From "A" Directly to "Z"

"Shall we get married?"; those were the words that appeared on my Windows Live Messenger's screen. Surprised and clueless about what to answer, I paused myself for a while and took some time to figure out how to approach questions like these. "Shall we get married?"---these aren't everyday casual questions that you'll receive from your friends online.

But before that, I took a deep breath and then burst into an outrageous joy. My screams followed by my laughters in happiness then attracted my roommate to my room. "Shenji, are you watching porn again?" he asked in an annoyed manner as he couldn't tolerate the noise from my room. "No, you dick head! Come here and check this out," I said while pointing my index finger at my laptop's screen that was illuminating the "Shall we get married?" question. My roommate stared at the screen with an expressionless face and a second later, he screamed, "Whoa, what the fxxk?". I laughed further on and continued, "Yeah I know. It's crazy right? We just met each other a few days ago and now she's proposing to me." Both of us continued laughing, but I knew that my roommate was just pretending to be happy for me as I could sense his jealousy for my luck. "Shenji, what did you do to her? Did you bang her and got her pregnant? No wonder she wants to be your wife. You're carrying her child, for heaven's sake" my roommate laughed cheekily. "Get the fxxk out of here, buddy" I laughed while ushering my giggling roommate out from my room. "Well, you better figure out what to say to her, daddy" he continued giggling mischievously. After he left, I went back to my working table in my room and continued looking at the screen hoping to come out with a solution to answer this "difficult" question.

So who is this girl who daringly proposed to me? Let's rewind back to the very beginning. I happen to really know this girl (her name is classified for the sake of this girl's privacy and my security) a week ago. One of my friends introduced me to her, so that's how I got to know her. She's from Hong Kong and she's not only cute but also nice. Like me, she's a first year student here at Thompson Rivers University and she's a psychology student. She's older than me by 4 years and what's interesting about her is that, she's doing a double degree. Her first degree was law in Hong Kong and her second one's is psychology, which she is now studying it over here in Kamloops. Both of us despite our gender and age gap, we have plenty in common as we share the similar hobbies, interest, food and genre of movies. Not only that, we even experience similar events in our lives. Consequently, we have a lot to talk about together. Unfortunately for the both of us, we hardly see each other face to face as our class schedules are different. Nevertheless, we often maintain our friendship online. I guess she's the first girl who I can really get along well.

Earlier on before she popped the question, she saw me online and she decided to say "hi". We started off our conversation with the Play Station 3 topic. Because I had a personal message on my Windows Messenger that asked everyone's opinion regarding the decision to purchase the Play Station 3 now or later, she shared her opinion and started advising me. We not only talked about the Play Station but we even chat about her Nintendo DS and my PSP. From the best game in the market to our favorite video game characters, we went on and on. As we finished our conversation about our video game interest, I then remembered that she took law in Hong Kong and she's taking psychology in Thompson Rivers University. Trying to be a smart ass, I suggested that she should try working as a police negotiator based on her mixed degree. I even added that it would be fun if she could have all those SDUs (Special Duties Unit, Hong Kong's version of SWAT) backing her up during her negotiation in a hostage crisis situation. She laughed at my idea but she thank me for it as I have given her new options to her career path. Usually, most people will think that my ideas affiliated with Special Forces or counter-terrorism are the results of immature thinking and false influence (which I seriously hate it when I get that) but unlike most people I know, she respects my idea and she always appreciates my opinions. She also said that she thought about serving in her country's police force due to her interest in criminology. The second she said she like criminology, joy was written all over me as I know both of us had another common interest. The both of us are excited about learning criminology and we both thought about serving in the police force. I told her that I had a similar plan like hers but the only difference is that I thought about serving in SWAT where else she plans to serve in CID (Criminal Investigation Department). Both of us laughed and started trading high 5s "virtually" online. I then told her that both of us had a lot in common which she couldn't agree more than me. She later then popped the suggestion of whether we should get married seeing that we had a lot in common.

Minutes of brain storming on how to tackle questions like these, I finally knew how to answered it...well sort of. Initially, I wanted to ask her if she was joking since this girl has a boyfriend already (oops forget to mention that she is not single) but if I ask her that, she'll think that I'm not taking her seriously and I might hurt her feelings. But if I lied to her and say that, I'm already owned then she'll feel rejected and eventually she'll get hurt. I thought about saying "Cannot, my mummy will scold" but then again one of us is going to get our feelings hurt and it would definitely be me after she's done calling me a pussy. So I courageously said "yes" for the sake of not hurting anyone's feelings. The second I did that, I somehow sense that I'm going to regret it. Consequently, I added a few conditions stating that we'll only get married after we both graduate. She immediately objected as she believed that it will be too late. She insisted that she wants to get married as soon as possible. Thrown into a speechless situation, I just froze myself in front of my computer screen. She continued telling me to drop all my university subjects ASAP so that our marriage won't be interfered. I was so clueless about what to say and I was shivering in fear as I realized that the girl I share a lot in common is so dominating and demanding. I didn't replied anything for a while and eventually she somehow sensed I was speechless and shock. She asked me why was I so quiet, yet I didn't replied anything. The moment she told me that she was just joking about the whole thing, a gargantuan sense of relief struck me in the right spot. We eventually both laughed but I knew I laughed louder than her as I was so damn relief. For that moment, I thought I was going to become a house husband fully dominated by her once we got married. The thought of taking care of her kids at home, keeping her house clean and tidy and preparing nice dinner for her once she got back from work really petrified me. I told her that she got me good and in order to avoid anymore terrifying pranks from her, I immediately signed out from Windows Messenger after wishing her goodnight.

"Shall we get married?"---these aren't everyday casual questions that you'll receive from your friends online. Everything happened so fast between the both of us when she came up with that joke; I never had a girl friend before and now I'm going to have a wife all of a sudden. It's like from "A" directly to "Z". On the other hand, I guess I should be damn lucky that this was just a joke. Moreover, having experience this before, I knew I prove my mum wrong. I clearly remembered her saying that it would take the skies to rain fire if any girl ever proposed to me what more if any girl even dare to consider me to be their boyfriend. Well, too bad for her it just happened and the skies have already rain fire seeing that it's still hot here in Kamloops, Canada. Besides that, I shouldn't really be negative about this whole joke as I actually experienced what many boys don't: how often does a girl come to him and propose for marriage? Furthermore, this experience slightly raised my self esteem letting me know that I'm not that ugly after all and it also deafens my ears from those insulting remarks about my looks that some people have been filling my head with all this while.