Kuala Lumpur. Not exactly the fashion capital this side of South East Asia, and not exactly the place you come to find love. In fact, you come to find the direct opposite of love - money. It’s amazing how money issues can always blow up a perfectly healthy relationship, and it is amazing how trivial those issues are some times.

People in the big city don’t really understand sentimentality. Perhaps it is my flawed observation but from what I see, there are too many shallow people who have too much influence upon too many people in this city that’s too rich for its own good.

Take a walk in Pavillion for example. Louis Vuittons slung on shoulders, Jimmy Choos on feet - beautiful ladies with the perfect makeup strutting around in perfect style and stature, with well-built men trailing behind. They wore flashing smiles and glorious hairdos, chatting about everything except the one thing that binds us together - love.

No, I don’t mean the things people do like hugging or holding hands, but rather, the look in their eyes when they are together. When you love somebody, and you’re with that person, you have a sparkle in your eyes. It’s mesmeric to see those kind of looks, a look so naive in nature that the harsh cynicism of the big city had buried deep underneath its more important priorities. Like shopping for the next Hermes or checking out the newest Armanis.

I’ve been with people who can chat whole day about designer brands and when it comes to anything more substantial than the superficial, their brains stop working. I like my women to be smart enough to hold an engaging conversation and I like her to have her own thoughts. ESPECIALLY her own thoughts. People nowadays just can’t think deep enough into issues to form their own opinions and jusitifications, let alone debate on it. But they can rattle off a list of designer brands that you’ll realize you don’t even recognize a quarter of it.

And love. Nowadays picking a partner is actually very simple. You look for the richest one and then try to justify it. Gentlemanly, caring, have soulful heart, kind, fun to be with, great sense of humor, good fashion sense, yada yada. The first criteria is always money.

Yes, we live in a city. City needs money. We work to get money. But, is it justifiable to put money as the sole criteria to pursue further interest in a particular person?

I believe in love of personality, and love of intellect. A girl can be beautiful and stunning, but that would only last until she starts talking. I’ve met too many people who look absolutely gorgeous but have a mental maturity of a high-schooler and knowledge of a person of even lesser years.

Do we sacrifice knowledge and opinion to memorize the long list of designers half-way across the world? Do we hold each other and say “I love you” when we truly mean “You’re rich enough to cover my expenses” or “thank you for that platinum card”? How is it that we have buried ourselves so deeply into capitalism and forget the very basics of the community that carries it?

I’m not whining about not having enough money to be attractive enough for women on the street. On the contrary, I would prefer to maintain a poor outlook to be a better judge of people and their true nature. There are millionaires next doors that you probably never knew, and just because that person’s not spotting a Haute Couture fashion piece doesn’t mean he or she is less valuable in this society.

City’s not the place to find love. Heartbreaks, yes. Riches and indulgences, yes. Beautiful women and gorgeous men, yes.

But love? You gotta find it elsewhere.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.