They can look decent or simply fugly. But most of them have the same traits: stubborn, narrow-minded and hold strong to ridiculous ideals for ridiculous reasons. And while many of them have already got kicked out of Indonesia, some of them still remain here.

Meet A. He is 40, actually looking OK, previously worked in a big city in the East Coast, before getting the sack – he was freelancing for ten years and never bothered getting fully employed, so when he got the sack, he was left without nothing. A lived for 3 months at his folks’ house before deciding to get some adventure visiting his Eastern European tart girlfriend in the island of Bali (the girlfriend who, by the way, is a complete bigot who loves living in Indonesia but totally hates Indonesians for no reasons).

Oh, we forgot to say that he was divorced twice, too, and had quite a complicated life.

A thought he could conquer Indonesia – he ain’t got any degree and his work domain was not something rare in the archipelago (and after having seen his works, yours truly could confirm that he is average, not excellent but not bad – just average) – and he didn’t intend to work or do anything until he met the Indonesian girl X.

X previously got an old boyfriend who sucked in bed, but financially OK – for one and a half years she sucked money, luxurious pleasures, free holidays and gadgets off him, all the way by flirting here and there. But a month before X met A, the old perv broke up with her (he was caught redhanded cheating on her) and thus she only got a little “goodbye” fund in her bank account.

After meeting X, A got perfectly smitten by her and left his bigot Eastern European tart, moving to Jakarta, hoping he would land a well-paying job. The redheaded tart got angry, and stole about a couple hundreds of bucks but A told everyone she stole a lot. Everyone believed him and thought, oh, how very sad, being in such a bad situation, this guy needs help. But the proof that A was a species of expat loser was what happened afterward.

Not wanting to start off modestly while waiting for opportunity to arise, A got himself a nice room in mid-class kost/boarding house that ate off one third of his remaining cash.

Then yours truly, who was more-or-less friends with A, tried helping him out by giving job links, but most of them are teaching jobs and A thought he wasn’t made for it, and yours truly found out later that he never really applied to any of these jobs (as told by X).

At the end of his first month, A started to have less and less money even though the amount of love was still a lot (but as quoted from X, “Hell, we do NOT eat and live with only love!”). X wasn’t so smitten anymore with him, facts to consider was that A practically ate up her last savings and it wasn’t a good plan for the future. So X dumped him and started flirting around immediately, in front of A, X shamelessly toyed around with engaged men – one of them had an eight-month pregnant fiancee back home (oh and this is deja-vu, for X already screwed around with her own pregnant friend’s fiancee back in the end of 2007, and left no regrets at all).

Meanwhile, A totally ran out of cash and had to go back to his homeland before getting deported.

But A wasn’t acting frugal either, for someone who had no money, he was simply too spendy – he spent about seven hundred bucks in five days – something you don’t really do when you’re running out of money. But he never thought about it – he only wanted to have fun. In fact we doubt that A had ever thought about anything at all – seriously?? You want to succeed in Indonesia? You WORK! (Exceptions if Hilton was your last name or Ivana was your mama)

A only had yours truly to accuse and blame over his failure in Indonesia – well it’s always easier to have a scapegoat when it’s not yourself. He went back to his folks’ home (yes at 40, how very pathetic it may sound) and tried to land a job – already a month has gone by and he still hasn’t found any.

See how that sucks? That’s only the first edition, mind you.

I just recently found out a disturbing fact: women who are ready to exchange fake love and sex for money don’t only exist in books, movies and news in the newspapers, they also exist near me, disguised like normal girls who work in the office – the only wrong thing is that they spend without thinking, they splurge money like crazy and they live above their own limits.

I befriended some of them and ended the friendship after some dilemmas.

FACT: They constantly tell you how lucky you are, having landed a nice, hardworking expatriate husband who actually looks good, cooks good, smart and you’re both crazy in love with each other.

UGLY TRUTH: You know they constantly think about nicking him off you – you trust your husband but you most certainly cannot trust them.

