To wear your heart on your tweet

One afternoon I came out and saw a guy standing outside my gate talking on the phone. As I got closer I realised he was pretty good-looking.

"Uhh… who are you looking for?" I asked him.

"I'm here to pick up Bethany".

I remember thinking something along the lines of “Whenever a cute guy appears here, it’s not for me”, which actually makes no sense.

“Come and sit inside, I’ll tell Bethany you’re here” I said.

We sat down in the couch outside my house. I may have mentioned before that in Indonesia, people who I have just met tend to ask A LOT OF questions. It feels like an interrogation sometimes, I think this time was the first time I was on the other end of the interrogation. For some reason I needed to know everything about him

His name was Rafi (fake name). He was 21 (I know, I know younger man), worked, studied and volunteered. He seemed so hard-working. He was very different to my last boyfriend and I think that was what was so attractive about him.

When he eventually left, I remember feeling sad that he was going so soon and secretly watching him leave from the front window. As soon as he left I looked for his facebook to find out if he had a girlfriend (I know this is pathetic but I'm just being honest).

We organised to work with the charity he was involved with and one night we had dinner with him and some of the other volunteers. I was trying to deny to myself that I liked him but the time I had spent deciding on what to wear and doing my make-up said otherwise. I guess I don’t often put on make-up to go to Warung Ijo.

We met a few times after that but I wasn’t really sure if he was interested. I found his twitter. Finding someone’s twitter account without them knowing is like having the power to read minds. And it did clear up a few things:

 Yes, he actually posted that on his twitter. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. Actually I think if that expression was translated into Indonesian it would become "to wear your heart on your tweet". 

But finding out that he liked me was much easier than getting him to admit it. We met up about a week after I found this tweet. He was still weirdly shy around me but I was so happy to be near him. That day I watched him working with the street kids from the charity. More and more I was seeing how much of a good person he was. But still he never acted like he was interested. A few days after that, frustrated that nothing had happened. I took matters into my own hands and replied to his tweet about me. After that, we could finally line up our first date.

So our first date was approaching. He had given me the two options of "poetry reading with my friends" or something else. I opted for something else as the idea of the first date being with his friends was shocking. I don't quite know why he invited me to go somewhere with his friends but maybe he was just nervous and wanted his friends there for moral support? I soon realised that he was completely inexperienced with girls and I'd have to be patient.

The day of the big date approached.  I was seriously nervous. I was ready to leave about half an hour before he was supposed to pick me up (which is pointless in Indonesia as the guy is usually late anyway). 

When he arrived I relaxed a little. The date was quite good. He took my to eat bakso (Indo-style meatballs) which is one of my favorite foods. We got to know each other. We discussed deep things. We went cruising around. We ate ice cream. It actually felt beautifully promising.

When he dropped me off at my house he gave me a goodbye handshake which was quite weird but adorable I guess. Later he tweeted "I still can't believe what I just done tonight. . .haha". 

I guess this is what a modern day love story is. He didn't communicate with words to me. I knew how he was feeling through his tweets. He was too shy to tell me what he was thinking but it was no problem to tell the world in 140 characters or less. 

With him being such a multi-tasker, it took a week to get a second date. To me the second date is a make or break type moment. Most of the guys I have dated haven't gotten to the third date because I think you can tell if it's going anywhere by the second date.

Rafi came to my house, we went out to eat and then came back to my house. I invited him inside to chat. He initially refused to go in as he was "too nervous to meet my friends". After convincing him my housemates weren't at home, I wanted to give him a tour of the house.

Earlier that day, a bookshelf I had bought and (attempted to) assemble myself had fallen apart. I told him the story and opened the door to show him my bookshelf. He kind of hovered in the doorway.

“You can come in,” I said.

“I’m not allowed to go into a girls bedroom” he replied seriously.

“Huh? Who told you that?” I replied. “It’s just to look at a broken shelf…”

He still refused to come in.

“Uh… I have to go home now, my mother is home alone. I need to accompany her.” He said.

