On February 12th 2017, my boyfriend and I celebrated our fifth year of being together! I honestly can't believe that its been five years!!!! Time flies huh? We had planned for a nice anniversary at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester (blog post on this will e up soon) in advance and booked it for the 16th of February since it was completely fully booked for the 12th and 14th a.k.a Valentines day. 

How we met

We met through a mutual friend in high school back in 2011 at an Eid (Hari Raya) event.  I was in an all-girls school; Convent Bukit Nanas and he was in an all-boys school Victoria Institution, both in Malaysia. We finally met in person at a friends Eid event where I was practically my friends "plus one" (and NOT in a date kind of way - Shoutout to Syaz!). I sat at the table with my friend Syaz and a bunch of other people, mingling here and there. A few tables away sat these two boys completely minding their own business; one of them - my current boyfriend Jamal and his friend. 

I wondered why they didn't join our table because everyone was literally there. Eventually the two boys came over and coincidently sat nearby me. I made the first move and introduced myself to Jamal and asked him a few questions. After breaking the ice with him, I talked about F1 racing with him and told him that I heard that he raced for Petronas, however I didn't anticipate to get such a short response to my question. I figured he didn't exactly want to talk so I ended my conversation with him and joined the rest. I really thought he didn't want to talk to me. That night, I uploaded some pictures on Facebook and wanted to tag all the new people I met from that event, including Jamal. So I had to grow some some balls and eventually I requested a friend request on Facebook all for the sake of tagging photos haha.

The second time we met was at another mutual friends' Eid event. This time, I didn't want to make the first move. To be fair, I was kind of scared I'd get the same response as last time. Some of the guys and I wanted to go for ice-cream nearby my friends' place and Jamal offered to drive everyone there. Not all the boys at that event could drive because we were only 17 and back then, Jamal was one of the few boys who could drive and had a car. So we drove to Tutti Frutti to get some soft serve ice-cream. 

He brought his GTI which could only fit five people including the driver- but there were 7 of us. Four boys squeezed at the back, Jamal was the driver, Ijaz was sitting in the passenger seat and me sitting on top of him. Ijaz and I met before and were friends prior to me and Jamal's meeting. I didn't really think it was a problem sitting on him because he was my friend.  Anywho, Jamal drove like a maniac and Ijaz had to hold on tight to me to prevent me from flying through the windscreen. Looking back, I could've died! But then, it was all fun and games....

We took our first picture together at Tutti Frutti and went home. Apparently, he was trying to push me to Ijaz. Trying to be the love guru and hooking us up, it didn't happen don't worry. Jamal and I were already friends on Facebook, a few days after the event I received a direct message on Facebook from him. After chatting for a while, I asked for his BBM pin. Back then Blackberries and BBM pins were the rage. 

Our first picture at Tutti Frutti (2011)

After a week or so, I had to broadcast a message on BBM regarding CBNs and VIs school prom. Guess who replied my message??? 

Jamal

We started talking soon after and I noticed that when it was close to the general asian "student bed time" he would not reply any of my messages and reply the following morning as if not wanting the conversation to end. I was kinda confused because I was convinced he and i were just friends. I mean, lets keep it real, friends don't text all day everyday without fail. 

I noticed he kept on changing his profile picture on his BBM from pictures of him to pictures of kittens.  I thought to myself, "was this a sign?" "does he like me?" "is he trying to get my attention?". To justify things, I seemed advice form my love gurus a.k.a. my high school friends. According to them, I was over-reacting and it was all in my head. They told me guy like that would not settle for a girl like me. 

We got to know each other I couldn't help but fall for him. He was sweet and nice, soft spoken and a gentleman. We went out on our first lunch date to Pavillion for where he made me wait for  two hours. Throughout lunch, he didn't say anything. All he did was laugh at my lame ass jokes. Personally my jokes aren't funny. I try to be witty and funny but comedy just isn't my thing. We agreed on a second date. This time a movie in One Utama and if can recall, we went to see Lagenda Budak Setan. Agina, he was two hours late. The morning of our second date, good o'll clumsy me had to drop one side of my hard contact lenses into the sink drain and it was gone forever. 

Goodbye bye bye now.

OF COURSE I FREAKED OUT!! I DIDNT WANT TO BE BLIND FOR MY DATE!!!

My mum and I rushed to the closest optimist and bought myself a pair of monthly soft lenses. They were less clear than my hard lensed ones which made looking at distant things difficult. I was still partially blind. How was I going to find him at KL Central!! After two hours of waiting communicating via BBM because he didn't ask for my number. We had to communicate through like third party network = our mutual friend Izaad. He was so fed up of letting the other person know what the other says, so he gave me Jamal's number. OK i have his number now. What do I do with it? I texted him and asked him where he was answered that he'll be there soon. End of convo

 he finally picked me up. "Im in the white Pajero" he says.

White?

White????

I couldn't really see anything... And I was too nervous for some reason to think straight. I was so stressed out from the humidity that day which frizzed my hair up before our date. I walked slowly pass the other cars parked there. Luckily for me, he came out and greeted me. Great, I found the boy and the car. We headed to the movies only to realise that we would only be able to watch the last 45 minutes of the movie.....

NICE

Once our movie ended, I mentioned to him before that my friend's birthday was the following day. Before sending me home, he wanted to stop by this famous cupcake bakery called WonderMilk. He had asked me to go to the counter and ask for a delivery for Jamal whilst he parked his car. I collected it and sat on the bench nearby. He came in with roses in his hand. OK thats weird, why did he buy roses for my friend if he didn't know her personally? I thought he was really nice and sweet for doing that. Then he asked me whether I opened the box of cupcakes and took a little peek. He told me to open it and take look at the cupcakes. It spelt out "Go To Prom With Me?" I was so confused, I thought this whole thing was of my friends birthday. He handed the flowers to me and popped the question

 " Would you go to prom with me?"

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I said yes

We remained friends and hung out together till he popped the big question in February 2012.

12th February 2012

We decided to go for a jog at Lake Gardens. Our so called jog ended up being us stranded under a little hut in the middle of the Gardens completely soaked head-to-toe from the heavy rain that day. Once the rain stopped, we were very much hungry. He suggested that it was a good idea to have dinner with his family. I was dressed inappropriately and was completely wet when I met them. It was such a bad time to see them.

He drove me home and we had a chat in the car. I came over to his side to say goodnight and goodbye when he started talking about the first time we met. He was reaching for something in the gear box and pulled out a blue box. He opened it and took this beautiful necklace, un hooked it and asked me whether I wanted to be his girlfriend. Long story short, its been five years since that day, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

SJY