I recently had a good chat with Claudia, my feisty go-getter Singaporean friend who's also based in Myanmar like me.
And like me, we're both back in Singapore because of the recent political events there.
Two years ago, we met in a party in Yangon and we both hit it off.
Soon, our friendship blossomed.
Our typical Saturday includes a serious swim session before we head out for lunch with other friends.
"Anything clean and long always gets me very excited," Claudia tells me the other day after a long and hard swim.
"And I"m not just referring to pools."
God works in mysterious ways, and somehow, even in Myanmar, I have found Stanley my sex bunny friend.
Claudia, who's only a few years younger than I, is both a straight man's fantasy and nightmare at the same time.
She's svelte and curvy from all the workouts she puts herself through (HIIT and kickboxing one day, running another, then swimming on weekends), and is of course a bright mind.
But that makes her terribly intimidating because she is so smart, she puts a lot of egoistic men in their place.
But once in a while Claudia, doesn't mind those egoistic men putting it in her place.
Claudia believes in both short- and long-term romance.
Here is a woman who is not shy with her body - and her feelings.
"I do want a relationship - something romantic, something warm and fuzzy. I'll be honest. All girls want that," Claudia tells me one morning as we both lay on the pool deck, both of us spent from doing continuous laps.
"But I'm not going to be like most girls, hoping and planning for such romance which is totally beyond the control of just one party, you know."
"So I'm happy to be that self-contented single girl who has both the open mind of dating and sleeping around, while also ready to mingle."
I didn't dare ask Claudia what she meant by self-contented but I somewhat have an idea.
Claudia's words resounded with me - not that I'm also single.
But I imagine I'd be like Claudia if I were single: Someone who embraces singlehood and not see it as some sort of unsavoury status tag.
Later that week, I revisited the topic of singlehood.
It got me thinking.
Are the mindsets of gays and gals - and even straight guys - different when dealing with singlehood?
Apart from biological differences which puts a timeline on a woman's hatching eggs, are we that different when we view singlehood?
Claudia's frank thoughts were refreshing because she embraces both casual sex and long-term romance, whichever comes her way first.
Yet, she's careful to sit firmly on the fence in the meantime, careful to not lean either way lest she starts favouring one aspect more.
And I think her values - if they can be called so - should be universal to all singles, gay or gals or guys.
I have single gay friends who, while are very open to casual sex (some, a bit too wide open), are also constantly, constantly yearning for romance.
The type who hopes that every One Night Stand encounter can lead to long-term romance. The type who visits a sauna, gets laid, and then wants to have children with that man.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
But many of such friends forget to enjoy the moment for what it is: Just enjoy the ONS as it truly is, don't delude yourself into treating it as something else, and then move on.
'Cos the moment we mis-categorise something - such as thinking an ONS partner can actually become our Prince Charming - then we risk fitting our emotions into the wrong box too, and more often than not, it would mean feeling hurt when what we could have felt was bliss.
Recognising this is one thing.
Putting this in practice is another.
And I have yet to come across another Claudia.
Carl my dense friend for instance, is constantly looking for his next long-term romance since he broke up with his long-time partner Ah Boy years ago.
Since then, he's not keen on casual sex, dating only because he constantly, constantly wants to feel belonged. Wants to feel attached. Wants to feel wanted.
And in the process, Carl has stopped enjoying the benefits of singlehood.
He can flirt with anyone in the gym and get away with it, but he doesn't.
He can choose to go shopping - or travelling - alone, spend time with himself and enjoy some quiet peace, but he doesn't.
He can decide to do something major in his life like quit his job and join the circus (in Carl's case, he's more likely to join the gym full time), or get a disastrous tattoo without his partner objecting, but he doesn't.
Stanley my sex bunny friend is on the other extreme end.
He no longer believes in long-term romance.
After searching for that elusive man all his life, Stanley decided that he's not going to waste time shopping in the wrong department.
So these days he shops online (mainly Grindr and Tinder) and he gets what he wants with instant gratification.
Fuck, chuck, fuck, chuck - move aside guys, Stanley is on a roll. Don't get in the way!
In the straight world, I have best girl friend Nisa who doesn't date casually, but doesn't go all out to find her future husband, yet, bears some hope that if he comes, he will come.
Stanley would often chide Nisa saying that a man will not just come. "You'll have to do something to his sensitive bits for him to come, girl. And it's hard work - they don't call it a hand job and blow job for nothing."
On the other hand, I have straight friends who cannot stand singlehood and successfully shed off that tag, only to land themselves in another shithole.
A handful of girls I know, who upon reaching the eggs-is-hatching stage of their lives, settle for the first man that comes along.
Their husbands are often not the type of men they had previously imagined them to be.
You can tell that it's a mismatch, but who am I to judge?
They seem happy.
I also have a handful of guy friends who have great hearts and are kind souls but aren't exactly god's gift to women.
They too, don't want to be single, so they ventured out to as far as China and Vietnam to get a wife.
They too, seem happy.
Again, I shouldn't judge.
I'm merely pointing out that some of us have very different mindsets when it comes to dealing with singlehood.
Some hate it but live grumpily with it. Some embrace it. Some are okay with it but want to get rid of it as soon as possible like it's an annoying zit.
And then there is Claudia, doing that fine balancing act of enjoying whatever comes her way - guiltlessly.
If I were single, I wonder what type of single I might be.
I'm actually quite afraid to find out.
I think there is some difference in terms of "playing around" while single -- between gay guys and women.
ReplyDeleteFor women, especially if potentially looking at getting married, having a long history can be a very bad thing. Most men are not going to marry a woman who has slept with 10, 20, 50 guys.
Unless she choose to lie to her potential husband.
With gay guys, generally this is not going to crop up as an issue.