“Okay, no worries” I said feeling kind of frustrated, I’d waited a whole week to see him and we were only together for about 30 minutes.

So I opened the gate to let him out.
"Text me to let me know you got home safe" I told him as he drove off.

Two hours later he messaged me to tell me he was home. Obviously he wasn’t worried about keeping his mum company as there's no way it could have taken two hours for him to get home. It seemed that we both saw that things weren't great and that maybe we were too different to make things work. It was fine really, we had only been on two dates, we weren't really invested in it.

But it didn't end simply. Instead he ended it with the most hurtful words anyone has ever said to me:

Those words were so awful to me and made me so angry that I felt that I needed to do something horrible back. I decided that I didn't care what he was thinking anymore. I wanted it all to end. 

I unfollowed him on twitter.

Things are about to get serious

If there is one similarity I can draw between all of my dating experiences in Indonesia it is this: things seem to get serious fast. You would think the last thing you’d want to hear on a second or third date would be “I love you” but really… it can be much worse.

I have only had a couple of serious relationships here and those got serious pretty quickly. My second boyfriend Frans* and I only dated for a few months. Within those few months I remember having a conversation about our future children's names. He told me "Langit" (it means ‘sky’) would be a good name for out future son. It totally freaked me out even more that he chose such a strange name.

But don't assume that a relationship requires multiple months to get serious. One month is plenty of time. On the one month anniversary of the first date with one guy he planned a romantic treasure hunt with a couples T-shirt, rose, and cake hidden. Maybe this would be sweet for a (at minimum) one year anniversary gift but not for anything else.

But really you don't even need to waste your time dating someone to get that super creepy over the top experience! Actually you don't even need to pay attention to them at all!

Last year, Toni*, started working as a cleaner at my school. I said hello to him and smiled each day. It’s how I treat anyone in my workplace. He asked for my number one day and I didn’t see it as a problem because we worked together. He began to send me SMS’s for no reason- have you had breakfast? What are you doing? or Happy Saturday night. So many pointless messages. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and I told him I did. It was just after I started dating Frans. One day, the cleaner messaged me and said “are you sure that Frans is the one you want to marry?”. Of course I wasn’t, we had been dating for a month or two. I think because I answered no to this question, Toni still thought he had a chance. He continued to message me regularly, when I worked at another school he came to find me there. He waited outside of my classroom and watched me teach for hours. He gave me a glass bracelet and a rose and invited me out to malls or to his house constantly. Even months after I stopped replying to his texts he still sends stuff such as a picture of him at work, a picture of him with a cat and a quote about how he will always be there for me even if I ignore him. And all this began from just giving someone my phone number.

Now you might ask, what actually would happen if you did reply to someone's messages after they had crossed the line? What would happen if you agreed to go on a date with someone like that? Don't worry. I have the answers. 

When I met Kevin* I had no interest in him whatsoever. He seemed super creepy. We started chatting on Facebook and as I got to know him, I realised he was okay. He did occasionally push the limits though. One Saturday night Kevin was talking to me about a new burger place that had opened up near my house. He asked me if I wanted a burger and when I declined he sent me a phone number saying I could use it at any time to order food from this burger place. He told me that I could SMS my order and directions to my house. I was a little suspicious because usually you can't order food via SMS. So, I saved the number to my phone and sure enough, the Whatsapp contact picture was him.

Eventually, I agreed to go on a date with him (now I don’t really know why). It went okay though he seemed much more serious about the whole thing from the beginning and he was quite concerned that I wouldn't want to go on a second date. A few of our chats after that were a little strange. He asked why I was "wasting" so much money on travel and how much money I had saved up to buy a house.

 Not long after that I was due to go home to Australia and Kevin offered to drive me to the airport. In the car, he seemed a bit worried. 
"What's up?" I asked.
"I have to save 100 million rupiah" (approx. AU$10,000) he said.
"What?" I replied "why do you need so much money?"
"So I can pay NOAH to perform at our wedding." He replied casually.
Huh? We had been on one date!

