Finding my soulmate

Strangers in Indonesia like to ask a lot of questions. Stuff like "where are you from?", "how long have you been here?", "what do you do?" and my least favourite- "are you married?". The problem with the marriage question is not that I feel depressed telling people that I am single. The problem is that the next question is always “why aren’t you married?”. I have endured many months of people questioning why I am still unmarried. Of course, I could respond to this by explaining that I hadn't met the right guy or that people in Australia often choose to marry later. The problem is that these explanations don’t seem to be well-understood. After many months of trying to explain something that seemed perfectly normal to me and being met by confusion, I took a different approach.

That day, I said something along the lines of: "my soulmate is in Palembang and I haven't been there yet so I haven't met him". I really don't know why I said that in the first place. In my head, Palembang seemed like an exotic place to find your soulmate and so distant that I would probably never go there. Strangely, this excuse seemed to make more sense to people than the truth or at least ended the marriage component of question time.

I want to be clear and explain that I don’t believe in soulmates. I don’t think there is one person out there for everyone. But, the problem is that so many strangers asked me why I wasn’t married and I answered the question the same way so many times. I believe that if you say something enough, you start to believe it. And a small part of me believed that my soulmate was in fact in Palembang. When I realised I could fly direct to Palembang from Surabaya, I was keen (taking two flights was even too much effort for finding a soulmate). So I took off on a 3 day Palembang adventure.

I have decided that I will tell this story mostly in the updates I sent to my friend Joy while I was on holiday. This is because they cover the main points I want to write about. The first update was from the night before I left: 

Update #1

Just did some reading on Palembang. There’s a small island off Palembang called Pulau Kemaro where a love story between a Sumatran princess and a Chinese prince took place. On the island, there is a “tree of love” which a couple can sit under to ensure their relationship goes well.

(This is actually a pretty cool story if you want to read it: 
http://indonesianfolklore.blogspot.com/2009/09/legend-of-kemaro-island.html)

DAY 1

Update #2

Landed. Haven’t spoken to any boys yet.

Update #3

Just met some businessmen who offered to take me to my hotel but none of them are from Palembang.

Update #4

Stopped at a warung called kantin cinta (love canteen) for lunch. Many boys around.

Update #5

I asked a policeman which bus to take to Ampera bridge. In the end he decided to drive me there. Police escort! Yea! I went to a monument and an old man took a photo of me and printed it out. He made me do a specific pose and wouldn’t take the photo until I did it. At the bridge I met a cute (but too young) boy that kept asking if I wanted to marry him or any of his friends . I then befriended some 14 year old girls. Couldn’t find anywhere nice to eat, so I’m at KFC. Told the staff I was looking for my soulmate and they are seem pretty excited to be match makers.

Some random people who I met by the bridge.

Update #6

Boy at KFC asked for my phone number. Normally I would say no, but I said yes!

DAY 2

Update #7

On a boat to the island with the tree of love

Update #8

Sitting next to the tree of love having a coffee. No sign of my soulmate yet.

The "tree of love".

Update #9

Regretting giving the boy at KFC my number:

Update #10

After the boat trip ate some martabak kari and met some new friends (2 very nice girls). One took me to the market to buy this. It’s called songket. Its kinda cool I think. After that I went to the museum which was boring then got a free ride home from a security guard and went swimming. No sign of my soulmate yet :(

I spent the evening having dinner and watching movie with a girl called Sugi who we met through a friend during a trip to Belitung last year. It was a good evening but as we didn't talk to any boys, that's why there are no updates from the evening.

DAY 3

Update # 11

The boy in the lobby of my hotel said the other guy in the lobby is looking for an Australian girlfriend

The third day was a pretty chilled day really. I spent the day at Starbucks reading and the night with Sugi, her brother and his girlfriend. The evening was actually really fun, we had dinner then went to the lantern park (as seen above) and then went to a cafe. At the cafe, I asked Sugi who she thought was most likely to be my soulmate and she pointed to a group of boys. I wanted to go over and talk to them but her brother said that he knew some of them and asked me not to. It was probably for the best. 

