A perfume's tale of a single woman

Last month, somewhere along the Kawaramachi Street of Kyoto; Ila, Sue, Dr B and I stop to smell the perfumes at one of the shops. There were two perfume shops that I had made frequent visit whenever I went to Kyoto city because of numbers of branded perfumes that can be found there plus the prices were reasonable. Some of the international brands perfumes were on-sale that day. Most likely that due to koyou season (visiting/ experiencing the changes of leaves colours), the owners expected many visitors and thus decided to cut-down prices of some of the perfumes. A good business strategy I would say.

The reason I was there was to buy a perfume for my mother. When I went home last spring, I got her one but she said the scent doesn’t last long. Since she rarely asked me for anything and partly because her birthday was around the corner, I wanted to shop for a perfume with a special fragrance just for her. After going through sniffing more than two dozens perfume, I got her a Lancôme, a Miracle for her. And the verdict, she just loves it!

While browsing and inhaling dozens of fragrances, I said something to Dr B, who was at that time proposing me a few nice fragrances of the perfumes. Her answer triggered me to think and later to write this post.

It was when we were trying a man’s perfume, I said something like ‘Man’s body odor smell strongly that make them in-need of strong smell of perfume.’ Lelaki busuk, kena bau perfume yang kuat sikit.

Her reply was, ‘You’re not married yet?’ Che na tak kawin lagi?

Her response made me think of man and me. How on earth did she relate me, my statement and marriage? It was a time for self reflection.

I never think too highly of men but I do not think badly about them either. I respected men with knowledge but I do think most men odor is stink.

Am I so reclusive of man because I am all against them and at the end left me unmarried?

There were and are many men in my life. I have two brothers, the only siblings that I have. I have too many men in life, so to speak, which included countless numbers of uncles and cousins. Oh! Those are persons that I can’t get married to.

For marriage prospects, I had met a few good men.

But I think marriage is just not on my card of destiny as yet. We do believe in faith, don’t we?

Being singles never bothers me unless someone come up to me and keeps pestering me about my marriage or her marriage. I am just not into it, yet. Furthermore, I do not want to spend my time whining about being single. I have many things to do while I am single! One of them, find my own happiness. I do not think it is wise to put all the happiness in a basket of marriage. We shall be happy by ourselves or with others. In short, if we choose to be happy, we are happy regardless the life that we are in. Read Elizabeth "Liz" Murray life story for instance. She is one of the people who are an excellent example of making choices in life.

I am afraid of marriage. Yes, of course. Why? I can see divorces take place everyday and the reason behind it does not help either. Yes, especially if you read the Malaysian newspapers and some assemblymen in Terengganu added the scarier notion of it.

What the heck with marriages in Terengganu? Body odor? Pyjamas? Those two have become common factors behind the divorces in the state of Terengganu. Dear God, please bless me. And recently, the Tiger of the Woods did make me think more than twice about marriage.

And I have a very fragile heart too. If people talk to me in high notes, it will kill me instantly. In short, I simply hate to quarrel! Yet, I don’t think in life there is perfect couple that will always agree with one another.

Above all, I don’t trust people easily. This make it hard for me to fall head over heal with someone. Afterall, falling in love and marriage are all about opening one heart. Oh! Am I such a freak? Maybe I do or a little, probably. Sigh! I just don’t know.

Am I feminist? No. I don’t believe that man is evil or woman is oppressed. We have that problem of women oppression since past centuries and thing is changing for the better.

If anyone read the history, earlier women were not allowed to vote because men of power consider that women can’t think for themselves and then not able to make correct choice. Wikipedia has it all. Beside, I don’t like the idea of feminism. I just think that human should be treating equally but the equalities of men and women are differed. But as we are progressing with the equality issues, I don’t think that will happen in the near future. Still there are many cases of inequality. If you simply ask the amount of salary Brad Pitt is getting compared to Angelina Jolie, you will get the idea. Even in the USA, the land of hope, payment of woman CEO is lesser than the man. Thus, I reserved my expectation on the equality of salary in Malaysia.

At the end I was left with a question, what sort of man that I like to be with? I don’t know. I just want someone who is kind, has compassion, empathy and full of love, to share my life with. I want to share a life, happily. Obviously, if he smells badly, I will ask him to bath in a sauna full of roses or I will gift him perfumes every now and then. Or if he still does not get it, I will just spay him with perfume every morning. Shower him with perfume, er, love, I mean.