PLEASURE-SEEKERS and BROAD MINDED HUSBANDS

This post is actually not about pleasure-seekers. I don’t think it is anyway. Just that I woke up this morning and started reading, and as I read, I read the word pleasure-seeking and it got stuck on some spoke in my brain. . .round and round it goes. Nice word anyway, very precise no?

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What I really want to post about is Cherline.

I came across Cherline yesterday as I was wallowing in a muddy puddle of negativity (too much thinking about philandering husbands and girls for hire). Cherline was whistling to herself and tucking her veil into her sweater. (Side note: we’re experiencing a cold front, 75 degrees.)

Cherline and I got to talking about her boyfriend and what that was like.

“How did you meet?” I asked.

“He’s a friend of my friend. They go to the same college.”

“When do you guys meet up?” I asked. “You live with your parents, right?”

“Yeah. We can meet during the day,” Cherline replied. “On the weekend before 7pm. Or he can come over and watch movies at my house and chat.”

Cherline told me that sometimes she feels that at the age of 21 she wants to be treated more like an adult. “I’m like an adult, right?” Cherline asked me.

I nodded.

Her parents are a bit stricter than others but she assures me that her situation is pretty much the norm.

“You’ll never move out of your parents’ house and live on your own before you’re married?”

Cherline opened her eyes real wide. “No! Never.”

Cherline is sweet and good-natured. She just graduated from college with a major in English and her speaking is excellent. We talked a little bit about the stuff I posted yesterday, homebound wives and that.

Cherline laughed and rolled her eyes as if to say, “It is what it is.”

“My mother for example.” Cherline said. “ She can’t go anywhere without asking my father’s permission. And my father, he often says no. She has to stay home and clean and cook for the children. No choice.

When my father does allow her to leave the house, he must accompany her.”

“But you get to leave the house alone.”

“Yeah.”

“Then when you get married, you can make your own rules.”

Cherline laughed. “ No. Then my husband is like the father.”

Cherline and I sat and smiled at each other for an absurd moment.

“That’s why I want to find a husband who is broad minded.” Cherline said. “ I must find a broad minded husband.”

“You will.” I smiled.

“Yeah, I think so.” Cherline agreed.

****

I asked Cherline what the average Indonesian thinks of girls who do move out. Cherline told me that the average Indonesian thinks that those girls are bad girls.

“But,” she continued, “some girls don’t care what other people think and they just want to get away from their parents. So they get an apartment with their friends anyway.”

Not Cherline though.

“What do you think of us?” I asked, pointing to my chest.

“Oh, you!” Cherline laughed as if I were asking her to compare bunny rabbits and gorillas. Well, they both have fur. . .right. . .and two eyes. . .and a brain. . .and a heart of course. “You’re not like us.” Cherline said. “You’re different.”