DAY 4

Update #12

Didn’t meet my soulmate

Update #13

Gue sudah di Jakarta.

(I’m already in Jakarta)

I know it seems quite bleak and like I didn't meet my soulmate. However, several weeks later I was back in Surabaya when everything changed. One morning, I sent Joy this message:

Update #14

I just met a guy, He's my soulmate. Details over tea and Tim Tams later.

To be continued...

Bandung love story?

A few years ago I joined a website called Interpals. I joined the site looking for friends to practice my Indonesian with while I was still living in Australia. It seemed like a good place to meet people who were interested in understanding other people’s cultures. In reality, it is a place to meet a lot of weirdos (Though, I did actually meet one legitimate good friend on there). Anyway, I met this one guy. His name is Angga (not his real name) and he's from Bandung. He’s a little younger than me. He has tattoos. We used to talk sometimes.

Just an example of the type of people you'll meet on Interpals.

When I moved to Indonesia, Angga contacted me. He invited me to spend Christmas in Bandung (Side note: Bandung is not a great place to spend your first Christmas away from your family). I had moved to Surabaya in November 2012 and had no plans for Christmas. So I went to Bandung. 

When we met, Angga seemed pretty cool. He actually invited me to stay at his house but I declined. In the end, he helped me find a budget hotel to stay in. He was really helpful and good to me. He took me around Bandung and I spent the 4 days with him and his friends doing typical Bandung stuff- hanging out in malls, cafes and bars, doing some clothes shoping, and of course eating batagor and drinking bandrek. He also introduced me to his ex-girlfriend who was a local D-list celebrity. He seemed to know a lot of other famous people too. His life seemed very exciting and the side of Bandung he showed me seemed so much shinier than Surabaya.

One of my favourite memories from that trip was when I asked Angga where he got his tattoos. I explained that I wanted to get a tattoo of the map of Indonesia. The next day he showed up at my hotel with 3 friends. One of them turned out the be a tattoo artist. I never imagined getting a tattoo in a cheap hotel with some guy I had just met but I just went with it. As the tattoo artist started preparing to tattoo me, Angga announced that he was going to go pray and he and his other friend left the room. Several minutes later, after my tattoo had already started, the two boys returned and said that there was no prayer room in the hotel. They asked instead to use my room to pray in which I didn’t mind about at all. I assumed that they wanted me to leave but they told the tattoo artist to keep going. So they prayed in the corner of the room, using their jackets as prayer mats. The tattoo artist went on tattooing while they prayed and part of it (Sumatra to be exact) really hurt. I wanted to scream in pain but I didn’t really know the etiquette of being tattooed in a room also being used for prayer. I stayed silent until they finished praying. I have to say that it was one of the strangest things I had experienced, seeing an $8 a night hotel room used as a prayer room and a tattoo studio at the same time. And despite how dodgy it sounds to say that you got a $30 tattoo in a shitty Bandung hotel room, it actually turned out alright.

All in all, that trip to Bandung was a success. I had a great time with Angga and was glad that he showed me so many of the cool parts of Bandung I could have never found on my own. That was why I promised to visit again and finally nine months later, I spent a long weekend in Bandung.

When I arrived in Bandung, Angga was waiting for me at the airport. He had organised a homestay for me and he took me there. From the beginning, Angga seemed different. The before mentioned D-list celebrity had just gotten married and he told me he was heartbroken. I felt really sorry for him. We did do some fun stuff, ate some good food and went to Trans Studio. It was quite fun. One thing that had changed about him was he seemed to not have as much money as before. The first time I visited he had driving around in a nice car and seemed to be made of money. During the second visit, he traveled by motorbike and seemed not to want to pay for anything at all. He asked me to pay for his food, which I didn’t care about so much at the start. It was more the difference in his demeanor that shocked me. He just didn’t seem like that same relaxed person I had met a few months before.

