A friend of mine got engaged recently.

I asked her if she loved the guy.

If you are reading this in Australia, England, or America, this might seem a strange question to ask. But here…maybe not. Because in Vietnam, I have discovered that (for many, many people) – romantic love is just a fairytale, a juvenile, childish thing to be dallied with once or twice in youth – but never really a consideration for adulthood or especially marriage. Marriage here – for some – is less about love and more about survival. More about security. People here often choose a marriage partner more with their mind, and less with their heart.

Love and Marriage – Horse and Carriage?

Love doesn’t really matter for many brides or grooms in Vietnam. What matters is the security of the future. Girls (and/or their parents) will choose a guy based on his potential capacity to financially support her and her family. Guys (and/or their parents) will choose a girl based on her potential capacity for sex, cooking, house maintenance, and especially…child-rearing – and thus to raise children that will support him in his later years.

Some of you might find this cynical. But most here – and in many poorer (and/or much more sexist) countries than our own – find it practical, sensible.

Following your heart is not seen as a bad thing – unless it conflicts with the practical requirements above. Certainly people prefer to have both – love AND security in a marriage – just like back home. It’s just – compared to back home – love rates a lot lower on the importance scale.

I’m not judging, I’m not saying which method is better.

Certainly back home, a lot of marriages based purely on romantic love fall apart because of lack of practical foresight into future security. People often get married back home based on intense romantic feelings, and then build the security together – or that’s the plan. Here – the potential security and survival of the partnership is clinically dissected by partners and parents – and if approved of – the marriage will continue, with hopefully love growing over time.

But embracing the romantic aspect of love in the early stages of an adult relationship…well, that’s a luxury.

Again, like in lots of my writing, there are generalizations above.

For starters, I’ve observed hundreds of married couples in Vietnam, and I wouldn’t ever say that these marriages are generally unhappier than the marriages I’ve seen in the West. The men are often very happy with the lordly treatment they get from their wives, and the women generally have a resigned air of acceptance of the dismal treatment they get from their husbands. In other words – I PERSONALLY think the treatment they get is horrible, because I compare it to a standard I’ve seen back home, but these women are comparing it to treatment that their mothers and older sisters have gotten from men, and thus sometimes actually think they are LUCKY. So there’s not a lot of unhappiness in most of the marriages I see, just acceptance – and the women get happiness not from their relationships with their husband, but from their children and female friends and family.

Again – MASSIVE generalizations above. I DO see dozens of marriages approaching a kind of equality, where the husband contributes an almost equal amount of love, affection, hard work and respect as the wife does. But when I observe marriages like this, I’m usually thrilled and delighted to see the happy couple or hear their story – and thus – I’m always SURPRISED. So…if I’m surprised to see what I consider a relationship of equality and mutual respect, then…this obviously means such relationships (however abundant) are in the minority, right?

And sometimes – even when I DO finally see a marriage I admire and thus a married man I respect, I’m frequently disappointed when – for example – the man invites me down to the local massage parlor (brothel) or introduces me the his girlfriend-on-the side.

Anyway…it’s utterly depressing.

But this little ramble isn’t supposed to be about marriage. It’s supposed to be about love. And my initial point was about marriages based on love are less frequent over here.

But it’s tough to say that marriages are less successful however.

Sometimes I think marriages here are approached like two partners opening a company together – a partnership in business. The company’s long term goals are laid out – financial success and security, and raising of children to sustain the family (and the species) later. Both parties in the company partnership commit themselves utterly to fulfilling this contract to the letter. Usually they do. And thus the marriages over here – extremely successful.

But it depends upon how success is defined.

Marriages obviously in Asia end in divorce a lot less frequently that those in the West but does that mean they are more successful? Longevity does not always equal success. If you define success as the achievement of a goal, and your goal is happiness, then…I don’t know. Spitballing again. There are a lot of unhappy marriages in the West – but women there have the luxury to be more independent and self-involved and navel-gaze that the women here. Wives here may often be unhappy with the “wife” role in their life, but society does not permit much independence or introspection – and women accept their lot so much more – and besides, they find happiness children and friendships. I’m fond of saying that happiness comes more from attitude than situation. And Asians - generally a very happy people – have a wonderful attitude to life, no matter what their situation.

