Late last night a very depressed friend of mine called me up to vent all his feelings. Let me name this friend “Barney” (obviously not his real name).
Two years ago, Barney met the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life at a friend’s birthday party. I shall name this girl “Xena Warrior Princess” (again obviously not her real name).
When they met, she belonged to someone else but Xena and her boyfriend at that time were going through a rough patch and it was obvious to everyone that they were about to break up.
So Barney saw the opportunity to be the next in line and he took it, calling and smsing her every day.
When the day finally came and Xena Warrior Princess broke up with her boyfriend, Barney was happy beyond belief but Xena told Barney that it was too soon for her to get into another relationship yet and she needed some time.
Fair enough, Barney said okay and he waited.
Fast forward two years later to today.
Barney called me last night to tell me that he was almost in tears because he had waited so long for Xena only to find that Xena had just gotten herself a new boyfriend. 
When Barney asked why the new boyfriend wasn’t him, Xena said
“I like you Barney… I think you’re a great guy and any girl would be lucky to have you but I don’t like you in that way”.
Hearing the frustration in his voice, Barney asked me
“WHY!!??! WHY TIM WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?!??! WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!!?”
And my reply to him was this
“Barney, every decent looking woman has a close male friend and that male friend is probably or actually definitely interested in her which is why he’s always at her every beck and call but she only sees him as a friend.
So to make sure that he’s only a FRIEND, she always goes out to say
“You’re a brilliant guy and you have everything that a girl can ever ask for, but I don’t like you in that way”.
Or let me put this in another perspective (something I’ve heard before from somewhere).
This is like you going for a job interview with a company. 
After putting you through a 6-hour interview the company says
“You have a great CV Barney and you have all the qualifications that we’re looking for in an employee. But we’re not going to employ you. We will however use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants.
But we’re going to hire somebody who is far less qualified than you and probably a bum who doesn’t work and has no future or even an alcoholic or drug addict. And if it doesn’t work out with the alcoholic, we still won’t hire you.
We’ll hire someone else. In fact, we’ll never hire you, but we would like to call you every now and then to complain and whine to you about the guy we hired.”
Then I carried on to say
“So Barney, you now have two options. You either tell the “company” to bugger off and that you’re not interested in the job anymore.”
Or you could wait for the “company” to “hire” you until you realize that it’s never going to happen in which by then it’s too late, and you’ll die a virgin and the only sexual activity you’ll have in your entire life is with your right hand. 
Barney then cut me off before I could continue and said
“But I love her… and I don’t care about anything else especially sex… I just want to be with her and if I have to wait longer I will”. 
In which I then replied
“Well I guess many years later when you’re finally done waiting and you’re too old to find another girl, you could always marry your right hand…“
And he got fed up with me and said
“WTF WAS I THINKING ASKING BOSS STEWIE FOR LOVE ADVICE?!?! I KNEW YOU’D MAKE FUN OF IT!!!”.
Hmph… my friends don’t appreciate me…
PS: “Barney”, if you’re reading this… I’m sorry, I was just trying to cheer you up… you’ll still invite me to your wedding won’t you?
I promise I’ll bring expensive wedding presents for you “wife”… like Gucci Leather Gloves or branded hand moisturizer from Japan.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space