On my second night in Bandung, Angga told me he wanted to go to a bar. I didn’t really feel like drinking but I told him I’d go for a beer with him. We went to a trendy bar (no idea what it was called). When we arrived, I reminded him that I didn’t want too much to drink and hinted that he shouldn’t drink much either as he had driven there. Immediately, after sitting down he ordered a tower of beer. I was confused. A tower is quite a lot for 2 people who didn’t want to drink much.

The night was okay, the bar had a good atmosphere and we ate some delicious buffalo wings. Later in the night, Angga’s friend showed up with his girlfriend. The friend was actually really nice and he had a really cool tattoo of a cat in a bird cage. Luckily for me, he drank some of our beer. When our tower was finished, we asked for the bill.

The waitress came out with our bill and Angga sat completely still like he expected me to pay. I was having nothing of that as I only wanted one beer and it was him that had ordered an excessive amount of beer. Eventually I threw in a small amount of cash, as did Angga’s friend. It was quite an awkward moment though. 

I seem to have only taken photos of tattoos in Bandung...

On the way back to my homestay, I noticed Angga was a little drunk (though he denied it). In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have gotten on the back of that motorbike. Angga lived quite far away from where I was staying and I felt really worried. I told him he should sleep at my homestay rather than riding home.

I was pretty tired so I got ready to sleep. It was kind of weird I guess that I was sharing a bed with Angga but I was worried about him driving home. I said “good night” to him and closed my eyes. Only, he didn’t seem to feel like sleeping. He kept touching me. I asked him to stop and explained that I was tired. He apologised and I tried to sleep again. Five minutes later and he was tickling me.  Again, I told him to stop and that I was tired. The tickling stopped. A few minutes later it started again. The pattern continued until I lost my patience and yelled at him to either go to sleep or go home. He went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and I decided to just let it go. I blamed his behaviour on alcohol and him feeling bad about his ex-girlfriend getting married. I didn’t mention anything. Angga and I had plans to visit the hot springs that day and I was looking forward to it so I didn’t want what happened the night before to ruin it.

Angga said that he wanted to stop at the mall for breakfast first so we went to this random mall. I didn’t even know where we were. He seemed to be in a bad mood, but I didn’t think much of it. We were walking along when suddenly he disappeared. I looked around but couldn’t see him. I tried messaging and calling him but he didn’t answer. After about 30 minutes of trying to contact him I gave up and went to Starbucks. I sat there almost crying at that point not really knowing what to do. Not only did I not know which mall I was at, but I also had no idea what my homestay was called, where it was or how to get back there.

After giving up on getting through to Angga, and calming down over a cheesecake and chocolatey drink, I decided I needed to try to get back to my homestay. I got into a taxi and the taxi driver asked me where I wanted to go. I tried to explain my situation to him and he wasn’t impressed. I didn’t know even the name of the area the homestay was in and instead started describing the area. I told him about the college I had seen nearby, the café I had eaten breakfast at and some other random landmarks from the area. The taxi driver seemed very frustrated but eventually after a very long and uncomfortable drive we found the homestay.

I didn’t hear from Angga until 2:00 AM when he messaged to say “sorry, I wasn’t feeling well. Where are you now?” I left Bandung the next morning and haven’t seen Angga since. 

#reason

In September 2013, I met a boy called Budi (not his real name). He told me he was 22 but he was probably about 20. I don't know why people here lie about their age so often but I didn't care anyway. We went for a few meals together. He was very cute and sweet. I know boys probably don't like to be called cute but he was really cute. He had a baby face. The problem is he personality was kind of like a baby too.

