The problem with love

“Now you can tell the difference between three-o’clock and nine-o’clock direction, Metty?” asked my friend, Donita. We were on the back seat of her car, on our way home from office. I was lucky that evening to get a free ride home (relatively free, actually, because I still needed to get on an ojek (chartered motorcycle) to reach my house) on Donita’s chauffeured Land Cruiser.

“Yeah,” I smiled sheepishly, recalling the scene that afternoon. We had been away to a public expose in Sen-Ci, and when we went back to the office, I saw a bunch of Caucasian guys going up on the escalator. They were probably on their way to have their lunch. I rushed to tell Donita because she’s such a big fan of this kind of guys.

But in an instant, I remembered I had been telling her the wrong direction! I should have said “Donita, (cute guys) at three-o’clock!” but instead I said the opposite. Not only had Donita missed the opportunity of feasting her eyes on those guys, but also she had smiled at the wrong person. We laughed hard over what we had done.

“You are responsible for what you have done, Metty,” Donita looked at me straight to my eyes, trying to be serious.

“Excuse me? And what am I responsible for, exactly?” I looked back at her, perplexed.

“You know, you have cost me an opportunity to see those guys,” said Donita in a no-non-sense way (but I know it was a made up), “so next time you see another bule (Caucasian guy), you have to come to him right away and introduce me to him.” At her last sentence, she gave me a big smile.

“And what are you going to do with James? Poor James, having a flirtious girlfriend like you are,” I teased her.

Suddenly Donita’s face changed. She looked a bit troubled. When at least she said something, she said this: “I want to dump him, anyway, you know that?”

“Huh? Are you serious?” I was shocked. “Ah, so that’s why you have been avoiding his call?” I inquired her. Two days ago I did see her getting all panic when her cell phone rang and it turned out James was the caller. She later let us listen to the record of James’ voice in her phone answering machine. He said he was sorry and he loved her. So romantic yet it tickled my ears, hearing someone else saying that to his girlfriend for real. I usually heard that kind of line from some romantic movies.

“Mm, that’s not all. I was mad at him. But I also want to break up with him. This relationship just can’t go on.”

“Why?”

“He’s too old for me, Metty. He’s 40 already while I’m just 24 years old, for God’s sake. If only he were much younger, I probably would carry on with this relationship.” Donita sighed. “The problem is he’s so nice and kind to me. That makes it so difficult for me to end this.”

Indeed, James has been such a nice and loving, not to mention generous, person. He’s a retired U.S. army who is now working as a professional gardener in his hometown in U.S. Yet living so far away didn’t keep him from sending presents to Donita on Christmas and Valentine day. Everyday the couple always chats either by Yahoo! Messenger or by phone. Seeing how she maintained her relationship, nobody could tell that she actually has no longer the eagerness to keep it going.

“Well, if you want to call it a quit, you’d better say that to him as soon as possible. It is not fair for him if you in fact don’t love him as much as he’s thinking,” I said.

“Yeah, I know that. But it’s difficult to tell him that.”

“It’s not gonna be easy, I know that. But you have to do that, Donita. If you keep postponing, it would get a lot harder because you two will be too emotionally bound,” I advised her. “Come on, don’t be mean to him. ‘Stop playing games with my heart,’ Backstreet Boys said,” I said, giggling. Donita did too.

“Maybe I should find her a beautiful girl first and introduce him to her,” she uttered.

“But he loves you, Donita. He won’t want another woman.”

“What if you tell him on my behalf, Met?”

My jaws opened. “You’d got to be kidding me! No way, girl! That’s your relationship, your problem. I don’t want to have anything to do with it!”“Ha-ha. I’m just kidding, and you know that,” Donita smiled faintly.

Our conversation that evening was over as the car stopped at this bend of the road where it would be easier for me to get an ojek. It had not been a free ride home after all.