Finding Love In A Foreign Land

By GARRICK SEE

Updated: February 6, 2013, 9:50 PM

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We often enjoy being the subject of someone else’s idea of romance because that means we’re being thought of. The notion of being in a person’s mind for an undisclosed number of times gives us such joy and affirmation in such a cynical and demanding world.

Most of the time we find love within surroundings that we’re comfortable in to assure us that it’s OK to fail every once in a while. But take us out of that comfort zone and place us in a foreign land and we’re diminished to being a child again, one who lost sight of his mother and is crying and weeping by the side of the road.

There’s just something about the French that makes every American, supposedly, fantasize their wildest, most romantic escapades that involve being in a foreign country. Every woman wants a French guy and every man wants a French girl. I know this might not be true for everyone, but it points out the immediate attraction that comes along with the unknown of foreign affairs.

Being in America myself has been quite a journey so far, and I’ve been lucky enough not to suffer from culture shock due to my extreme immersion of American pop culture back in Malaysia.

I get along with people, I have local friends, I blend well with the culture, but American romance still deludes me and causes me anxiety from time to time.

American girls are my biggest fear, and it doesn’t help that I’m in a school where the majority consists of them. To some people they might seem like “easy targets,” but to me they represent a class solely for making me speechless and dumbfounded. If I see a relatively good-looking female across the room, I begin to question my presence there to see if I’m really that lucky. More often than not, I assure myself that I have no business talking to her and just the opportunity for a brief gaze would comfort me in my soul.

As a guy, supposedly, I should be doing something to affirm my masculinity, but I find with any girl who can provide me with more double takes at her than anybody else gives me the comfort that I can appreciate the beauty in front of me without thinking about the possible benefits I could reap. Love is not about what we can gain from it, but the ability to resist selfish endeavors by simply admiring with wishful passion.

Maybe that’s the romantic in me talking, but I find it to be true in a sense that I do appreciate women as they are and though I may not find the connection I so long for, I benefit through the simple beauty of a simple person doing simple things in this simple life.
gsee@lanthorn.com

Published February 6, 2013 in Global Perspectives