Once, when we met for dinner he told me that his mother was sick and seemed very worried about her. He was confused and didn't know what to do. His family is from Gresik which is the next city from Surabaya (it would take him less than an hour to get to his parent's house). I told him that if his mother was unwell, all he could really do was to go home to see her. He seemed so worried that he was almost crying but for some reason he wasn't convinced that he should go home. I started to think something must be seriously wrong with his mother. Turns out she had a cold.

Soon after we met, Budi enrolled in a course at the language school I teach in. It felt a little awkward to me at the time but I had no choice in it. Luckily, I didn't have to teach his class. As we were getting to know each other, I saw Budi more and more like someone I wouldn't date seriously. He seemed to see things differently and I remember once returning to my motorbike after work to find a rose and a letter from him. By October, we weren't talking. I didn't want to give him the wrong idea and felt that a friendship wasn't possible at that time. 

One night after work, Budi came up to me in the parking lot. He told me that I looked like Avril Lavigne. I thanked him (guessing that it was supposed to be a compliment), put on my helmet and sat down on my motorbike. He went on to say that whenever he watched Avril Lavigne videos he thought of me and he felt sad.  I thought he was joking at first but his face looked the same way it looked when his mother had a cold. I don't really know how to deal with a guy crying (especially for no reason) and I panicked. In my panic, I quickly said "don't watch Avril Lavigne videos if it makes you sad" and drove off. Am I heartless?

Many months later, when Budi understood things better and he was no longer a student at our school, we became friends again. During this time I discovered another issue with Budi. He was also not particularly smart.  He was taking an engineering degree at the time and seemed to know that stuff quite well. Anything outside of that, he seemed completely unaware of. 

Around the time of the presidential election in 2014 Budi was at my house. He asked me which candidate I preferred and I told him I liked Jokowi. He seemed quite angry at my choice and yelled "Jokowi is a bad man!". At that time in my life, I enjoyed talking about politics A LOT so I asked Budi why he thought Jokowi was so bad. 
Again he said "Jokowi is a bad man!". 
"What do you think is so bad about him?" I asked. 
"F*** Jokowi!" he answered.
"Ok, well why is Prabowo better?"
"Prabowo is a good man, Jokowi is a bad man" he explained. 
"Why do you think that? Did your mum tell you to say that? What's the reason?" I asked.
"Prabowo is a very good man." 
"But why? Do you have any reason for your opinion?" I asked getting a little frustrated.
Budi went on to tell me a long story about engineering in Indonesia. It didn't make any sense whatsoever and had no relation to the presidential election or either candidate.
"What are you trying to say?" I asked.
"Jokowi is not going to do anything for engineers!" he replied.
"Do you really think that is the number one concern for Indonesia right now?" I asked.
I guess my question was too difficult because Budi responded by taking a tissue and flinging it at the map of Indonesia on my wall and shouting "Jokowi is a bad man!".

By that point, I was done with the conversation.
"Okay... So, if you're going to throw things around my room, I think it's time for you to leave." I told him. He agreed and walked out of my room. 
I decided to be a bit of a smart ass as I remembered I had a T-shirt with a picture of Jokowi on it. I put on the T-shirt.

Budi was sitting outside on my sofa smoking a cigarette. We have two sofas by our front door. I sat on the sofa opposite him. 
"Come and sit next to me" Budi said. 
"Uh, no thanks" I answered "I wouldn't want to get cigarette smoke on this beautiful T-shirt."
He responded to this by flipping me off. 

Several days later, he messaged me to apologise for what happened. I noticed that his profile picture was of Hitler and questioned it. How he explained it was so incredibly stupid that I will just post the whole conversation here:

I couldn't think of any "#reason" to reply to this so I let it go and realised I'd rather find friends who can carry a reasonable conversation.

A little while after that he apologised again. He explained that he read an article about the good side of Hitler. He went on to say that he didn't care about the history of other countries anymore and that he wanted to stick to reading only "good news".

Thank you guys for continuing to read my blog. I am really enjoying writing out my experiences and also reading other people's opinions on the weird stuff that seems to happen here. See you again next Friday! 