We cut contact not long after that. He had told me that he had fallen in love with me at first sight (which I don’t believe in at all). I told him I wasn't sure about things at all. He accused me of neglecting him. I accused him of smothering me. I guess we both reached the conclusion that we were too different (well I hope he has reached that conclusion anyway).

What I have concluded so far from my dating experiences here (though I don't want to generalise because I haven't dated every Indonesian guy {yet}) is that it is going to get serious. You won't have time to think about whether things are going well or not. Before you realise that you are in a committed relationship you will be talking about weddings and houses and babies.

Thank you guys for supporting my blog, I can't believe it but last week I went over 1,000 views. Thanks so much for reading these ridiculous stories! 

*All fake names

Finding my soulmate (part 2)

This is the continuation of this post from 2 weeks ago. 

Two weeks after I returned from Palembang, I had my appendix removed. While I was in hospital people kept making jokes about me finding my soulmate in hospital, which I found ridiculous (I wasn't exactly looking great in that hospital gown). A few days after I went home from hospital, I had to go back in for a check-up.

I was sitting in the waiting room about to see my doctor when a young guy walked in. He was tall, chubby and had short hair. He's not the kind of guy I would usually be attracted to but for some reason he caught my eye. We looked at each other and smiled. After talking to someone at the reception desk, he walked back to the area I was sitting in and sat two chairs away. I wasn’t sure if I should make conversation with him but for some reason he seemed interesting to me even though I couldn't tell what attracted me to him I kept glancing over at him in the waiting room.

After a couple of minutes he looked over at me.

"Why are you here?" he asked awkwardly. To be fair to him, I'm also not sure about the best way to start a conversation in a hospital.

"I just had surgery and I have to see my doctor," I explained.
"Oh, okay," he said "Are you a teacher?"
"Yea, I am," I replied. It's not surprising that he guessed that as most Westerners in Surabaya are English teachers.
"Do you work at EF?" he asked
"How do you know that?" I asked laughing.
"I just guessed. Do you know Alex who works at EF?" he asked.
"Yea!" I said "How do you know Alex?"

“I met him when I went to Palembang. We were on the same plane and shared a taxi” he explained. For some reason I started laughing a lot when he mentioned Palembang. 

“Ohh you went to Palembang?” I said still laughing (which probably made no sense to him).

“Haha yea I did” he said smiling.

“Are you from Surabaya?” I asked him.

“No, I’m originally from Palembang.”

By this point I was giggling a lot. Was this guy my soulmate? I didn’t know what to do. I knew pretty soon I would be called in to see the doctor and I also felt that it was too fast to ask him for his phone number.  We kept talking for a few minutes and sure enough I was called to see the doctor.

The whole time I was with my doctor I was just silently praying that my soulmate would still be in the waiting room by the time I finished. I didn’t ask many questions, I just wanted to get out of there quickly.

When I returned to the waiting room, I immediately looked for him but he was gone. I hadn’t even gotten his name and he was gone. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat though.  I went downstairs to Excelso cafe and sat there hoping I would see my soulmate before he left. I was drinking my coffee when I heard someone say "hey Samantha!" I looked up and saw one of the nurses from the ER. 
"You're not crying today?" he asked laughing.
I told the nurse I was feeling better and continued to drink my coffee while waiting for my soulmate. Then I remembered that he had mentioned my friend Alex. It seemed like a long shot but it was the only link I had to him. I messaged Alex and explained the situation. Five minutes later and I had my soulmate's phone number. 

Suddenly, I felt weird about the whole thing. Could you really just meet a random person in the hospital, ask your friend for their phone number and then message them? Even if they are your soulmate, is it still weird? I wasn't sure that I wanted to message him anymore. Instead, I messaged my friend and housemate Joy:

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

Fast forward an hour or so and I was sitting on my couch with Joy, drinking tea and eating Tim Tams. I told her the story of the morning. I still wasn't sure whether I should message him but with Joy's encouragement I decided to do it. 

