Finding “the one” can be hard. So is searching for a parking spot in Yangon.
Seeing lovebirds almost everywhere in my daily life makes me wonder, “Why can’t I find a girlfriend, fall in love with her and have a happy relationship for the rest of my life?” “Am I too ugly?” “Have I become an un-dateable guy who is meant to be a FA for the rest of my life?” To answer this question, I tried using some dating apps, like Tinder, for a brief moment. Fortunately, I still found some matches. That means there are some girls out there who still thought of me as somewhat attractive in their eyes. Not bad, huh. Nevertheless, I still remain single whereas most of my friends are already settled in serious relationships. Some of them even have married to their special ones. Do I envy them? A little bit, maybe. However, I do not think that I will consider finding a girlfriend in the near future.
Finding a girlfriend is a difficult task for me. Maybe because of the restrictions set by my family when I was young. When I was about 7, my family and relatives brainwashed me that if I were to marry in the future, my fiancé has to be a Chinese girl born in Myanmar (which we nicknamed as BBC: Burmese-born Chinese.) At that time, I still could not even grasp the full concept of marriage. Yet, they kept preaching me that my fiancé has to be a BBC (not necessarily 100% though) and their propaganda unconsciously dripped inside my brain. It was in grade 10 when I had a crush on one girl. However, before I started to have feelings for her, I first had to make sure that she is a Chinese girl. Only after reaffirming this fact that my brain allowed me to crush her more and more. Nonetheless, I was a chubby nerd, 5’ 3’’ tall and 140 pounds at that time, so I was pretty sure that no girl was going to like me. So, I just let these feelings grow inside my heart and it is very likely that she did not even know that I had a crush on her.
My next rule is that I do not want to date any girls through matchmaking. It is just my ego that prohibits me from being the part of matchmaking services. It is common for Chinese parents to find a boyfriend/girlfriend for their children when the latter cannot find one by themselves. Now, this time has come to me and my mother keeps asking me whether I have a girlfriend and if not, she would like to arrange me to meet some Chinese girls. I am not interested in these sorts of matchmaking stuffs. Some of my mother’s friends and relatives put more pressure on me by asking my mom whether I have already got a girlfriend and if I haven’t got one, they would love to arrange me in meeting with some Chinese girls. I kept saying no to them and my mother gets frustrated and tells me to find one on my own. Still, I do not.
Last but not least, I have started becoming a firm believer of “phoo-sar (fate).” One of my dearest friends told me once that “If two people are destined to be together, they definitely will be.” Yes, I do agree with my friend. Some of my friends told me that it was not fair to blame everything into fate without me putting any effort to make a relationship work. Frankly, I suck at expressing my emotions and thus, I will just let the fate decide whether I will be able to meet my special one. These are just some reasons that I have difficulties in finding “the one” for me.
Alright. Moving on to my challenges of finding a car parking spot in Yangon. As Yangon has become overcrowded with cars, it is common to hear car drivers complaining about not having sufficient car parking spaces. More cars mean fewer spots for my car to park. Moreover, I am usually pickier when choosing a place to park than most people. Thus, whenever my friends and I go to the same place, I may arrive later mainly due to me looking for the “perfect” parking spot. There are certain rules that I follow whenever I park my car.
The first rule is that I don’t park on the side of the road where there are blocks painted in white and red color. (In Yangon, these are the restricted areas that cars are not allowed to park.) Some people still park in these places, but I don’t. I would not want my car to be towed by the traffic police. I have heard tons of unfortunate stories from my friends that their cars are being towed, and I don’t want mine to be the poor victim of Yangon traffic police.
My next rule is that I don’t want to park my car at the corner of any street because I believe that when cars turns around the corner of streets with high speed, those cars at the corner of streets have higher probability of getting hit. They also have bigger chances of getting hit by cars from the main road too. Thus, I say goodbye to the corner-of-street parking spot.
Although finding a girlfriend for me is not a mandatory thing for me at the present, I need to find a parking spot whenever I go outside. Despite the challenges I face every day in parking my car, I still manage to find the vacant space for car parking. There have also been some times in my life that parking my car went wrong terribly and the car adjacent to mine was dented. Yet, I manage these accidents by compensating to those unfortunate car owners. However, making a mistake in finding “the one” can be quite costly. My heart is not ready for such kind of mistake. So, I will just let “the fate” decides when “the one” will knock on my heart. I will embrace her warmly when the time comes.
Mohinga Matters 