So – it ain’t really about happiness, or even successful marriages. But the amount of love felt for your marriage partner often – it seems to me – relates to the amount of respect you show them and how well you treat them – and thus – their happiness. Men are treated with a phenomenal amount of (largely undeserved) respect here as a matter of course. Women give and men take. Thus men are often happier in marriages than women. They don’t NEED to feel the love from their partner – if they’ve got the respect and great treatment anyway. As I explained above, the happiness of a married woman here is less dependent on a husband’s love and respect than in the West, and more simply through her attitude and acceptance. But…certainly, women feel love – true love – from their partners a lot less, apparently, from what I’ve seen and been told.

Marriages based on tradition and the perpetuation of the species? Absolutely Adrian!

Marriages based on romantic love? Fuggedabowdit!

Maybe they’ve got it right and we’ve got it wrong.

Maybe we are stupid, impractical, blind, ignorant. Maybe we are foolhardy, romantic dreamers, led astray by too much time to embrace these crazy feelings, too much luxury to read romantic books, see romantic films, indulge romantic flights of fancy.

Maybe we embrace and celebrate those quixotic emotions too much, turning our lives – often – into a rollercoaster of heartsongs and heartbreaks. Damn old Will Shakespeare has got a lot to answer for.

When I say “we” in the three paragraphs above, I mean obviously “Westerners”. When I say “they”, I mean obviously Vietnamese, or South-East Asians.

I Want To Break Free

Taking away my standard “generalization disclaimer” for a second, I’ve got a big, big “exception disclaimer” for my “we” and “they” theory. Because - many people in this country - especially younger people, especially educated people, especially those in the city - are a lot more like their counterparts in the West – with ideals more based on personal happiness and less on survival of their family. In the modern, wealthier, free-thinking, open world, they can afford to be more selfish, more independent, more in charge of their own destinies. Or they can try.

One of the reasons most of my Vietnamese friends are under 30 is that 99% of the local people I met here over 30 are no longer single.

One of the reasons most of my Vietnamese friends are women is that I respect their attitudes and behavior so much more than those of the men (and their English is usually heaps better!).

And of course, one of the reasons most of my Vietnamese friends are women under 30 is that this category is possibly the most physically beautiful category of people in the world.

However – all those valid reasons aside – one of the primary reasons most of my Vietnamese friends are younger and unmarried is that...simply…their minds are so much more open than those of older, more traditional people.

These people – in their defining years – have to access courage that I – in MY youth - never even had to think out – the courage to be individuals – to be themselves, to stand up and say…”NO”. “What’s right for you may not be right for me. “ And “Maybe I’ll make some mistakes…but they’ll be my mistakes, and they’ll help me grow.” And “I’m free to be me!” Or however that translates into Vietnamese, anyway.

Independence is a strange concept in a communist country. Certainly people here – especially people 30 plus - are as similar in character as corn flakes. But my friends – my closest friends – are so varied. All so different. But one factor they all have in common, one factor I respect in them so, so much - is the strength to be themselves.

Sophisticated is a difficult word to define. The Microsoft Windows Synonym generator just threw up a few options for me then: “stylish”, “classy”, “refined”, “urbane”. Guess those are all true. But my two favorites from Mr. Gates: “complicated”, and “difficult”. Life is the East – in recent centuries – has certainly been more difficult – in general – that that in the West. Difficult to survive. Difficult to LIVE. But “social life” in the West…certainly with the intense complications that sophistication brings – has been pretty difficult to navigate for some of us. Here in Asia, traditionally, the social life has been simple. In the West…it’s a helluva minefield. A tightrope. That’s the curse and the blessing of it. The danger and the thrill. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As do some younger Vietnamese, nowadays.

Their attempts to become more sophisticated are often most obvious through exterior things like fashion, and not on any inner cool or class. But ANY attempt to break free from traditional social mores is difficult…and often these exterior signs reflect an inner longing for independence, for personal freedom. Not just to dress the way they want, not just to drive the coolest bike and show off the coolest mobile phone.

