Reflections on Perth – 2001 (Nicole)

21 days left.

Tomorrow is the eve of Chinese New Year. One of the traditions of Chinese New Year’s Eve is the “tuan yuan fan” (reunion dinner), where members of the family get together around the dinner table. Its one of the many times I feel thankful and blessed to be part of this family.

Peking Duck

My parents and brother are touching down Perth tomorrow, so we can celebrate CNY as a whole family. Considering the circumstance, this very precious moment is something I am definitely going to cherish.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I would be lying if I say 2001 wasn’t the biggest and best year of my teenage life. In fact its so huge that it will probably be best if I write it in two parts. This is the first part on my reflections on 2001, and details my how my relationship with Nicole started. GFCB (girlfriend censorship board ;)) has given approval to put up pictures of her. So please enjoy the pictures before she changes her mind.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Australian PM John Howard refused permission because he declared that the refugees threw their children overboard.

Anyway, this claim was found to be untrue. The Australian public smartened up and in the next elections, John Howard was voted off.

Oh not wait. What am I talking about? This is Australia! I mean John Howard was RE-ELECTED as the Australian Prime Minister!

September 11th Terrorist Attack

Then on September 11th, two hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers in New York. 3,000 civilians dead. On October 7th, USA, UK, supported by Australia etc invaded Afghanistan hoping to capture Osama bin Ladin. The result – more than 20,000 dead on both sides. Osama bin Ladin must be laughing in his cave. In western countries, racism and negative sentiments against Muslims and Middle-Easterners surged almost immediately. This marked the start of a series of violence between the USA and poor developing nations, consequently changing the world we thought we knew, forever.

Enough world events. This isn’t CNN, this is Kenny’s blog dammit! 🙂 Its all about me Me ME!!!

Nicole and Kenny

My own life-changing event occured around January 2001. Nicole and I were still doing that online-chatroom thing. One evening, she asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend so she could ward off some unwanted guys who were going after her. We agreed to act it out for one month, after which we will just go our separate ways. So we began acting. The first few days were alright, and we talked to each other a lot all in the name of ‘research’ and ‘acting’, sometimes from 10pm till 7am the next morning. This online-chatroom-thing eventually turned into a phone-call-everynight thing. We were flirting with each other alright – we would call each other cutesy little nicknames that if I repeat here, would cause kennysia.com’s readership to drop by 90%. But we weren’t together because we were only acting.

One day before the one month expiry date is up, I suddenly felt this heartache inside me. I thought to myself "Shit! At first acting acting nia, how come now I got feelings for her?" I decided that I was not just going to let it end just like that! Once again I acted on impulse. Since these are all happening on the online chatroom, I figured I got nothing to lose apart from the size of my balls. So that night, I put on my straightest face and confessed my feelings to Nicole.

Tulips of Araluen

I wished I could tell you that beautiful words came out from me sweet like candy, and she was so touched that she cried and said that she secretly loved me all these while. But it didn’t. It came out in a mess. A total mess. Here’s what happened – after confessing my feelings to her, I asked her "Eh, can we don’t pretend to break up or not?". I could sense her pity for me when she replied "Ok lah! :)" when she probably meant "Stupid asshole. What a total failure trying to be romantic lah! You think I really like you ah? Dream on lah! I pity you nia, so I said yes just to make you happy."But I was still happy. Though now come to think about it, I never officially asked her to by my girlfriend. Oops!

This prompts me to question. Does a guy really have to ask a girl to be his girlfriend for it to be ‘official’? Can’t we just act naturally and assume that she is my girlfriend if we were doing everything lovers do? We’re not asking for a marriage proposal after all! I am interested to know how many boyfriends out there, like me, never bothered to pop the question because well… the answer is obvious enough!

20 Replies to “Reflections on Perth – 2001 (Nicole)”

  1. Huahua. My boyfriend never asked me also! I wanted him, so I climbed into his bed, literally. (Not to have sex lah!) And that was the beginning of our 2.5 year relationship. Still going strong neh.
    And that makes me laugh all the time, because it sounds so weird when I explain to people how it started.
    Come to think of it, not a single one of my ex-s “asked” me either. 😛

  2. aahh i loveloveLOVE peking duck [and tulips] with a passion! you’re so lucky to have your family around during this time. hmm regarding ur Q, lots of couples have never officialized it i guess but in my past relationships, it’s always been “official” by the guy initiating *THE question* lolz and i feel it’s easier that way just to make things clear to both parties. avoids all that “Are we or aren’t we” mind games, and we all hate to play mind games.

