Game of life

The next few posts will probably be a bit philosophical... probably a sign of old age :) , and the events of the last few weeks... people getting married, meeting up with old friends...

Saturday was Liming's wedding, and what a long day it was. Go pick up bride in the morning (where Adrian Mah was late as usual), and had to be 'tekan' by the bridesmaids... which wasn't too bad... The worst was Kenneth, who had to eat chilli padi, I had chilli sauce biscuit, Alex had wasabi. Mental note for future weddings: Bring lots of small change. The ang pow had to be in weird denominations - 1 cents, 10 cents, dollars etc. Luckily Liming and Alex had some change.

The rest of the morning was driving around in the hot sun. From Yishun, we had to go to Corporation Road in Tuas (after taking a slight detour in the wrong direction to Pasir Ris!!), then to Redhill, then back to Yishun, then to Esplanade. Liming, if you're reading this, YOUR ANGPOW HARDLY EVEN COVER HALF MY PETROL COSTS!

But anyways, the thing about the wedding was the opportunity to talk to friends whom you haven't met for a long time. With the carnasaurs, since in the past we always got together to play LAN games, one of the questions would be "What game are you playing now?". Kangwei, in one of those rare (actually, extremely rare) moments, said something meaningful - "The game I'm concentrating on now is the Game of Life. Except in this game, there are no saves, no restarts." Its true. The game that we should be concentrating on now is the Game of Life. It can be difficult at times, with no end point in sight. You can't save or restart, but there are times when you are given the same scenario, and you can play it without committing the same errors as before. There are no walkthroughs, because everyone's game is slightly different (we all start with different attributes and characteristics), but the consolation is that there are user guides - The experiences and stories of people who have played the game for a long time. I've been fortunate enough to come across a number of people whom I can learn from - family and relatives, teachers, professors, business mentors. That is my strategy for playing this game well - to follow the paths and advice of people who have played the game successfully. Whether it'll work, I can't be sure. I guess that's the good part about this game - everybody can find their own winning strategy.

Falling in love is easy

... but getting married is hard. At least that's my take on the social life situation of people around my age.

I was observing recently that I haven't received any wedding invitations from people I knew, either from RI or RJ. But then in the space of 1 month I got 1 invite and 2 "sound-outs". The wedding invite was from Tsai Liming, RI classmate (congrats to him... or should I say condolences?) whose wedding is next week. The other 2 are from Serjin and Melvin, RJ class-mates, who are getting married at the end of the year.

I actually managed to squeeze a bit of the background stories from them. For Liming, he actually only went out with Joey for a year before he proposed. They had been planning the wedding for 2 years until now. Serjin went out with his girlfriend for about 5 years before proposing, and Melvin knew his for 6 years. The stories are similar in a certain respect, in that they are only getting married 1 to 2 years after working. In the reality of money-conscious Singapore, most couples don't get married until they can get a flat, or be able to afford one. Which is quite common sense, since no couple would like to live with their parents, if they had a choice. And with Liming, he has pretty well-to-do parents (I dunno about his wages so can't comment), Serjin and Melvin are top scholars, so their finances are pretty secure, so all 3 of them are pretty financially secure to be able to get their own place and get married. And in comparision, I know of a couple of friends who have had girlfriends for quite a while, but not as well-off, and nothing heard from them in terms of wedding invitations.

So my observation if the guy, at around 26 or 27, if you are not getting married, its probably because you haven't established yourself financially, or are still busy focusing on your career. It will probably be around 30-31, before I see the next round of wedding invitations. In traditionally minded Singapore, unless the girl has rich parents, I haven't heard of a more financially successful woman getting married to a less successful guy. So the onus is all on the guy really, to do well in his career, to be able to afford a decent standard of living for him and the girl before he is able to get married, or even be eligible.

Falling in love... its all Hollywood stuff - about ideals, personality match, romance... but then reality hits you in the face with a stack of unpaid mortages and bills. I am in an way envious of the 3 guys - they have found that someone special and are able to plan out, quite predictably, how their lives would pan out. At the same time (from observations from married couples), marriage can be a chain that ties you down from fulfilling certain dreams. So, given the current realities, I will be preparing to get more ang pows during Chinese New Year for at least a few more years to come.