But to hang out with who they want.

DO want they want.

And love who they want…

With a relatively recent opening up to the Western (and supposedly freer) world you can feel a huge upsurge of change. And with change obviously comes conflict, as people fight against parents, fight against tradition, fight against society, as their eyes are opened up to more personally fulfilling destinies. Including the destiny of the perfect partner. The destiny of love.

**** Please note: All references to “love” in this article pertain to the romantic, couple-y type love, ok? - the exciting type the gets the most press - and NOT the more common types of love that actually DO make the world go around.

So…the friend above? The one I mentioned in the first line of my piece.

What did she answer? Did she love the guy she got engaged to? Well…no. In her case, no. She personally chose financial and familial security over love and attraction, the latter of which (believe me) she’s experienced before.

Her attitude was that the later half (or two thirds) of her life was not going to be so much about personal fulfillment, but devotion to a husband and children – a husband who would help keep her own older family alive and breed their kids to be successful enough to support her and him in later life. It’s never directly explained to me like that here, but that is basically the traditional circle of familial life in Asia, I’ve ascertained.

And love? Sure…that’s nice if it’s around. But affection is generally more than most traditional women have hoped for, and tolerance is sometimes more than enough to expect.    

As Good As It Gets?

My friend is approaching 30, and thus – like most Vietnamese females around that age – has had her fair share of being treated like shit by men. Thus, cynicism isn’t uncommon. Younger girls here are more optimistic, generally because their experience of love comes not from real relationships, but more from MTV and cheesy Korean love songs, and from equally naïve, sweet boyfriends who haven’t learned yet to follow the despicable habits of their older brothers and fathers. In other words, these younger girls haven’t been burned yet.

Thus women from their late twenties on, including my friend, don’t just have a cynical/practical attitude to marriage, they also have cynical/realistic attitude to love.

My good friend – recently engaged – believes that the romantic love you feel when you are thirty has nothing of the intensity and passion of the love you felt when you were twenty-five. And the love you feel when you are twenty-five has nothing of the intensity and passion of the love you felt when you were twenty. And so on…

Basically, she believes that love, actually, only really seems exciting and thrilling and passionate to teenagers – and that’s because it’s a fantastic fairytale impossibility.

Maybe she’s right.

For her.

Maybe she’s right for many people.

But – when she told me her theory – I told her - genuinely, honestly - that I didn’t think she was right in my case. Her theory wasn’t – I hoped – right for me.

I didn’t want the love I felt as a teenager, or in my twenties, or even in my early thirties, to be…as good as it gets. That’s not to disparage that earlier love. Basically, the last time I was in love – early thirties – was the most intense, passionate, warm, exciting, incredible, joyous time of my life – and much better than the intense, passionate, warm love affairs that I’d had before it. For ME, right up until and during my last real relationship, it just kept getting better – which kinda blows a hole in my friend’s theory right there, huh?

So…when she laid out her theory for me…a part of Dave…the small negative and pessimistic and cynical part thought…hey…maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s it for me. All downhill from here. But the major part of Dave – the biggest part of me – the 95% positive and optimistic part - thought…nah…life just keeps getting better. Love – or the chance of love – just keeps getting better too, right?

Right?

Well…

I gotta admit, I’ve been a little worried, on and off, the last few years.

Preventative Purée

My heart was not exactly broken five years ago. It was ripped outta my chest with a chainsaw, thrown onto jagged grass, stomped on with high-heeled Doc Marten boots, stabbed with a machete, shot with a cannon, scorched with a flame thrower, pulverized with a jack-hammer, then thrown into a blender and pureed until all that was left…well…was puree. A glutinous, pulpy, sticky mess that no one would even recognize as a heart, let alone the remnants of one.

I’m not blaming anyone else for these violent actions detailed above, mind you. In fact (due to reasons of emotional blindness, bad timing and incredibly crappy circumstances) I’m the one that did most of the breaking myself – so into self-flagellation I am.

But regardless of the cause, the result was…a deeply, deeply broken heart. Extremely cautious. Extremely wary. And basically – extremely dangerous for any women to even ATTEMPT to step within fifteen feet of.

