I was watching Sex and the City: The Movie last night.
Yeah I know I’m a little slow but I didn’t until recently manage to get around to actually watching it. I’m one of the few guys I know who actually follow the series.
Well okay not really one of the few, but I think only about half of the guys I know follow it.
It all started during my second year of university where I shared an apartment with two girls.
Every Wednesday night they would steal the remote from me and overrule me in choosing what channel to watch so I was forced to watch Sex and the City with them.
I eventually grew to like it… I love Samantha Jones… she’s hilarious!!!
Anyway there was a scene in the movie where Carrie was left by her groom on her wedding day and was so heartbroken she went for a trip somewhere and slept for days.
It got me thinking. In so many movies we see people leaving their other halfs on the alter during their wedding day for getting cold feet or for whatever reason but does this really actually happen in real life?
Then I remembered… and I thought about one of my friends whom I will here refer to as Joseph.
Joseph was a young and successful professional. I mean heck the guy graduated from a great university and found himself a job with a ridiculous salary package. I think he was earning a basic of RM4,000-RM7,000 a month as a fresh grad excluding annual performance bonuses that can range from 12-24 months depending on the year.
Since his university days, Joseph was dating another girl whom I will refer to here as Debbie. Debbie was another high achiever like Joseph with a bright future. I mean she too graduated from a top university and found herself a job that also paid her a fortune.
The future was bright for the both of them and they were in a 5-year relationship before they finally decided to get married. Wedding preparations were made, the venue was booked and the invitation cards were sent out.
It looked like it was going to be one helluva wedding.
Then just 2 weeks before the wedding was supposed to take place, the wedding suddenly got called off. All the hundreds of guests who were sent the invitation cards including myself were informed that the wedding was off. Everyone was in the dark but sooner or later word got out.
Apparently the rumour has it that Debbie had been sleeping with Joseph’s best friend and Joseph had just found out about it 2 weeks before the wedding. I think Joseph was prepared to forgive her and go ahead with the wedding but Debbie didn’t want to get married to him anymore. Maybe she was confused, or maybe she really did see something more in his best friend than him.
Joseph was heartbroken, so heartbroken he couldn’t even go to work for a week. When I later saw him, his face had changed. He had deep eye bags below his once cheerful deep eyes and you could see that he had just gone through many many sleepless nights.
His confidence and self-esteem too had been hurt so much that he had a bit of a knee jerk reaction. Before the wedding he was saving up money to put down the downpayment for a home.
But now that there wasn’t a wedding anymore and sure he could’ve still bought himself a home but he needed something to boost his confidence. so he took all the money and with a car loan bought himself a BMW.
Now in a normal sense of the world, that’s the last thing anyone with any form of money should do. If you made some good money, first you invest it in a home or in other assets to grow it, not buy yourself an expensive car. You buy yourself the car only when you’ve made many many millions!
But none of us could blame him. He needed to feel better about himself and while sitting in his brand new BMW the other day he told all of us
“You know I feel that people look at my differently when I drive this car. When I drive on the road, more girls turn to look at me. In my previous car nobody seemed to give a damn”.
That’s probably only half true… but at least he felt it helped.
With the story of Joseph in my mind I started thinking of my heartbreak. I’ve been through heartbreak once before in my life and it was the worst feeling to ever have. I remember how I didn’t have the appetite to eat, how I wanted to sleep away my days and how whenever I went out, I feared that I might bump into her.
But after all the heartbreak and struggles, I changed… possibly for the better or possibly for the worse. An emotional self-defence barrier emerged in myself where I was able to control the level of feelings I had for any of my subsequent girlfriends. Perhaps it was myself fearing heartbreak again to fall in love again but I never suffered or cried in all the break-ups of all my following relationships.
A friend of mine recently told me that one day some girl will sweep me off my feet again and break my heart no matter how prepared I am.
Well I guess we can all never be too sure.
PS: Joseph today has moved on with his life pretty well. New beautiful girlfriend… and still doing well in his career. Debbie too has moved on and last I heard she’s doing well too. They’re both still friends today.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space