  3. foood! yummmmmm… its a distraction u know. nice pic of u n nic. so sweeettt…happy cny in advance.
    and as for the ques, mmm i guess when we were younger we just assume everything. my x bf never asked me too. mmm then later we had a hard time figuring out which date to put it as our anniversary. i guess no ones that direct anymore.

  4. I always enjoy your stories but this one particularly. Part two??? The fact that it wasn’t some perfectly orchestrated declaration of love is kind of what makes it sweet. I like the falling-into-it approach… a good metaphor for falling in love I say.
    And of course, happy chinese new year. My tummy’s grumbling already 😛 Yumyum.

  5. ahhh well so far all my xbfs did pop up de question cus i am a complicated person. they wanted it but they werent sure if they’re dating me or not. yes, im bossy n they all said im hard to get. but im not proud of it. hahahaha.
    oh yeah, im sure dats not wat nicole meant to say ur a stupid asshole n all. that pic of u and nicole look really nice. i never had a good studio pic wif any of my bfs. especially when my bf posing half nude or completely nude. hehehe maybe not yet. thanks for de idea tho. hehehe.
    anyway, kenny, hope you have a wonderful time celebrating Chinese New Year wif yer family friends. Gong Xi Fat Chai!!!!!

  6. You sly devil, Kenny…trying to get away with the embarassment eh? Anyway, my bf never asked me the question so we just assumed and it became true(damn..no anniversaries to celebrate)..haha….I don’t suppose it truly mattered to formally ask because your feelings will betray you..and the other party would pandai pandai ‘sek chou’..but then again..girls don’t enjoy the torture u know…it’s like wondering..are we or are we not…

  7. Hsin – Its always so much easier when the girls make the move instead. Girls are funny creatures lah. You never know what they are thinking, so might as well let you make the first move! Anyway, good on you for being so bold! 🙂
    Lily – What “official”? Need to sign contract or not?
    Chrissie – I wrote so much and the first thing you write is FOOOOODDDD. 😉 I don’t know about the whole anniversary date thing though. Its like something only SNAGs would remember. Nicole and I did have trouble remembering the date as well. We had to refer back to our past emails and stuff to estimate the time I uh… asked her “not to pretend to be my gf”. Geez.
    Naomi – I think its a more natural to do that isn’t it? “Popping the question” would seem like a very unnatural thing to do. When it happens, it happens. Happy CNY to you hungry person too!
    Niki – I only just started. 🙂 Glad to see you pop by. Haven’t seen you blogging for a while too. What happened?
    Victoria – Being “hard to get” is a girl’s most feared weapon against guys who like her.
    Kher Ying – EXACTLY! Damn I find myself agreeing with you all the time. Its like part of my mind is trapped in your head. I reckon its obvious enough when you both take each others hints and physical contact like hand-holding started.
    I think we have a consensus here. Its better to naturally just fall-into-it as bf and gf, without necessarily requiring one party to “pop the question”. For that, just wait for the marriage proposal instead. 😉

  8. hey if you did’nt blog bout this, everyone could have just got away with ever thiking bout it or reflect on it …
    my experience was, things go as the are, you know, started going lunch with she and her friends, studied together, went on break together, got home together … then the next thing you know she is holding your hands while we were crossing a street … then in a movie
    mayb we were too shy to ask … or its just me …although i did mention i had feelings for her … or rather interested in being together …
    the question of wheter she was willing to be my girlfriends did not ever came up …

  9. i was thinking ‘wahhh half nude pix man’…
    anyway, YES guys should pop the official question. You think whut, girls for play play ah?
    Ya gotta work your man thru’ to see how sincere he is you see =)

  10. – This prompts me to question. Does a guy really have to ask a girl to be his girlfriend for it to be ‘official’? Can’t we just act naturally and assume that she is my girlfriend if we were doing everything lovers do? –
    yea this is one of my biggest mistake in my life.

  11. As for me personally, I assumed we need that kind of “reassurance”.. to know that we’re “officially” a girlfriend of yours, not just another lover or.. worse, a 3rd party? i mean, who knows right.. nothing wrong with “proposing” to a girl thought it’s not a wedding, right? =) gd luck

  12. my bf did ask me on that question. i prompted him to ask, but still, he asked and we have anniversaries to celebrate:P
    love him lots.

Leave a Reply to Reta Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Navigation