I didn’t just erect a brick wall around my heart in 2003. I erected a fort. No. A FortRESS. The sorta fortress that makes the Alamo and those in Lord of the Rings look like a something from a kid’s toy chest. Concrete walls twelve inches thick. Impenetrable steel doorways – actually, scratch that - NO doorways at all. Cannons blistered all over the surface, ready to cut down anyone who came close.

As, if fact, they did. Some came close. All were cut down.

Because, as well as erecting the fort around my heart, I should have also erected a few warning signs. “Dangerous Ground”. “Stay Away”. “Trespassers WILL be Prosecuted”. “Enter at your own risk”. And “Don’t even THINK about resuscitating this heart, because if you do, your own heart is liable to end up shot down in flames, a sorry burning mess on the battlefield of broken dreams…” That type of catchy thing.

I SHOULD have erected those signs.

But I didn’t. At least not right away.

Because – while my heart knew exactly what it wanted (NOTHING!), my mind and my…umm…libido…had other ideas. My libido wanted physical stimulation. My mind wanted intellectual stimulation. And my spirit was intensely lonely and needed…someone.

I’ve been pretty strong between 2003 and now – mostly. I’ve been pretty proud of how well I’ve coped. But – at times – I wasn’t strong enough to BE lonely.

My mind and libido have talked to me – constantly over the past five years.

My mind has said countless times: “Hey, she’s beautiful, she’s awesome, she’s lovely – go for it!!!”

My libido has said to me just as countless times: “Hey…she’s just THERE, just go for it!!!”

Thankfully I have listened to my mind more often than my libido, so I haven’t made as many mistakes as I COULD have.

But listening to my mind – instead of my heart – has gotten me into almost as much trouble.

I’m become friends with countless girls over the past five years. I’ve become – more than friends – with…a few. And when I say girls I mean (friends or no): exceptional examples of humanity. The kindest, loveliest, coolest people.

So why wouldn’t I become friends with them?

And…if my mind (and yes, often libido) were pushing for more, why wouldn’t. why SHOULDN’T I become more.

Because…

The heart knows what it wants.

The heart knows what it wants.

The heart knows what it wants.

And…the heart always wins. Maybe not in cynical/realistic Vietnamese relationships, but certainly for me…the heart always wins.

I just should have listened to my heart more.

My heart – incredibly cautious and impenetrable for five years.

My heart – screaming at me – “Keep them away!!!!”, “Don’t let them near!!!”, “I’m not ready!!! I’m still puree!!!”

I knew it. And – most of the time – I DID it. I displayed those signs clearly, especially in Vietnam, especially lately. I kept them away, kept them from getting close. But sometimes, a little, for awhile, my mind and libido won over my heart. They convinced it – “hey, let’s hide those signs for now - give this one a go, she’s seems pretty cool”.

Nup.

I should have listened to my heart more.

Because the heart knows what it wants.

And the heart always wins.

Because, as near-perfect on paper as some of these girls might have seemed to my mind/libido – they didn’t stand a chance of pleasing my heart.

The fortress stayed secure. Stayed strong. Stayed impenetrable.

Why?

WHEN would the fortress around my hear weaken a little?

Open up…stop being so wary.

Feel.

Fall.

WHEN?

Was it the timing?

Was it the girls?

Right girls but at the wrong time?

Wrong girls for any time?

Maybe my heart WAS ready, but the right girl just hadn’t crossed my path for a long time. Or maybe…my heart just…wasn’t ready yet. Maybe it never would be…

I was beginning to worry.

Five years is a long time. No matter HOW much prodding I gave my heart from my mind and/or libido…nothing. No movement. Just a grumpy old – “Go away!!!”, “Don’t Even Bother!!!”, “Can’t you see I’m sleeping!!!”

The trouble was – I wasn’t just hurting myself. In fact – I WASN’T hurting myself. My heart felt nothing, so how could I?

But I was hurting others. Some of them just friends. Some of them more. All of them thinking that, maybe hoping that…maybe we could BE more. And me (sometimes) THINKING the same. But FEELING…nothing. Diddly-Squat!!! Nada. Nothing. Zero.