  

Summer romance?

I’ll be honest I wasn't really attracted to Indonesian guys at the start (spoiler: I now am).  I didn't see any guys I was interested in the first time I came to Indonesia in 2011. To be fair, I did have a boyfriend in Australia at the time and I wasn't really looking. In early 2012, after above mentioned boyfriend dumped me and I found myself in Indonesia again with a whole different outlook. 

I was travelling around Indonesia for 5 weeks with my friend Mel. I had just gotten out of the longest relationship of my life and was still feeling kind of awful about it. So I was looking for a little summer romance to take the edge off. To be honest, I didn't have a real idea of how it was going to happen.  I could get off a train and run into a handsome man, I could find him at the top of Monas and enjoy a beautiful view of the traffic jams together or maybe I'd fall for a nice guy who selling jagung bakar on the side of the road. The possibilities seemed endless.

Unfortunately, by the time we were getting to the end of our trip, there still hadn't been a lot of romance. Well, there was that one guy who kept smiling at me on the train from Surabaya to Bandung. The whole thing was kind of ruined though when I caught him stroking my face when he thought I was asleep. I guess that's a bit of a turn-off... Anyway with less than 2 weeks of our trip left, we headed to Gili Air. On our first night there, we were ready for a big full moon party. We got dressed, did our hair and make-up and headed out. We were expecting something AMAZING.

We arrived at Zipp bar and no one seemed as excited as us about the full moon aside from a particularly energetic bartender who seemed to be high on magic mushrooms. We felt a bit disappointed because we were hoping for a little more adventure. The night went on and we tried to make the most of it. Later, we started talking to a guy at the bar named Cedric. We told him that we were a little bored and that we were expecting more of a party. Cedric said that he was bored too and asked if we wanted to go to Gili Trawangan. We laughed it off, thinking it was impossible as it was already quite late at night. Cedric went on to tell us that he had a boat and that if we wanted to head over, he would be happy to take us. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Once we were on Cedric’s boat, I was quite unsure about the whole thing. The boat seemed to be heading towards Lombok, rather than Gili Trawangan. I was too scared to question it but in my head I was planning out what I was going to do if we arrived in Lombok and had to escape. Mel told me later that she felt a bit uncomfortable as well and was looking around the boat for things we could possibly use as weapons, if we had to. Luckily, the boat turned and we arrived at Gili T safely.  The boat docked at Tri Na Nog Bar. I don't usually arrive at a party by boat, so I felt pretty cool to make that kind of  entrance.

Mel and I ended up at Sama Sama reggae bar which had the atmosphere we were looking for. And immediately I noticed a group of tall boys and one particular boy caught my attention. I smiled at him and he smiled back. We had some drinks and did some dancing. Every so often, I would glance back at the boy I had noticed before and smile at him. He smiled back but were too shy to actually talk to one another. The night wore on and we were getting ready to leave when we finally met.

His name was Ichsan and he was a 25 year old student from Jakarta. He handed me a piece of paper listing all of his contact details. We said goodbye and we went our separate ways. That night, Mel and I slept on the beach and awoke to the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. Things were looking up.

Late the next night on Gili Air, I was feeling restless. Mel was already asleep so I went on a walk and ended up sitting on the beach chatting with one of the local guys while he played guitar. I received a message from Ichsan: “I’m in the place that we first met. You were so beautiful that night”. It seemed very dramatic considering we literally met the night before but it was sweet anyway. For the next two days, we got to know each other a little bit via SMS, but the being on different islands thing was kind of getting in the way of things progressing. 

Luckily though, fate brought us back together. We were fated to meet again on Valentine's day and shared a romantic cruise and a delicious meal together. Well, that's pretty much what happened if you replace the romantic cruise with a tedious ferry trip to Bali and the delicious meal with a cup of POP Mie. We did hold hands and kiss a little, so I guess it was still an improvement on every other Valentine's Day I had ever endured.

