Do you notice that there are some people around you that really care about you? Well, I do notice. They really make my day enjoyable, and even those hard days would feel tolerable with their help. Some (or most? :-) ) of them are even care about my relationship status, and was eager to become matchmaker when they found out that I was still single :-). One of them was Mr. K, who played that role for me several times.
The first ‘encounter’ happened several months leading to my departure to Japan. I was helping Mr. K with a project, and we spent quite a time together, tried to complete it on time with ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ played at the background (we prefer to called the song ‘Parking Lot’, though :-), and it was supplied by G who also worked in the project). It was then that out of the blue he asked me the million dollar question :-): ”Awan, sorry if I’m asking you this, but do you have girlfriend?”
I was in a relationship at that time, so my reply was, “Yes. Why is it, sir?”
“Well, actually I’m thinking about introducing you to a girl. She’s the Al Quran reading teacher of my daughters. She’s a fine girl...”
As surprised as I was to hear the question, you can guess that the topic didn’t go far from that. Later Mr. K informed me that the girl actually already had someone, and I remember Mrs. E (Mr. K’s wife) commented, “You should have been able to tell that both of them are already not available...” :-)
Moving forward 5 years later, the second ‘encounter’ occurred, this time I was already in Japan. Out of the blue (again :-) ) we received email from Mr. K. What I meant by ‘we’ here were A, M, Z and me, the member of FPE group, a research group under Mr. K back in my undergraduate days. Mr. K asked us whether we know someone that could be introduced to a girl and willing to explore the possibility on having serious relationship that hopefully would last for all eternity..., or to make it sort: someone who is interested in matchmaking :-). A quickly mentioned me and B (quasi-member of FPE :-) ) as candidates. At that time I was still not thinking about marriage, but I said I wouldn’t refuse because it’s a good chance to make new acquaintance, and Mr. K was okay with that.
“Good then”, he replied. ”Do you have facebook account? I think it will be easier to do it via facebook.”
And by this, now you know why I have a facebook account... :-)
Similar to the first one, this encounter didn’t progress further. I did open a facebook account, however, I was busy finishing my doctoral curse, oops, course, I meant :-), and preparing for work, so I didn’t take any follow up on the talk. I even didn’t do much on facebook, didn’t put any profile picture and other detail for several months. When finally the dust from my doctoral defense and newcomer training had settled and I got a chance to take a breath, I completely forgot about the whole matchmaking talk - until along came that historic day :-).
This time I already work in a University in Japan, and I got a chance to visit my former university for a business trip. It’s been a while that I didn’t meet the professors, so when there was a chance I slipped out of the meeting room and visit Mr. B, my thesis advisor, who later brought me to Mr. K room. Mr. K looked glad to meet me again, and after some small talk, he proceeded to ask me, this time with the million and one dollar question :-): “Have you married?”
“I simply replied, “Not yet.”
“That’s okay. I’ll introduce you to someone”, he looked around his room, stopped his stare at F who by fate :-) was there, and then continued, “First, I would like to introduce you to F.”
We greeted each other, but again, no magic seemed to happen. We continued our conversation and that was it. A couple of weeks past, and when I thought that the matchmaking talk would again dissolve into thin air, I got a message from Mr. K.
“Awan, do you remember F that I introduced to you the other day? Don’t you want to know about her a bit more? I asked her about you just now, and she just smiled, so I think she’s not refusing.”
I really didn’t know what made Mr. K really wanted to pair me with F, but I thought F was a fine girl, so I didn’t mind to give it a try. Later I knew from F that actually Mrs. E was the one who told Mr. K to let me start the contact. When Mr. K was busy asking F about what she’d think about me (and F was busy pretended to ignore :-) ), Mrs. E told him to send me a message instead and let me start the connection. And fast forwarding several months into the future (exactly 2 years ago :-) ), we took the picture above.
(Actually, a lot of things happened during that ‘several months’, but it can fill another note, so I won’t write it here :-) )
From this whole matchmaking process, I realized how important the combination of chance and preparedness - or I prefer to call ‘luck’ here. I could have entered Mr. K room one or two years earlier, and I might still found F sitting there, but there was no guarantee that our story would unfold as smooth as this. One or two years earlier, I or F might still not thinking about getting married, and the matchmaking talk could end up like the previous two. I think it was because both of us were ‘ready’ when we got the ‘chance’ to meet - or simply said because we were ‘lucky’ - that finally we decided to bring it on only in a matter of months.
(Anyway, both I and F have some experiences before our meeting that made us feel like we were prepared for our encounter. Whether that was real or just our feeling, only God knows.)
And I don’t mind at all that we were just ‘lucky’ to have found each other. I believe God never plays dice on us (yeah, I know Einstein possibly didn’t tell the quote for this meaning, but I like to use it that way anyway :-) ). I believe there should be some reason behind the luck that was bestowed to us. So if you want a piece of advice from me: just prepare for it if you want something, I believe that the chance will spring up in front of you by the time you are ready.
And for Mr. K and Mrs. E: Thank you very much for never give up on me :-).
