2007)

"What's wrong with being single?" My friend blurted out that question few days ago. He was worried for my intensive soul-mate searching project nowadays. He questioned whether my heartache has been healed. I answered: when the right time and the right person have come, I will know and shall be ready for it.

I am thankful to have a number of friends whom I can turn to, shoulders to cry on, best buddies to hang out with, whenever I need a companion. Of course, I have never left them before. I have always tried to manage my time, spend it with my friends, family and also loved one, between work, school and leisure time.

I have a friend, she was quite young when she decided to get married and settled down. While other girls were planning to enroll the University, she was planning her wedding ceremony. She decided that high school was enough. She has found her call by being a dedicated housewife. Sadly to say, her marriage fell apart just few years afterwards. I have no idea what went wrong, maybe she was just too young after all.

Another friend of mine, she has the brain, beauty, skills, talent, well-educated and inherited quite a bunch of fortune from her old man. We always thought she would find a job, reached her dreams and so on. She said she wanted to work overseas, had a promising career and a loving family. It rather surprised me while we found out later on: she let her dream as a career woman flew away and substituted by being a housewife only. Of course a housewife is the noblest job a woman could have, but deep inside my head I am still questioning her choice. Why bother taking the undergraduate degree and its entire struggle if we just want to settle down and build a nest? As for my humble opinion, I think she wasted her skills and talent. It’s different when her talent or desire is purely a housewife and motherly thing (fyi, I have another friend like that. I am not surprised to see how a good wife and mother she becomes now), but my friend is nothing like that. She barely cooks, cannot sew, does not like to clean the house et cetera. Of course I appreciate and admire her decision, as long as she is happy, but still I can not comprehend these entire things completely and surely her life style is not suitable for me.

My other friend is a single independent clever bright and successful business woman. She is so smart that chickened out the other Professors. She has a sky-rocketed career, abundance of paychecks, a charming personality, a good look, but we are all wondering sometimes; why hasn't she found her soul mate yet? Some people came out with the theory that most eligible bachelors out there, were terrified and felt intimidated by her accomplishment. Of course she has her own predetermined criterion of what kind of man that may suitable for her. Those criterions surely will be revised later on, according to her raising status and all those achievements she will accomplish in the future. I admire that she takes it easily. She embraces life and not sweats the small stuffs like love and romance. Deep down inside, I know (she told me once) that she is still searching for her better half. The time is harshly ticking and I wish her luck. She deserves it more than anything in the world.

I have another friend who has a university degree, good job and was happily married. I underlined the word: was. Yes, unfortunately her marriage fell apart. I did not know what went wrong; I did not dare to ask. But I admire her courage to struggle; amidst the hardships she has remained. I remember another famous religious leader who turned out to be a polygamist. My respect for him was drowning instantly. I condemn Polygamy and all its elements. I thought his first wife would love to leave him if she had a choice. Since she was a humble and dependent housewife then she pretended to be happy and accepted her fate instead. In this case, if the similar problems crash to me in the future (I do hope not *knocking-wood*). I will follow my friend’s way, just pack your bag and leave the lousy bastard then focus on raising the innocent children alone. We are independent and mature women who do not need men to feed ourselves.

Looking back to the many interpretations of women in today’s world, I am still dreaming of combining all of those things above. I would like to be a successful career woman, I want be able to live independently without male’s domination, I want to pursue my dreams in terms of educational and professional achievements. Nevertheless, I also eager to find a soul whom I can share my dreams, deepest thought and be the air that I need to breath, every single moment until the day we die.

There is a phrase I shall remember:
You don’t marry someone you can live with, but you marry someone you cannot life without.

Back to the above mentioned subject, the answer of my friend's question is: Nothing’s wrong with being single, I enjoy every moment of it. I am and will enjoy my daily life at its fullest. I can do many things I have never thought or dreamed before.

Yet, since I am not planning to be a Catholic Nun or destined to follow the celibacy way of life, so I do hope my single life will not take forever *crossed-fingers again*

pic from:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jlv/lowres/jlvn45l.jpg