Many Indonesian idiosyncracies endear me to the country, and oddly enough, one of them is the need for Indonesians to match-make any single, unattached people they meet. They are generally curious, if not a bit perplexed, when you tell them that you're single especially when they think that you're the kind of person who shouldn't have any trouble finding a partner.
Here's what happened to me at the airport earlier. While waiting for my delayed Air Asia flight to Jakarta I struck up a conversation with two forty-ish Indonesian ladies. They were on a girls-only vacation to KL without their husbands and children. When the conversation topic touched upon my marital status they were surprised to find out that I'm still single. They looked at each other, nodded with some sort of implicit understanding and a mischievous grin that signaled a devious plot that seemed to have me as the central character. Oh no! I knew that look because I've seen it many times before. One of them immediately told me that she has a niece in her mid-twenties who is quite a looker and most importantly she's single. And of course they wanted to set me up with her!
They made me promise not to leave the Jakarta airport without telling them first and it so happened that the very same niece they were telling me about was coming to pick them up. So I waited with them outside of the airport while itching to get on a taxi to go to Jeremy's place. Fortunately for me, the so-called niece got stuck in the notorious Jakarta rush hour traffic, which meant that it would take her forever to get to airport. I used this as an excuse to escape as I told them I had to rush into the city to have dinner with my friends. But before they let me leave I had to give them my Indonesian hp number and made me to promise to have dinner with them and the niece when I get back from Kalimantan next Monday. Oh Lord!
I'm not sure to call this a blessing or a curse but one thing for sure, it's very typical of Indonesia. I used to get so many match-making offers when I was living in Kalimantan that I lost count of them. It's flattering for sure to be deemed as a prospective partner for their close relations but at some point it does get kind of annoying and invasive. For now I'm just going with the flow - just for the heck of it.
2 comments:
High time for me to head to indonesia to get hitched. or rather to get a fixer do it on my behalf..haha
hahaha... tu la psl. nanti ko gi jakarta mana tau ada makcik2 kat sana boleh tolong match-make...tp seriously, they find it as strange kalau kau still single at the age when you should be married with 4 kids! they think you're not really happy until you have a wife/husband. being single usually implies that the person is a loser or some other social stigma...
Post a Comment