just minishorts.

Someone commented that technology has sort of changed the way we play the dating game. I'm not too sure about that. Because I only got initiated into the cat-and-mouse game right about 1998, when Jaring was supremely popular among high-schoolers, with ICQ and MIRC being the main mode of communication, I think technology works pretty well.

At least, thanks to technology I found out that someone from the school nearby had more than the common 'I like you' interest in me.

This is where I must digress a little. When I was a 17, I enrolled myself in a student journalist programme and got pretty active in it. Thanks to this participation, there were photos of myself and articles written by me published in the local dailies quite regularly.

Now back to the story. It turns out that right around that time, there was this particular chap from the next school who liked me enough to keep a scrapbook of my articles (included with it were any group photo with me in it, or any article with my name in it, be it a byline or a quote from other posts by my journo friends). He also happened to tell all of his friends he was very interested in me.

And this particular guy chose to use IRC to chat me up and on it, he told me that he liked me and would like to explore the possibility of a relationship with me.

So it had happened like that. After spending months being envious of friends who were in relationships, my 'big break' had arrived, in a completely unexpected way.

Unfortunately, I was less than excited. In fact I was mortified by the whole concept, and I ran. But I was not very good at running, because I thought I had to be friends with this person. 'Clarity' was an alien concept, so I still continued to be nice to the guy, and be friends with him.

Looking back, I would say that had this guy had more guts, we COULD have made it for some time. Unfortunately, he was talkative online, but when we had group meet ups (we had a few mutual friends in between, so there were several occasions where we would be at the same place together), the dude would freeze up completely. It was so bad, we had to have a mediator to convey our messages to each other.

For instance, I'd go,'So how's your day today?'

And the guy would whisper his response to his friend, who would in turn tell me, 'Oh he wants you to know he's quite happy to see you now.'

IMAGINE DATING SOMEONE LIKE THAT. I've had more communicative conversations with my neighbour's dog, who would bark at me every time I made a face at him.

I must say it was an interesting experience, almost quite as interesting as the first bouquet of roses I ever got from someone, i.e. him.

Yes, my admirer was so shy, during valentines, he couldn't bring himself to ask me out. So while I was completely aware of his existence and his intentions to 'court' me, I couldn't bring myself to take it beyond 'friendship'. That year, I went out to catch Titanic with my best friend at 1 Utama, and had the time of my life watching loving couples walk past the corridors. We spent the whole day enjoying 'best-girl-friends' time until my parents came to pick me up, where we headed of for dinner somewhere.

It wasn't until later that night that I got home with my family to a bouquet of roses thrown into my garden porch. They were soft pink with showers of baby breath, crushed from the throw and wet from the rain that had poured the whole day. The bouquet was labeled with a gift card from The Blooming Florist. As it had rained the entire afternoon, the writing on the card had blurred, leaving only some smudges and his clear signature, confirming the gift to be from him.

Along with it, a few feet away, was a broken CD case in plastic wrapping, in it an Original Soundtrack from Titanic the motion-picture.

So that was how I received my very first bouquet of roses. Crushed and wet, heaped on the tiles of my garden porch, with the accompanying gift lying just a few feet away in a cracked CD-case.