Should I say I do?

As I was writing this, I was basking under the shy October sun, in front of OU old wing waiting for Alien and Queen to arrive from the ‘Do It’ island. The Raya month has sucked my energy away and robbed all my inspiration to write on meaningful stuffs (like I ever wrote a lot of them, lah! Hehe).

My concentration level is also suffering because of so much random thoughts floating inside my mind. I kept on wondering about what to cook this weekend, which open house I should attend first, how many I can afford to skip, what not to cook again (after some disastrous misadventures at the kitchen).

Oh I need to learn on how to compartmentalize my mind. Men are good at it while women need to master it slowly. Men are too good at compartmentalizing and categorizing their thoughts that they have problem remembering important dates, our relatives’ names and the color of the blouse we’re wearing today.

Go and ask any guy you know, if he had to pick his spouse up at the train station or a shopping complex, what would be his greatest concern? It’s definitely not about finding his way to the place; I’m sure the guy would know at least 5 alternative routes from Bukit Bintang to KL Central. Instead, the guy would be doing a virtual search in every corner of his brain for the last image of the spouse before she went out that day. He had to know the color and female attire he should be scanning for in the crowd in order to locate his spouse. This information is always stuck in men’s ‘less-important-thing-to-remember’ mind compartment.

To all ladies out there, the cloth you’re wearing is not something a man would really pay much attention to, so let’s not waste too much time in front of the mirror trying out 15 pairs of baju kebaya for a night out with him because he’d be more interested to enjoy your companionship.

It would be better to invest more time and money in polishing your culinary skills, learn how to tell dirty/sexy jokes, watch F1, follow football leagues’ matches or even start reading the sports section.

Appearance is important but these days many men appreciate character and sense of humour more.

Suddenly the Morning Topic at Light.Fm this morning came to mind. It's related to relationship and marriage. There is this genius professor in Washington who came up with a calculus equation that he claims is 94% accurate in determining the fate of your marriage. He also claims that he can use the mathematical method to estimate when a married couple will be divorced.

So, many people called the radio station voicing their disagreement to such test. Most of them insisted that when it comes to matters of the heart, one should follow the heart. Should you think that you’ve found ‘that’ someone, even if both of you decided to take the professor’s test and the result came out negative, that is you’re not compatible with each other, it doesn’t make sense for you to just drop any marriage plan and have a break-up.

Okay, before you read further, please follow this link to read about the test. (Otherwise, I’m sure you’ll be sending me hate mails after you finish reading my posting).

Remember the dialogue in ‘Wedding Crasher’? It’s the one between the father and the first daughter at the florist right before the wedding of the second daughter. The father told the first daughter that people can only make decision based on whatever information they have at present. We’ll never know what will happen in the future. There’s nobody or no tool available that can warn a couple that their relationship will be doomed in a few years’ time. In this movie, the father was advising the first daughter to just follow what her heart says. Hey, that’s exactly what I would tell my friends who are in a similar situation.

However, after reading about this professor’s test I started to think otherwise. During the phase where you’re only seeing the good things in your partner, the mind was subconsciously suppressing any small annoying things that later in the marriage life could be pricking you day and night. Usually big problems in marriages are caused by little things you hate in your partner or things that you failed to adapt to even after years of trying. Big things don’t happen all the time, but the little things can happen 24 times a day and they’re enough to break a relationship.

I’m no expert in this, but if you decided to take that test and the result come out negative, spend some more time with your partners to learn more about them and most importantly, learn more about yourselves. Women are usually worried about whether the men of their choices would love and commit 100% to them after marriage, but how many of us think the other way round? Will we be able to deliver as well?

I’m not against people who only follow their hearts. Marriage is about survival and a big gamble. It’s such a beautiful thing that I don’t think any of us should decide not to go through it at least once in our lives.

Okay, you can send me your hate mails now.