Turns out he is a nice guy. His name is Irvan. He's pretty cool. He actually has a girlfriend which is fine with me. Just knowing I don't have to fly across the country to look for my soulmate again makes me happy. Also, dating my soulmate seems like too much pressure for now. In all, I'm just happy to know my soulmate. Not many people get to meet their soulmates so I consider myself lucky.

Of course I haven't told Irvan that he is my soulmate. I feel it'd make things much weirder than they need to be (hopefully he never sees this blog). The pictures in this post are pictures of him from his Instagram, I specifically chose photos that would protect his identity (really, really hope he never finds this blog). 

I hope this blog post brings you guys hope. Sure, you can fly across the country to find your soulmate. You can join any dating website you want. You can talk to many random people in nightclubs or bars (I think this is how normal people get dates). But the thing is, maybe it won't happen until the time is right. Maybe finding someone means your appendix has to almost explode. Life is unpredictable. Also, even if you do meet your soulmate, you don't need to date him. You can date someone else or noone (like me). Just enjoy life with or without your soulmate basically. Have a lovely weekend my dear blog readers. 

Bye bye appendix.

In the early hours of the morning one Friday two months ago, I woke up in pain. I thought it was just food poisoning initially (it happens a lot) but it didn't go away after two hours (and possibly got worse) so I went to Siloam Hospital.

In the ER. I was given a bed and some medication. When the pain didn't go away I was given more medication. I described my symptoms as well as I could, though I feel like my medicine-related Indonesian vocabulary isn't quite where it needs to be. They asked a lot of questions. One of the doctors asked me if I liked eating spicy food, actually his exact words were: "do you have hobby to eating much chili?". I was confused by this question but later found out that many Indonesian's believe that appendicitis is caused by eating too much chili, as the chili seeds fill up the appendix. Next, a nurse came to ask some questions. 
"Are you married?" she asked with a very serious look on her face.
I told her I wasn't and she left. Right after she left I realised that she wasn't really trying to ask about my marital status but more about the likeliness of me being pregnant without saying the words. A few moments later, a doctor came in. 
"Excuse me, I have to ask you a personal question. I'm sorry." He said. I felt a little confused that he was apologising, a normal part of being a doctor is asking personal questions right?

"I just wanted to ask if you have had sex?" He asked awkwardly. I almost wanted to laugh because it seemed funny to see a doctor struggle to ask such a basic question. I convinced him that I couldn't be pregnant and he left still looking like he felt quite awkward.

The pain continued. By now it was a reasonable time of day so I messaged my friend Joy and she came to the hospital (I have good friends YAY!). The doctor told me I needed to have an ultrasound. I was in a lot of pain but it seemed like there was a long wait. A nurse came and asked Joy to go with her. Apparently, she tried to get Joy to pay for my hospital fees up to that point. This is what annoyed me the most about the hospital. Firstly, they weren't set up to deal with patients directly and they seemed to rely on you having family there to sort out payments and wouldn't communicate directly to me as the patient. They repeatedly asked me where my family was during my stay and opted to communicate to my friends (who mostly aren't fluent in Indonesian) rather than to me. And secondly, the importance on the payment- they wouldn't do much until someone had paid for it even though I couldn't really leave without paying anyway. Eventually after a lot of confusion, they agreed to let me pay for my ultrasound later. 

I went in and took the test. I guess it was a normal ultrasound, but I'm not really sure. It was kind of cool to see all my internal organs at least. The ultrasound man pushed really hard on my stomach with the probe and then would say stuff like "does it hurt here?" but I think it would always hurt because he was pushing really hard. He did find the problem with my appendix and sent me away with a cool photo album of scans of inside of me.

After that, I had to go pay for my test. It seems ridiculous that I was in that much pain and they still had me go to the front counter to pay for my scan.  When I went back to my bed in the ER, someone else was already in it. I was told to go to another bed. 

