CELLULOID LOVE

last monday a 49yr old colleague dramatically entered the office at 7.45am with a confession "I'm in love! I told my daughters that i'm in love with another man!". She didn't look bothered with the fact that she's in love with a man while her husband is still very much alive. My numb-by-the-freezing-kampung-tap-water mind paused, tried in vain to make sense of the confession and half a minute later asked "owh? with whom?". She beemingly answered "the man in twilight!" and handed me the DVD. "aaaahhhh...of course..." i said in bewilderment. At 39, I haven't fall in love with movie characters since Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. That was when I was in college, I was 19.

She coaxed me into watching the movie that made her fall in love again and convinced me that her 50-something sister had watched it for 13 times! So i watched last night. With my better half and his 19yr old niece - who seemed to appear as excited as my 49yr old colleague. This young lady, too, told me she had watched it more than 5 times by now. According to her it's "Romantik GILERRRRR". Fine. I played along. 30 minutes later, i still could not fall in love with that pale-skinned male vampire with overly applied blood-red lipstick (i'm not too big on guys wearing make up, to begin with). What i sensed was just a hormone-stricken teenage girl who'd rather date a vegetarian (they prey stricly on animals, not men, thus considered vegan in vampire's world) vampire than another hormone-raging-sepak-kertas-mengarut boy her age. The complication of the so-called relationship is that the vampy fights with his inner demon who is so intrigued by the smell of the girl's blood - that's the level of complication here. i find it really hard to relate to this, let alone falling in love with the vamp.

Another 30minutes later, i still questioned the rationale behind falling in love with this vampire, other than his cool factor of being strong, fast and can FLY (why can't she date a cadet pilot instead???). Beside that, he is literally COLD. He's dead, for crying out loud! Sick. Still, i stuck around, curious on the moment that I would experience the hormonal rush of falling in love with a fictional man. When the credits appeared, I was devastated. It did't happen. No feeling. No rush. Nothing. Nada. Yilek. Orak Eneng.

After my guests bid goodnight, I was running a thinking marathon of "why can't I fall in love with the vampire when everyone else, regardless of their phase in life - from post-puberty to pre-menopausal - are falling heads over heels with him?" I lay it out on my table of thoughts exactly like CSI spread all evidence on their fluorescent-lit-super-cool table.

There were many answers or rather hypotheses to the problem. My colleague married a Mat salleh, hence the ability to relate to the vampire-crap. I m with a Javanese. The only superstitious crap I can relate to is keeping a TOYOL. Second, her idea of romance is very much western influenced - taking her to prom, watching her sleep, taking her to a park in the storm to play baseball with his family. My man's idea of romance includes painting my kitchen wall orange/white stripes, spraying Paraquat on the weeds in my lawn, fixing my bathroom leaking taps and a fat seafood treat at a Chinese restaurant located in a Bagan! None of that appeared in the movie.

Or perhaps I had forgotten to be romantic? Perhaps after living in an emotional hardship for 6 years, I have lost my innocence. I believe innocence of some degree helps us in falling in love. Obviously my innocence had been reduced so significantly that the only love I have right now, is very much just the bare minimum. Enough to survive the relationship. Or maybe I am just too old to be able to relate to movies anymore. I mean, seriously, when I watched Pretty Woman, I swear that I was able relate to Julia Robert's character. And she was a hooker! Thinking back, how the hell did I actually think that was something that I can relate to???? But then again, I was 19.

This morning, I woke up feeling less horrible than last night. I came into conclusion that I have matured - mentally, emotionally and physically (hate the latter). No matter how much I love my youth and perky self 20 yrs ago, I just have to live with the fact that at 39, I now have some 'wrinkles' - mentally, emotionally and physically (though the latter is combatted zealously with loads of miracle creams). I'm fine with that. I'm letting go of it.