The side effect of watching too much Taiwanese/Japanese/Korean drama series is...

... if your (love) life doesn't resemble the lead character's, you feel short-changed.

That's why I started making The Man do grand cliché gestures I see lovers get up to in those drama series - just to see what the deal is all about. The unfortunate thing is, while we both love the idea of cheesy romantic gestures, our execution of them always end up rather painful. Or funny. Or both.

So, we have done the beach thing. We were at a beach in Desaru on a not-so-romantic threesome weekend getaway with Toi. We decided to ditch Toi for all of 10 minutes to go for a “romantic stroll by the beach”. We rolled up the hems of our pants, made sure our hair is loose and flying, held hands - and then we strolled. And strolled. And strolled. And then we ‘gostan’ (translation: u-turn) and stroll back the other way.

After walking for ten minutes with our hair all disheveled from the angry ocean wind, we looked at each other and wandered how could anyone find beach strolling fascinating. He reasoned maybe it is because we didn’t do THE quintessential romantic gesture on the beach i.e. chancing upon a gigantic (and perfectly formed) seashell that he picks up and hold against my ears and ask if I can hear the ‘ocean sounds’ (hello? which idiot wouldn’t hear ocean sounds when you are standing next to the ocean?) and then he has to tell me to remember that sound forever because it will bring me back to this moment and remember him that way – or some shit like that. Zzz.. Anyway, he promised that for our next attempt at beach strolling, he will plan and plant a giant seashell in our anticipated route beforehand.

We have also done the Singapore Flyer thing because it resembles a giant Ferris wheel and according to the drama series, all lovers must go sit in one and talk about their feelings while “on top of the world”.

Frankly, that ride was the most boring thing I have ever sat through. For the entire 30 minutes, I had my face pressed against the glass, sulking and not talking. The Man, who cannot sit still, was circling around the capsule looking for emergency exits. Five minutes before the damned capsule is due to arrive at the station, we were standing poised at the door and ready to jump when the door opens because if we were worried if we miss that window of opportunity to exit, we have to go another freaking round. We did, however, purchase the overpriced souvenir photo which has an image of us superimposed on a flying capsule with the whole of Singapore in the background. It was sooo cheesy that we cannot not buy it. Zzz…

The most recent cheesy thing we did was at the Botanic Gardens last weekend. We had gone there for Sunday brunch at Halia, one of my favourite restaurants. After a full meal of kurobuta pork burgers, gorgonzola cheese mousse salad and seafood chimichangas, we decided to take a romantic stroll along the man-made lake.

OK, it wasn’t so romantic because we were really bursting from all the food we ate so we were clutching our stomach (instead of holding hands) as we lumber (instead of stroll) along the funny smelling lake.

If you are a fan of chessy drama series, you will know that the quintessential romantic gesture when you are strolling along any scenic route is to stop, look and point. You must point at something that looks vaguely interesting and the other person will have to look where you are pointing, nod and smile at you.

So I pointed at one alibaba tortoise in the water and exclaim, “Look! A tortoise.” (Zzz…)

He looked at the tortoise, but instead of smiling and nodding at me, he frowned and said, “Your tortoise is eating a dead fish.”

I took a closer look. He’s right. YUCKS!!!!

Frou: URGH! Look. There is another dead fish over here *points at an unmoving fish 50m away*
The Man: I don’t think that one is dead *went over and poke fish with a stick * See, its fins are moving
Frou: Why is its eyes bulging and its mouth agape like it’s dead?
The Man: I think he is just looking at the tortoise eating his friend over there.
Frou: Oh my!! The poor thing must be in shock! Rigid with fear!
The Man: Look! His mouth is moving. He is probably mouthing, “Frank! Is that you??”
Frou: Poor Frank kena eaten by a tortoise!

So much for inane pointing and romantic conversations…

It gets worse. We got tired of all that alibaba strolling so we went and park our butts at some pagoda structure thingy by the lake and decided to recite poetry to each other like what the (bored) Chinese folks do back in the Tang Dynasty.

We don’t know many poetries, and in any case, we don’t know the words. So we did google searches on my blackberry to check. Saved by technology!

I ended up reciting Desiderata by Max Ehrmann to him, which wasn’t romantic at all. I sounded more like Steve Jobs giving a presentation on how to manage your business affairs while keeping peace with everyone around you.

In turn, he recited the only poetry he knows back in his younger days. It was by a Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, and it goes something like,

“Well, now, if little by little
you stop loving me,
I shall stop loving you
little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me,
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.”

(-___-)”

That’s right, he went and read me an angry, petty poetry while sitting in a fake pagoda on a fake lake.

No wonder they say romance is dead.
As dead as Frank the fish.