I was in so much pain, possibly the worst pain I have ever felt and I have 8 tattoos and have had a root canal without any anesthetic (yay for Indonesian dentistry), so I know real pain. Joy started talking about some stuff in an effort to distract me from the pain. She was talking about boy stuff. I was trying to think of something encouraging to say to help her with her boy problems. Instead, I vomited. 

Not long after that, I was told that I would need surgery. I responded by acting very strong. I definitely didn't cry and certainly wasn't begging them to let me go back to Australia to have my surgery. Eventually (after a lot of encouragement from friends) I agreed to have surgery in Indonesia and was admitted to hospital. The hospital gave me a cute welcome pack with random stuff like a mug, toothbrush, comb and a thermometer.

After that, Joy had to go to work and there I was in the ER still crying like a baby and waiting for my bed upstairs to be ready. Random people kept staring at me which made me even more uncomfortable. I had some colleagues from work come to check on me and I was waiting for my friend Intan to come and see me. The doctors and nurses kept asking me why I was crying. I guess I was worried because I don't really trust the doctors here. A few months ago I was trying to find an explanation for a stomach pain. The doctors seemed to get the diagnosis completely wrong and one doctor even told me I had a high temperature when my temperature was 36.7 degrees. I wasn't really confident in the doctor's abilities.

Finally, I was moved upstairs to my bed. I was in a room with 6 other people and they all seemed to have a million guests visiting each of them. It was not very comfortable. I hadn't had any gall day and now I wasn't allowed to because they wanted to do the surgery that night. I felt freezing cold and terrified about the idea of having surgery in Indonesia. My friend Intan visiting was a welcome distraction but I felt much more worried soon after when I met my anesthesiologist. She seemed extremely arrogant from the moment she walked into the room.
"Do you have a stomach ache?" she asked me.
"No I don't anymore." I answered
"If you don't have a stomach ache, then why  are you having surgery?" she asked.
"I don't know... I think the pain only stopped because of the medication"
"Did it hurt here?" she asked while pointing to her lower stomach
"No the pain was up higher" I answered showing her where it had hurt earlier.
"But the appendix isn't up there. Why are you getting your appendix out then?"
"Why are you asking me this? I'm not a doctor." I asked frustrated.
"Okay, later I will put a needle in your back before the surgery." she said.
"What? Why do I need a needle in my spine?" I asked
"Don't worry it doesn't even hurt" she said and left.
I wondered why she said this because her visit only made me more scared about the surgery and dread the idea of a needle in my spine. 

Later, not long before my surgery, my friend Oliver visited. It was good because I had someone there right before the surgery. He left when the nurses came in to shave the lower half of my body (which was super weird as well). Then, I was wheeled into the surgery room.  

I felt like there were a lot of people in the room but mostly they were nice. As I mentioned before, I have 8 tattoos and most of them are related to Indonesia. The nurses helping to prepare me for surgery were quick to notice them. One of them sang "Garuda di pahaku" (garuda on my thigh) dramatically after seeing my tattoo of Garuda Pancasila. Next, someone noticed the tattoo of the map of Indonesia which is located exactly where my appendix is. 
"Your tattoo is right where we need to cut! What should we do?" a nurse asked.
"Well, you can't really cut from the back, right? So I guess you will cut though my tattoo." I answered.
"But your tattoo might get ruined" he said
"There's not any other option really." I said.
I saw the anesthesiologist from earlier come into the room. 
"Hello!" she said "I'm here to give you that needle in the back." It almost felt like she was enjoying making me scared.
The nurses rolled me onto my side to prepare me for the moment I had been dreading. The anesthesiologist noticed a tattoo on the side of my body.
"Oh nice komodo!" she said "you like Komodo island?"
"That's a crocodile!" I said truly worrying about her intelligence if she couldn't even identify a picture of a crocodile. 
"It's Surabaya!" said one of the nurses "there's a shark and a crocodile. It's Suro-boyo!"
The anesthesiologist next noticed a tattoo on my back. 
"What's this?" she asked reading the words of my tattoo "It sounds lebay!". (lebay means something like over the top or excessive)
I found the way she was talking to me so rude.
"So what if it's lebay?" I said as she put the needle into my spine.

