Missed the boats

In the last year since I came back to Singapore, I've been a bridesmaid twice, and had more wedding invitations, proposal events, engagement dinners, and hen parties than I can remember.

Superstition has it that once a woman is bridesmaid thrice, she's never getting married, and I'm just waiting for the third invitation this year. I know it's coming. I can feel it.

I really don't mind the weddings so much. It's nice to see couples in love. More than that, it's nice to see the gradual change from being friends, to being a couple and then husband and wife. There's something different in the way a couple behaves when they're married. The relationship is indelibly more matured. And it's great to see that it people still believe in "I want to spend the rest of my life with you". It gives me hope in a way.

But what's really irked me of late is finding out that a number of guys who used to have a crush on me back in school or college are now married, or getting married or have a baby!

Somehow it didn't hit me until my mom told me an old childhood friend (supposedly my first boyfriend when I was 6 or something) is getting married. Of course she had to add that I must "jia you".

It suddenly occurred to me, if all my ex-crushes are getting married, have I missed all my boats?

I didn't want to come back to Singapore partly because I was afraid I'd be carried away by this marrying spree. Every time I get a wedding invitation, I get the "when's your turn" question.

What kind of question is that? Makes me feel like cattle in a production line, waiting to be butchered. Ok, so I'm not doing my duty as a citizen to help boost the Chinese population in Singapore, and I'm not doing my duty as a daughter to give my parents grandchildren, nor am I doing my duty as a Christian by refusing to date another Christian.

What's wrong with that? Maybe I'm like what they like to call kids who don't do well in school here - Late Bloomers - or maybe I'm just plain not made for this game. Maybe I was made for something else.

Just don't ask me "when's your turn", cos' I might have already missed it, or sunk it completely.