When we arrived in Bali, we went our separate ways. He headed to Kuta with his friends, while Mel and I traveled to Ubud. I was okay with it because I had gotten what I wanted- a distraction from being single on Valentine's Day and some harmless kissing. Two days later, Ichsan decided to visit me in Ubud. 

He promised to meet me at 9 AM.  At 9:30 AM he messaged to say he was still in Kuta working out transport. At that time I didn't realise how late Indonesians could be. Now I am well used to it but at that time it even more frustrating than it is now. We decided to go out and look around rather than waiting around for him. By lunch time, I hadn't heard from him and realized he probably wasn't coming. I was a little disappointed. In the afternoon, I finally got a message from him saying he was out front. I was quite shocked to look down from my balcony and see Ichsan standing there. I had already accepted that he wasn't coming. 
So, We spent the afternoon talking, watching TV and making out a little. It was good fun. We went for dinner and after dinner sat and talked again. 
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?” Ichsan asked me at one point.  
“Why would we do that? We live in separate countries and I don’t have any plans to come back to Indonesia,” I reminded him.  
"It doesn’t matter,” he insisted “because we can still SMS and chat on Facebook and Skype. We can work this out. We like each other, it will be fine”.  
“Well I guess we could try” I said reluctantly not really having any hope for a long-distance relationship. 

By that point, it was already quite late and Ichsan seemed tired.  I told him I would pay for a room for him to stay in so that he wouldn't have to drive back to Kuta at night. After I helped him find a room, I was thinking I would go back to my homestay but Ichsan asked me to sleep with him. I told him that it was not going to happen (we seriously just met 6 days earlier). He told me that he was disappointed that I didn't want to do anything because he has seen a white girl in a movie sleep with a guy she had just met. So, I spent a good portion of that evening explaining the difference between movies and reality but eventually he seemed to understand and apologised. 

On my last day in Bali, Ichsan and I were still exchanging messages. Usually, I wouldn't agree to a long-distance relationship with someone I barely know but Ichsan seemed very serious and even told me he was in love with me. I didn't realise at that time that he probably didn't realise how strong the English word 'love' is but at the time I felt like I should give a chance.

I remember not long before I left, I was walking through the stalls around Kuta when a woman selling shoes on the street offered me some sandals saying “I have a nice sandal for you so your boyfriend will stay with you”. Did I need to buy the sandals as insurance to my relationship with Ichsan?

That night, he flew back to Jakarta and I flew back to Melbourne. Ichsan and I kept in contact for a few days after I got home and then it suddenly ended with no explanation. By the time summer was over, we weren't speaking at all. My attempts to get answers (by analysing his tweets) failed and I eventually accepted that summer romances should never outlast the summer. I wasn't too disappointed as that was my plan from the beginning. 

But still, sometimes I can’t help but wonder why things ended so quickly. I accept that maybe it was my fault. Maybe if I bought those sandals in Kuta, we would still be together...

Inflight entertainment

I want to make this fair. I don’t want to just complain about the weird stuff that happened to me. I’ll tell the other side of the story. I take responsibility for how weird this one became.

In late 2013, I took a trip to Jakarta with some friends. We spent the weekend in Jakarta- went to some bars, ate some good food, rode a bajaj and on the last day took part in the classic Jakarta activities- malls and traffic jams.

Lyndee, Bethany and I spent our final afternoon in GI. We planned to check out Forever 21 and then get a taxi directly to the airport and fly back to Surabaya. We allowed plenty of time for the trip to the airport. For those who don’t know, traffic in Jakarta is CRAZY. Actually, Jakarta was recently officially named as the city with the worst traffic in the world. And it certainly lives up to that title. Jakarta is the kind of city that could probably drive me crazy if I stayed long enough. The longest I have ever stayed was about 5 days. I was staying with a friend’s family, doing a lot of fun things, not really having many responsibilities and pretty much just chilling out. But because of that amazing Jakarta traffic, I felt super stressed.

