"THE BALLAD OF THE SUPPRESSED ROMANTIC" in "WRITER@WORK: Stories From A Lone, Urban Girl"

What if I tell you that we’re not always the same person(ality) in people’s eyes? Even we see ourselves differently to how they see us. It’s normal and natural. It happens all the time, although some of them may agree with us. Whichever you (choose to) believe in, it’s up to you.
Last Saturday, I attended Jakarta’s Poetry Night (Malam Puisi Jakarta). I met this friend of a friend, who turned out to have dated the same guy as I had.

No, no catfights or whatsoever regarding the mutual ex, since it was all in the past. In fact, we ended up joking about him and laughing out loud. She was nice, bubbly and outgoing.

Curious about my poetic scrawls, I let her read some of my old ones in my notebook that night. Page after page, her grin widened.

“You’re a natural romantic.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. I didn’t even want to. I thought I was tougher than that, much colder. For a long time, I’ve found that being romantic is overrated and rather useless. Some people usually tease me once they find out about this. Worst of all, they tend to put that into the same category with ‘maudlin’. Ugh.

“Yep, your poems don’t lie,” she confirmed seriously. “You’re a romantic.”

“Nooo…,” I groaned. “I wanna be tough. I thought I was cold enough.”

“Well, I bet the only time you’re either tough or cold is when you get hurt.”

Damn it. It was the moment that I needed something to drink and wear my sunglasses, no matter how weird that sounds. Instead, I inhaled slowly.

“There’s nothing wrong with being romantic, you know?”

True, but I’m afraid that – nowadays – there are so very few who appreciate its value. They might make fun of you by adding the word ‘hopeless’ before romantic.

Hopeless romantic.

It sounds rather insulting to me these days. It’s like, you have to be ready when people put you in the same level as ‘mushy’, ‘pathetic’, ‘softie’, or something even worse than all of them:

‘Easier to play around.’

One can still be a romantic without hopelessness, right? I don’t want to be hopeless. I’d rather be tough. I have to be realistic. These days, that’s the only way to survive. So don’t be too surprised if this side of me (or so it seems to be) has been greatly suppressed. It’s not ideal nor compatible with how the real world works around me.

Being romantic also means being ready to get hurt – again and again. What if I’m done getting hurt? What if all I want to do now is to fight back and defend myself? What if that’s the only thing it takes to keep myself protected again? That should be my job. I shouldn’t have failed!

What if all I want right now involves questioning and second-guessing every damn thing they associate with ‘romance’ or romanticism?

R.