娴情记语 II

Was thinking about the question CL (C's good friend) posed: How can you be 100% sure C is the one?

Well, to be honest, no one can be 100% sure until you get married to the person. In fact, I think we can never be 100% sure.
To quote C, "dating is a gamble and involves some risk taking".
That's why we all date and take time to get to know someone, isn't it?
What we are trying to do is to gain as much certainty as possible and reduce the risk as much as we can and ascertain that this person is the one we are comfortable to be with for the rest of our lives.

I digress. Back to CL's question.
CL asked this question twice. Both times I gave a strong affirmative response, and the reason I gave was feeling.

Interestingly, while I still think C is the one or one of the "ones", the reason why I think so actually changed over time!

This is where I thought CL's other question was useful. That question was "When did you start liking C really?"

I guess one good thing that came out of this 3 plus months since C paused (hopefully) talking to me is that I had a lot of time to look at the 3 months we shared objectively and really think clearly about whether and why I like C.

There were 3 phases.

After getting my 3 mutual matches on 11 March, I already placed C as my first choice, at the top of the rank order. Why? Feeling. She made me comfortable and I enjoyed talking to her. Haha, and we were merely talking about ice cream! Haha, you must be thinking this is superficial right? Probably, but that's how things started. At our first encounter, 我对她有好感。

Ok I digress.

The 1st phase where I thought she could be the one is after our first date. Unlike 11 March, we had a good 2h to chat. It was at this meetup where I discovered we had plenty in common (first of 3 children, the colour of our school attire was the same from pri to JC, same university, both are workaholic, both just started dating recently). The second date at Cowpresso further affirmed all these (where I discovered her dad shared the same horoscope as me and my dad shared the same horoscope as her!). In summary, at this phase, I thought she is the one because we shared so many similarities, at least in terms of the external factors mentioned earlier. Honestly, at this phase, I didn't get to see or witness the intangibles much.

In the 2nd phase, it was the period between our 4th and 6th date. At this point, we opened up to each others a lot more. I got to understand her a lot more in terms of her values and beliefs, e.g. going for functionality instead of going for brand name, placing & valuing her family as her first priority, work as a key pillar in her life etc. And it seems like our values and beliefs matched well. Our conversations were also getting quite deep, the connection was also getting deeper and stronger. In fact, I would even daresay that for a 3 month relationship / dating-ship or whatever you call it, it was unexpectedly and unusually deep. I also got this feeling that she trusted me (at least enough) and even cried in front of me, which I took as a positive affirmation. I was thinking, hey I really don't mind spending the rest of my life in this way with this person, aka C.

Haha, so both in both phase 1 & phase 2, in each case, I thought that was "when" I really started liking C. The deep reflection I did after the breakup made me realise that actually when I really like C might actually be on the 8th & last date before the breakup. That was when C did several things which tugged my heartstring and more or less confirmed for me that she is the one or one of the ones. So what happened?

1. Her friend tried to ask me question while I was eating. C stepped in and told her that I can't multi-task; when I am eating, I can't talk and vice versa. So if I start answering her, I will stop eating. At the drinks session, when her friend suggested ordering calamari, again C stepped in to tell her that I am allergic to seafood. (Read: she remembers my habits and is caring enough to speak up for me.)

2. After dinner & drinks, for the first time ever, she actually offered to treat me. I see it as a good sign and a re-balancing of sort; like she wants to contribute more in this relationship to make it more equal instead of me always being the one giving. And we even did a cute small "fighting" where I snatched her card while she was paying and passed her mine, and then she snatched it back. And then I told her "now that I have your hp number, you know I can PayLah you back right?" And we just smiled at each other after the "fighting".

Adding these to the 2 other actions observed from the 7th date: noticing my phone was on low batt and passing me her portable charger, and texting me to check whether I have reached home safely, all these made me certain that she is the one or one of the ones.

Haha, this is as much as I can observe so far. But I am silently confident that if we continue dating, I will see more and more positive stuff which will further affirm the decision.

In any case, it's back to waiting for her to reach (back) out to me.