Of Sushi and James Earl Jones

"Hey, you're a guy, right?"

Meet May, an old school friend who was an "almost-girlfriend" of mine from school times. We kept in touch and now I'm her agony uncle.

"Erm.... last I checked, I am, yeah." I said, sporting a cheshire cat grin.

"Ha ha. Please, be serious. I need your opinion on this guy I've been seeing."

Oh no. Here we go again. Why is it that girls always come up to me asking me for relationship advice, like I'm their personal Dr. Phil? Me, someone who has had more failed relationships than a cat has lives.

"What's he like?"

""Erm.... see, that's the funny thing," she went gingerly, while her hands played absentmindedly with the straw of her iced lemon tea. "I'm not quite sure."

"What do you mean, not quite sure?" I can just see a train wreck coming.

"Thing is, I only know him by his voice...."

Huh?

"Ok. here's the story... and don't interrupt my story!" she warned. Oh dear. Here we go again with one of her almost boyfriends tales.

"See, Jeannie (one of her ultimate best-friends in this universe and the next) decided to set me up with this guy who's a friend of her former uni-mate. She gave him my number, with my permission, of course, so that...

"Why..."

"I said, don't interrupt and let me finish!"

"Ok, ok." Sheesh, no wonder she still can't find a decent guy.

"So, anyway, Patrick, that's his name, by the way, calls me up one fine day a couple of months ago. My first impression was, wow, what a nice voice. I mean, he's got this manly, deep booming voice that just begs to be listened to. You know what I mean?"

"You mean, ... like this?" I lowered my voice one octave.

"Ha ha. Actually that's not too bad. Yeah."

You can just imagine my eyes rolling to the back of my head if they could.

"So anyway, we talked for quite a bit, and exchanged the necessary info about each other, like what do we do for a living, where we studied, what kind of food we liked - he likes sushi, just like me, hehehe,- and what kind of music we listen to, that sort of thing. He was very attentive and seemed genuinely interested."

"In that manly voice of his, of course?" I wondered if I wasn't being sarcastic enough.

"Yes. In that manly voice of his. " she added, smiling in spite of herself.

"Gosh, May, you girls are such a bunch of suckers...."

"Did I say you could interrupt?" And she went on without waiting for my answer," We talked for about an hour and finally arranged to meet for coffee the following Sunday, as he would be out of town until then. "

"So did you guys meet then?"

With a sigh, she said," That's the thing. I didn't hear from him at all that whole week, and then on the Saturday before the coffee thingie, I texted him to ask him about it, and four hours later, he replied saying that he couldn't make it 'cos he's got to go back to his hometown to help his mom do some renovation negotiations with the contractor."

"Awww... that's so sweet!"

The death stare I got from her could cut through steel.

"So, anyway, I thought, well, he was busy, so I forgave him. A few days later he called me and we started talking again, this time about the movie I saw recently...."

"Which was...?"

"It doesn't matter lah! Look, do you want to listen to my story or not???"

"Erm..."

"So, at the end of that phone call, he made a date with me to meet the following Saturday night, but this time he said he would call me to confirm."

"OK, that's mighty erm.. responsible of him. So then what happened?"

"He didn't call. Saturday came and went without a single beep from him."

"Why didn't you call him back to confirm like you did the previous time?"

"What, and appear desperate?" she said as if the whole premise wasn't wretched enough as it was.

"So anyway, he called to apologise a couple of days later, saying that his boss suddenly unloaded a ton of files for him to work on throughout the weekend and he was sorry that the date flew out of his mind"

"Those were his exact words, 'flew out of his mind' ?" This was beginning to sound really familiar. And dreary. And sad.

"Well, he did say he was sorry...." as if that would atone for everything.

"So then what happened? Did you finally meet up with him or not?"

Her eyes looked down at her half drunk glass of tea, now more lukewarm than iced.

"Erm.. no, not yet. See, we tried to arrange to meet up a few more times after that, but every time was the same. He couldn't confirm beforehand and as the date aproached, something always came up. He had to fly to Jakarta, his friend needs him to pick him up at the airport, etc. etc."

"And you're still hung up on this guy because...?

"He's a really nice guy. Really. He's genuinely interested in meeting up. And he's got such a nice voice! " That's her, arguing her case before me, the relationship judge.

"So all this frustration and anxiety you're feeling now is over a masculine voice???" I said with incredulity dripping off the corner of my mouth.

"Ok, it sounds silly when you put it that way."

"That's because it is silly. You know it, you just need someone to tell you so." Honestly, I love this girl with all my heart, but at that moment, I wished I could just kick her ass and knock some sense into her.

"So, what do you think?" She looked at me with those hopeful eyes, beckoning me to expound some deep and profound secrets of the male psyche, all in the hopes of justifying her current beau's behaviour.

"Look, here's the verdict. This guy ...what's his name?"

"Patrick," she reminds me, slightly indignant as to how on earth I could forget that name.

"... right, Patrick, calls you up, sweet talks you into meeting up with him for what was essentially a blind date and then promptly 'forgets'. Then he comes back to apologise, you accept his apology, and he does the whole shebang again. You then start to make excuses for him not meeting his end of the bargain and give him chance after chance after chance. In the end, it's been, what, two months of fruitless near-rendezvouses and you still have no idea who this guy actually is, other than that he likes Japanese food and he has a manly voice. Is that about right?"

All was quiet on the female front. Crickets start to creak.

This was gonna hurt but someone had to give her the awful truth.

"Ok. You wanna know what I think? Honey, I hate to say this but he's just not that into you. For all you know he could be married and is just having fun flirting with poor little girls who're just a bit lonely and also a bit desperate. I am sorry. Be nice to yourself and delete his number from your handphone.... and you can tell Jeannie to never ever do any matchmaking deeds 'cos she sucks at it!"

The shocked look on her face was priceless.