So nothing lasted. The second I was pretty sure that my heart was never going to jump into gear with a particular person – and if I knew that person was waiting/hoping for that – I let them know. I tried…this damn great selfish experiment to FEEL again - and undoubtedly - in the process ended up breaking (or at least scarring) a few hearts myself.

So I guess I started to get a bit annoyed with MY heart.

But…more than that…I began to get worried.

Maybe this was it?

My heart and spirit has resuscitated a lot from the great collapse of 2002/3. In general I was my old self: incredibly happy, carefree, positive, joyful. I loved my friends, my family, my life. I EMBRACED life again. Incredibly happy. But…missing something. Because my heart – in terms of romance, passion, love for another single soulmate – felt nothing.

Five years.

A little worried.

Maybe my cynical friend was right.

Or maybe my heart was so sawn up, stomped on, burnt, shot, jack-hammered, pulverized and pureed that it would NEVER, EVER open up to true love again.

Nah…

This is ME we are talking about, kiddies.

ME!

Do you think I’d leave you without a happy ending?

Ready yourselves.

Because here it comes…

Just when I was beginning to doubt myself – to doubt my heart’s capacity to tear down the fortress walls and feel true love again….

Just when I was beginning to resign myself to the possibility of life without passion, life without intensity, life without longing…

Just when I’d thought that maybe I was growing up…

Just when I thought I’d had as good as it gets…

She smiled at me.

She smiled.

At me.

One smile.

The Heart Knows What It Wants

One smile.

And instantly, I could feel the fortress around my heart…the previously impenetrable fortress…shake.

A few of those warning signs fell away.

My mind reeled, wondering what the hell was going on – five years is a long time – it could barely remember, barely process those feelings.

But my mind – well-practiced (five years remember) – recovered – and kept my visage straight-faced. But inside, as the fortress was crumbling, as the signs were falling away, my mind did the only thing it knew how to do.

It panicked.

It questioned my heart.

And the two of them have been arguing ever since.

The heart knows what it wants.

For five years, mine wanted nothing. Now it knows what it wants.

My mind…can barely accept that.

Now my MIND is the wary one. Now my MIND is the one throwing up the signs. And because the MIND is an altogether more irritating and complex mechanism than the heart…the MIND is still…very confused.

But the heart. The heart knows what it wants.

She...

From the second I met her, saw her smile, heard her voice, her laugh.

Every second since, intensified from the moment before by a thousand…that WANT, that NEED, that DESIRE…

My engaged friend was VERY, VERY wrong.

Feelings, more intense than any before.

She…

The initial thunderbolt has turned into a perpetual hurricane of intensity.

Sometimes – from what I remember – an initial burst of physical infatuation can fizzle in the light of day – when you realize the inner-substance doesn’t match the dazzling packaging. But here…the opposite. The physical attraction is still intense, still intensifying. It’s nothing compared to the magnetism of herself…her inner beauty.

He character, her spirit, her soul…much more desirable than anything on the outside.

Of course…

She’s far from perfect.

She irritatingly intelligent. Annoyingly sharp. Unbearably over-generous. And kinda funny looking, in a supermodel-type way. Like I said – far from perfect.

But – to my heart - she’s beyond perfect.

The deepest eyes.

The sweetest laugh.

The loveliest smile.

The quickest mind.

The strongest spirit.

The kindest heart.

She is breathtaking. Amazing. Incredible. Gorgeous. Wonderful. Divine.

She enters a room and it’s like you are breathing the purest mountain air after decades of digesting the Saigon pollution.

She looks you straight in the eyes and it’s like the sun has come out after decades of darkness.

She speaks and it’s like hearing a Vivaldi Overture after decades of deafness.

She smiles and it’s…like heaven.

No.

It’s better.

Because heaven could never be this good.

She’s an angel.

Her spirit and her soul infect all around her – she lights up every room with her energy and light…

She glows with warmth and goodness, from the outside sure, but mostly from within…

She’s naughty, moody, inconsistent, unpredictable, annoying, silly, crazy. She’s incredibly complicated. She’s perfect for me. She’s all wrong for me.

