After last night, I think I finally summoned up enough guts to say NO to further set-ups.

My scheme didn't even stand a chance with my mom. When I got home from work, the first words out of my mom's mouth were, "off with the glasses". I was grateful that she didn't force me into a pink fluffy skirt with a dozen ribbons.

Of course, I'm now a mature, accomplished, twenty-six-year-old individual who takes orders from no one and all that. But if I can bear my mom's nagging, I wouldn't have gotten myself in last night's situation to begin with. Would someone please remind me why on earth I agreed to move back home again? Despite my Western upbringing and education, I can’t seem to shake the traditional Asian values that are being imposed on me. Still, I try too hard to appease my parents and play along with their marriage arrangement.

As for this pseudo-family-gathering-but-really-a-sucky-set-up went, I think it's fair to say that everyone was in love with this guy except me. The horrible part was, my mom went nearly nuts!

She shoved me right next to this guy when she first laid eyes on him, and did all the talking for me afterward.

"So you snowboard too? So does Magg!"

"So you don't know how to swim? Magg can teach you!"

"You don't finish the whole bowl of rice? Share Magg's!"

"You're Chinese? Magg is too!"...

My mom may as well marry him herself.

Did I mention that he's a banker? Oh boy oh boy, do I ever hate bankers.

It seems bizarre, but parents do have a thing about bankers, as if people who handle large sums of money can give them security. Anyhow, they aren't going to be too happy when I let this "big fish" go again, especially when I didn't catch their doctor friend last time.

When would parents and relatives see past people's occupations and really look at the person?

I was reading "The Little Prince", and the passage echoed in my heart the whole dinner.

"Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never say to you, ‘What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?’ Instead, they demand, ‘How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?’ Only from these figures do they think they have leaned anything about him.

NO more set-ups for moi!

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