Soon the lower half of my body was completely numb and I couldn't move at all. I heard the doctor and nurse discussing where they were going to make the incision.  I wondered why I was still awake.
"We should start here at the bottom of Sulawesi, cut below Kalimantan towards Sumatra" I heard someone say. I'm glad my tattoo gave made things easy on them. Soon I could tell from looking at the reflection in the light above that they had made the incision. 
"Can you feel anything?" asked the anesthesiologist. 
"No. Can I just go to sleep now?" I asked. It seemed like a better idea than having to talk to her.
"Soon" she replied.

The next thing I remember was waking up. The first thing I saw was my appendix. A nurse was holding it with some tweezers right in front of my face. 
"Look how big your appendix is!" he said energetically. 
"Oh, yeah... that's nice..."  I said sleepily.
I was moved to a recovery room where my friends entered not long after. I felt so relieved that I was alive and all I could do was laugh. The doctor soon made my friends leave and I tried to sleep a little.

Soon, when I was able to move my toes a little, I was moved back to my hospital room. Joy was there waiting for me. I was so relieved to see her.  Because I couldn't move, the nurses had to basically roll me into the hospital bed which was actually pretty funny. Joy had brought all the important things someone needs in hospital: some clothes, socks, a book and most importantly some Tim Tams.

I was woken up many times during the night for tests and stuff. I remember one lady who came into my room.
"Do you want a bath?" she asked.
"What time is it?" I asked sleepily.
"4:00 AM' she replied.
"No one wants a bath at 4:00 AM" I said and fell back asleep. 

When I woke up in the morning, I asked a nurse if I could eat and drink yet. Soon I was given some soggy rice to eat. The hospital food was awful. I asked the nurse if I could eat some chocolate instead but she said told me just to eat soggy rice and porridge for a week. I decided against this because from what I read online I should resume a normal diet after 24 hours and also because soggy rice is gross.

That day, I had a lot of visitors. I got sent flowers from work and my housemates also came with some flowers. My other housemate brought me food (which was amazing). In the evening Joy came with our friend Billy and our housekeeper Parmi. Parmi started crying when she saw me even though I told her that I was fine over and over. She seemed very worried about me. I had kept my appendix in a jar to show her because the day before she had suspected that my pain was caused by "eating late" and I wanted to prove that it wasn't.
My mum said that it was gross that I had my appendix in a jar but I was determined to keep it forever. Mum said that it wouldn't be allowed into Australia which made me imagine myself at customs trying to argue that I had it with me the last time I flew to Australia (although it was inside me then) or that they had to let me bring it because it was Australian made.

The next day, I was told I was allowed to leave. I woke up early because I was excited about going home. I had a shower, got dressed and got all my things together. Then, I waited and waited. Apparently, you can't leave the hospital until your insurance has cleared and those sort of things seem to take forever. The nurses weren't paying much attention to me and I had nothing to do except play on my phone and that was definitely boring. I was hoping to leave before lunch time so that I could eat some normal food but sure enough at 12:00 PM they brought out some soggy rice and fish. I decided not to eat it. Instead I made a cup of tea and when the nurse wasn't looking, I did a Tim Tam slam (biting the ends of the Tim Tam biscuit and sucking the tea through it to make it all melty on the inside). Much better.

That afternoon, I finally left. I left behind the weird questions, the old ladies in my hospital room, the soggy rice and my appendix jar. I had some siomay and did other stuff besides playing with my phone. It was definitely great to be home.

Mostly, my recovery was smooth aside for some bloating that made me look several months pregnant like in the picture above. I actually got worried that I was somehow pregnant but luckily I could check the photo album I got after my ultrasound for proof. The scar between Sulawesi and Sumatra is healing well and my tattoo is definitely not ruined. The best thing that came from this all it that now no matter where I go in the world, a part of me will always be in Indonesia- my dear appendix.