As I was saying, our trip from GI to the airport took a lot longer than we thought it would.  It got to the point that I was certain that we would miss our flight. The traffic was so bad that we were barely moving at all. In the end, we were lucky (if you can call it that) that our flight was delayed and we arrived with enough time to wait around in the airport before flying. You can always rely on a flight out Jakarta to be delayed at least.The biggest disadvantage of checking in to the flight so late was that we couldn't sit together. Lyndee and Bethany were seated near the front of the plane and I sat by myself all the way at the back of the plane. It wasn't really the end of the world though as the flight only takes an hour and a half anyway.

When it was time to board I sat in my seat at the back of the plane. I had no one to talk to and I had already read the AirAsia magazine. I began looking around. There was a young guy sitting next to me. He was probably in his early 20’s and I noticed that he was very tall. I didn't get his name so let’s just call him tall guy. I’m a little shy with talking to new people but I decided to try to talk to him anyway. “Dari mana?” (where are you from) I asked him. He looked at me with a very confused expression and didn't say anything. “Dari Surabaya atau Jakarta?” I asked. “Jakarta” he replied. That was as far as the conversation went.

Soon, the airplane took off and the fasten seat belt sign was switched off and I could listen to my iPod rather than trying to converse with the tall guy from Jakarta who didn't seem to want to be my friend. Not too long into the flight tall guy moved his leg closer to mine. Our legs touched. It was kind of weird. I know planes are kind of cramped and small but it didn't seem normal that our legs were touching. I moved my leg. A minute later, I realised our legs were touching again and moved my leg again. This was weird. When it happened a third time soon after, I started to think that maybe it was deliberate. I was kind of creeped out but also not 100% sure that he was doing it on purpose. I decided to test it. I tempted fate by deliberately moving my leg closer to his. It wasn't long before our legs were touching. I realised I needed to take things to the next level. I put my arm on the chair underneath the arm rest, fairly close to tall boy’s arm. Soon after, he moved his arm and our arms were touching. I moved my arm away. This was weird. He was acting very strangely and I didn't really know what to do. Eventually, I decided that I needed to take control of the weird situation and try to out-weird tall guy. I figured that if I was even weirder than this weird guy, then it wouldn't feel so strange (somehow). I moved my arm close to his again. Slowly I slid my hand closer and closer until my hand was on top of his. He didn't say or do anything. He just kept his hand in the same position.Next, I started gently stroking his hand. He responded by turning his hand around so his palm was facing upwards and stroking my hand. He still said nothing. So, rather than letting him gain control of the weird situation I closed my hand and held his hand.

At that point in my life, I had never flown anywhere with a boyfriend so I had never experienced hand holding on an airplane. The idea of it seems nice though. Holding hands with a stranger on a plane however was not something I saw coming and I can’t really tell you if it felt nice or just weird. Tall guy held my hand right back and we stayed in that position. My hand started to get sweaty but I kept holding his hand. By now, it felt like a competition. If I let go, I felt he would have out-weirded me and won. So I just sat there for an hour holding a stranger's hand. He never said another word to me and I just looked straight ahead.

When we landed in Surabaya, I finally let go of his hand to undo my seat belt. I wasn't sure what would happen but I decided not to say anything because my earlier attempt at making conversation with him was awkward enough. So, I stood up, looked at tall guy, gave him a quick nod and turned, walked away and continued with my life. 

I don’t know who won the weirdness competition or if there was ever any competition at all. I am not suggesting that anyone attempts to hold hands with a stranger but I am glad that I followed through with what felt important to me at the time.

Thank you guys for reading my last post, it got way more views than I expected. I really appreciate it. I'm still working on the story about my trip to Palembang. Hopefully, I will be able to post that soon too. Thank you so much for reading. :)