Star Wars Endless Episode: Attack of the Dateless

Despite growing pressure from our families to get hitched soon, I, 26, and my other single girlfriends think there is no need to rush into marriage.

First and foremost, we haven't met the right guy yet. Not that we're not looking, or not being looked at. In my case, I have given up looking after constantly bumping into either married men or gays.

So, that's it, I thought. I'll simply let destiny lead me to Mr. Right. Cinderella complex? Yeah, well, we all have flaws.

Secondly, I'm not that keen on the idea of getting married. At least not yet. It just doesn't sound very thrilling to me.

I mean, seeing the same person each day of your life? Taking care of babies (and then toddlers)? Having to put up with the in- laws and relatives? I don't think so! Not just yet anyway.

In the meantime, let's enjoy our freedom and have fun. Yes, we're singles, so what? We refuse to wallow in loneliness or think how pathetic we are supposed to be. Or worse, we could just grab any guy who came in handy so people wouldn't call us jomblo (dateless).

We have promising careers, we're fully independent and our social life is not disappointing either. In short, we're young (26 is still young, right?), healthy, wealthy (OK, not wealthy, but comfortable) and wise.

Sure, there are those moments. The moments when you really wish you had a loved one. In that case, thank God for having a job as absorbing and as occupying as being a reporter. Thank God for having friends around. And thank God for dozens of clubs and cafes in town.

Until one day, when my friend Tisha, 29, and I agreed to spend a Saturday together.

We visited a mall in the afternoon, where we went on a shopping spree, browsed the bookstore, bought some groceries, hung out at a cafe and Tisha had a haircut.

Later on that day, we decided to catch a movie, the much-hyped Spider-Man. It was not really our kind of movie, but we were in the mood for something light that day.

Apparently, so were many others, as we couldn't get a ticket. We then went to another cinema, where we had to stand in a long line. When we finally got a ticket, it was for the midnight show, which meant we had to pay almost twice as much and wait an extra hour to see the film.

No problem. We bought two cups of bubble tea and then sat on the stairs, waiting. There was nothing much left to talk about, so we just sipped our tea and enjoyed our long-time favorite hobby: people-watching.

Gosh, where did those people come from? They were so beautiful, thin and fashionable. We looked down at ourselves, and sighed. Sporting our usual garb of jeans, T-shirt and sandals, plus having been out since the afternoon, we definitely didn't look our best.

We looked up again, to see that most of the people were couples. Couples hugging, laughing, happy. And we were none of those: a couple, laughing or happy. What a shame!

More and more beautiful people passed us and we wondered why didn't we know at least one of them. Where had we been all this time?

"Damn. We must have been working too hard lately," Tisha whispered.

Suddenly, we felt so ... pathetic. The very feeling that we had successfully been dodging and trying to overcome suddenly crept up on us that night.

Shuddering, we stood up from the stairs, trying to be tough. But then we accidentally caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror and almost screamed to see the images staring back at us. We saw the obvious weight gain, and Tisha regretted the short bob she had asked for earlier in the afternoon.

"Oh my God, it makes me look like Megawati!" she sighed.

For 15 minutes or so, we whined about our jobs that did not give us more time to exercise, while we knew very well that the weight gain was due to our laziness.

OK, time for the movie. It'd better be good, we thought, to compensate for the price and damage to our self-esteem.

Just as Michael Stipe of R.E.M. sang, "Sometimes everything is wrong" in Everybody Hurts; that's exactly what hit us that night. Spider-Man turned out to be a typical American hero flick, leaving Tisha and I drowning in even more despair.

And so we went home, and alas, had to pass those beautiful couples again.

That just ruined the whole weekend.

Several days later at the office, we recalled that Saturday night, still feeling a little bit like losers. Another colleague, a kind of miss happy-go-lucky, popped in and asked if we had seen Spider Man.

Tisha and I looked at each other, and then blurted out the whole story.

With an I'm-sorry-for-you-guys look, our colleague said that she knew just the right remedy.

"You've got to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. It really helps!" she said firmly.

I don't know, but the way she said it was so funny and sincere that Tisha and I roared with laughter and couldn't stop.

"It's true! It's so otherworldly that you can forget all of your problems. It's pure escapism!" she added, telling us the details of the movie, which made us laugh all the more.

Thanks to her, our feelings of self-pity gradually disappeared and we regained our sanity.

I wish it were that simple. Watching a single movie and all problems disappear. It's not that simple; it never will be. But at the very least we can still laugh at ourselves.

-- Franny Situmorang