And I’ve felt more in two months than I’ve felt in two years.

Truly, Madly, Deeply…

My friend was SO wrong.

You CAN go back. Because…

I’m teen angst personified.

She drives me completely crazy.

Intense, intense desire.

Incredible longing and passion.

The magnetic attraction is almost tangible.

Every second I’m with her, my heart is jumping around in my chest like a basketball on steroids.

Every second I gaze into her eyes, my mind barely controls the intense impulse to hold her in my arms and kiss her deeply, passionately until the clocks stop and time ends and the stars fall from the sky. Forever.

Every second she laughs, I imagine listening to that laugh across the breakfast table, everyday for the rest of our lives…through kids and grandkids and friends and places…everything changing except the two of us and our laughter…until we grow so old we can barely hear each others laughter, or comprehend each other’s jokes, but still connect deeply through our eye contact…her perfect, lovely eyes… Forever.

Yep…you got it.

I’m LOCO. More Lost than the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815. Gone. Outta here.

Well…my heart is lost. The two pages above were written directly from my heart. My tainted, lost heart.

Whenever I’m NOT with her…I’m thinking about her. Wondering about her. Missing her desperately. Hoping she’s ok. Waiting till I see her.

My professional life – never a real priority anyway – has turned to crap. Total distraction. I’m teaching in a daydreamy daze.

My motorbike riding in Saigon was done for almost a year with a furrowed, sweaty brow of intense concentration on my surroundings. Lately – especially after seeing her – I’ll be riding my bike on a euphoric, swooning high, and I’ll arrive somewhere with utterly no memory of my ride and how I got there, simply the image of her face and the sound of her voice swirling around in my mind, and a dopey smile on my face.

My tennis game – like my teaching – has turned to crap. I consider myself lucky if I can focus my mind OFF her for more the millisecond required to prevent Lee’s serve from slamming me in the balls.

My personal life – still great – is spent with lots of wonderful friends either listening to me swoon in delight and/or angst, or wondering why I have completely zoned them out with a blissful smile and a trail of chin-drool. Chats with best friends seem to revolve around juvenile discussion and analysis of my feelings in an attempt to make some sense of them. Which is impossible.

These feelings – and what is so great and so bad and so crazy and so wonderful about them – is that they CANNOT be understood. They CANNOT be defined.

And they cannot be controlled.

Well, not by me. And even if I could…would I want to?

Before…I had oodles of self control…

Well I didn’t NEED it. I didn’t have the feelings TO control.

NOW, I’ve got the feelings – which arguably need the most control of all…and…all self-control is lost.

Too be honest, I’m not even trying. I’m controlling my behavior sure. I ain’t fooling ANYONE that knows me well (including her) but…generally, on the surface…sure…self-control is at Defcon 3 and holding. Behavior controlled. But my feelings. Nup. Why would I? Numb for so long. Now - sensation again. Who wants to control that?

I can FEEL!!!

I’m reveling in every single feeling. Even the bad ones. Even the misery, even the confusion, even the longing.

But especially the good ones. Passion. Desire. Respect. Admiration. Appreciation. Wonder. Awe. Longing. And…should I say it?

The BIG ONE? Should I say that word?

Sure why not?

Because…

I’m thrilled.

I’m delighting in every second of this.

My mind may be confused and dyslexic as hell, by my heart is in the clouds, and my spirit is soaring.

Because…as wonderful and as perfect as my life was before, suddenly…crazily…

I can FEEL again.

Feel with such intensity that the colours seem more colourful and the smells more potent. Everything is clearer, sharper, better.

Life IS better.

The fortress around my heart has crumbled to the ground, to dust…

The puree has miraculously reformed itself into an intensely rebeating, reFEELING organ.

I can feel again.

Thanks to the most incredible, amazing, beautiful, special girl ever put on the Earth.

Thanks to timing, to serendipity, and to me.

And…miraculously, unbelievably, impossibly…it finally appears that I AM truly, madly, deeply, utterly, hopelessly, completely, miserably, wonderfully, terribly, totally…and FINALLY…in love, actually.

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