Something meant to be shared 真水无香

          Just as how I imagined, the dinner with two of them are rather fun! Guys are really competitive, especially when they are trying to impress a woman. What were we talking about, we told about everything, from the trend of outsourcing market to jokes, yada yada yada… the conversations are interesting, but the subtlety and underline meanings are even more interesting.

…

Me: Your (Matteo) Chinese has improved a lot

Matteo: yea, because I practice with my colleagues in china a lot

…

I looked at Fabio, smile, continued,

…

Me: I think the most effective way to learn a local language is to find a local girlfriend or boyfriend

Fabio: yes, sure

…

And I looked at Matteo, had little smile at corner of my month, said,

Me: so, Matteo, has your Bahasa Indonesian improved lately?

Matteo is trying to use his eye to kill me, I have to say he is really good at using eyes to talk. Apparently he is going out an Indonesian in china in the last two weeks. Fabio is lost there for a second.

…

Matteo: why should I improve my Bahasa since everybody speaks English Nowadays? (He had a little victory smile on his face, heh, what you are trying to talk me Matteo!)

Anyway, I continued,

Me: well, Indonesian girls are very pretty, right, Fabio?

Fabio has finally found his stand,

…

Fabio: yea, they are! (he looks at Matteo), so you can communicate with them better, hahaha….

Me: but Fabio would like to improve his Chinese right?

I looked in Matteo’s eye, pretend very casual, then looked at Fabio and gave him a wonderful smile…

…

Fabio: Yes. (And he looked down, he was a little shy.)

I looked away from Fabio and captured Matteo’s raised right eyebow, don’t really know why, but I feel little satisfied.

…

          There were few classic moments like this through out this night. The invisible struggles, the competitions, the game. Well, I feel good with the reunion with these two old friends, at same time, even something has changed, the desire has never changed. In fact it is getting stronger, and bond us even closer, in a ‘strange’ way.

…

          In end of the night, before Fabio sent me home, Matteo told me in my ear, “This is unfair!”

“Why is it unfair?” I pretended innocent.

“You know this is unfair, because I can’t behave the way I wanted to behave!”

“Really?”

…

          I smiled and slowly kissed him on his cheek near the corner of his month, and walked to the cab, “Fabio is waiting for me, goodnight my dear, hope you will sleep tight.”

          Fabio and Matteo are coming back to KL together this Sunday. I can picture three of us having dinner on the same table - This is gonna be interesting. Ha! Well, nothing to hide, I have made my choice. And I know they will respect my choice.

Short intro: Fabio is Matteo’s direct boss, as well as one of the major shareholders in the company (AGV). I got introduced to Matteo by Fabio a year ago when Matteo was relocated in Asia-pacific. And Matteo and I get along very well after spending lot of time when he comes down to KL for business every month.

           I’ve been thinking about investment lately. I think it comes to an age that I have to think of long term returns in future, see that’s another sign of aging. Anyways, I don’t think I can’t afford high risk type of investments, and living in KL has constricted my few other options like Unit Trust, even insurance options are very limited for me.

          What are the options left for me? Properties? Where? Too long returns? Can someone give me some advise please!

          Working on a relationship has never been easy. Some times, all the problems could actually caused by a same core issue. Dig deeper, the core issue could be insecurities, upbringings, communications and etc. I believe lot of couples experienced that same problems can always come back again and again. It is a result of unsolved core issue that’s causing the same sort of problems.

          Let’s use me and Al as an example. There are few fundamental issues we have to deal with…

Be My Man

          I afraid that Al some times is not ‘man’ enough for me (please excuse me). I am independent woman, but there are times I needed him to stand up for me, make feel I have been well protected. I seldom get that feeling from him. I want and needed him to know when is the time he has to be the man for me.

Where is the key to your deep feelings?

          You might say that women generally feel more comfortable at expressing their feelings. It’s true. What I want from him is not yet to express his feelings. What I wanted badly is for him to recognize his own feelings, and gives a general thought on it. Acknowledge your own feelings is important, for both women and men. Knowing him, he’d rather choice the easiest way out, ignores these feelings and thoughts instead of dealing with them.

Being and Doing

          I am a ‘being’ person. He’s a ‘doing’ person. I like to just being with him, doing nothing, having a cup of tea, talk about everything and anything, and I feel comfortable and fulfilling. For him, he needs to do something, either play a chess game or watch a DVD or something. He doesn’t generally feeling comfortable to not to do anything but just being in a company, and I am the opposite of it. 

Am I Replaceable?

          As a result of not sharing the deep feelings, it has caused insecurities in our relationship. I will feel someone could replace me if I don’t feel deeply connected with Al. The most profound connections between two people are through conscious effort of communication, honesty and sharing.

          We need to recognize these core things, and by acknowledge them, we both will be able to dealing with them progressively.  See, these are the things that I can’t ask him to change for me. I can ask Al to change/improve some of the bad habits like lacking of self discipline, disorganizations and poor time management, but not to change who he is.

          I am sure he has sets of things about me that drive him mad some times too, such as the occasionally ‘abusiveness’ and ‘child side of me’. Generally, we are on same page – bad ones, and of course, as well as the good ones.

          I was browsing through one of the gossip magazines during my lunch break, and one of the articles really caught my eyes…it is about the marriage between Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas.

          When reporter asks her what was the secret of their marriage, and she answered, “Kindness and communication.” She continued, “I never hang up the phone without telling Michael I love him, even when we are having a fight.”

          What touches me the most is the ‘kindness’ part. See, when we angry and upset, we are more likely letting the anger blow us away, and worst scenario, we start to using nasty words (this is also including classic example ‘passive aggressiveness’) to abuse each other – a war started. That’s why sometimes we feel ‘love hurts’. To control our emotions and remind ourselves to be ‘kind’ to the person we love seems very logical, however it is not easy, at less I find it not easy, almost impossible. All the resentments, all the confusions and all emotions.. Your head is spinning, your heart is aching…..How can you keep your head clear?? How can you drag yourself out of this chaotic?? Kindness - The basic respect to all human beings, basic yet often forgotten.

          This also reminds me of my parents, I’ve seen them fight sometimes, and my mum likely to use hurtful words to release her anger and attacking my dad. When I see this kinda situations (though my dad might not always be right), I made mental note that I won’t repeat the same mistake my mum made. I said to myself this is not the ‘me’ I see myself.

          And I forgot.

          I’ve shown Al and myself the ‘worst’ of me when I got upset. And I hate it. I hated myself at that moment. Where is my manner, my kindness? Where is the respect we have for each other – I ask myself after each unpleasant incident? I am guilty. The hardest part is, even I am not entirely wrong, even Al has part of the responsibility to the problems, we still can handle it with grace, with kindness, why can’t we!

          Hurting is part of loving when it’s worth for something. Couples, let’s remember the ‘kindness’ that we all have in us.

          You should!

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