FACT: They’ve betrayed someone else in front of you. That poor girl was four months gone in her pregnancy and the guy was supposed to marry her the month after they fucked around with these whores.

UGLY TRUTH: It could happen to anyone you love and care about, as long as they have access to your decent other friends who are in couple, too.

FACT: They constantly whine about their financial situation, envy your wardrobe and leather goods and gadgets, they want all those things, too, and they live wAay over the standard of life they could actually afford.

UGLY TRUTH: They get money from their sugardaddy(ies). And you’re self made, you work hard to earn such things – yes you spoil yourself but you deserve it while you don’t think these girls actually do.

FACT: They say they want to get married to an expat cos expats are more open-minded.

UGLY TRUTH: They’re simply bule-chasers.

Above all that, they could actually be good friends, but you can’t help but wonder all the time, is it a ticking time-bomb, will my turn to get betrayed by them eventually come?

I like the friendship but I feel like I’m a total hypocrite cos there are so many things I want to say to them. Things that are totally mean, and I would really mean them if I say those things.

So I just stopped all the communication and that’s it.

They’re left wondering why? I think they’re old enough to figure it out themselves.

She apparently hadn’t been so faithful herself and only got what she deserved. It’s funny how people always try to mask the ugly truth, but this one bad fella will always resurface at the end and we just find out.

Last weekend we went out clubbing as usual. I got a severe abdominal pain that developed over the course of the night, like, at 11:30 I was still OK, just felt painful when I tried to stand up, but at 3 the pain had grown so strong I was practically curved in two as I tried to stand up – I googled and was utterly panicked when the pain resembled somewhat into appendicitis symptoms.

So we left in a hurry, me and hubs, leaving our friends behind.

I spent the whole Sunday practically in bed, the pain diagnosed as severe, chronic gastritis, gradually feeling better over the day.

And today one of the girls that we left behind told me a shocking story: this friend, who said she was so brokenhearted by losing the love of her life, was actually cheating on him too, and she slept with this guy M that she’s had a crush on for ages, consciously knowing this guy was a full-time jerk and seriously, she even asked the other girl if she’d love to have a threesome.

Dollar bills obliged, she has actually been fucking and whoring around for such a long time.

I thought she had changed when she met her last boyfriend, but apparently some people never change.

Brokenhearted? MY ASS.

My friend who I was writing about in the last post has always been very keen on getting married. She has always been so eager to find love, whatever it takes.

She’s young, pretty exotic and not dumb, but I think she wants to sacrifice way too many things to lay her hands on love, and just too many times she gets hurt.

For almost eighteen months, this girl had been nurturing a serious relationship with a guy fifteen years older than she is, and almost too nice to be real.

He showered her with lots of presents, helped her cope with her financially challenged family, took her on luxury holidays to many places, brought her home for Christmas.

If she didn’t altogether financially dependent on this guy, emotionally she felt secure. But this guy didn’t look like someone who could cheat, in fact he looked way too geeky, too innocent to be a serial cheater.

They had a long-distance relationship, he kept busy working overseas and all over the world, came only every three or four months to visit her for a week or two.

There were days where he couldn’t be called nor emailed, those days when he would disappear completely, non-existent and mysterious. He said it was during his oil rig times, lost in the middle of the ocean.

But my father used to lend tankers for oil rigs and he never ever vanished completely and wholly. Even back in late 80s he always found a way to call us kids at home, sending kisses through phone line to my mother.

Oil rigs had and still do have communication means. That was where I thought he was suspicious, but his sweet talkings and super romantic attitude in front of everyone, all the time, kinda vanquished my doubts.

Then, out of the blue, my friend texted me to tell me he had an affair and they were over.

I was shocked, but my husband wasn’t.

He said that she must’ve sensed something earlier but masked it behind her eagerness to fall in love. And his theory was that she was much more in love in being in love itself rather than in love with him.

“She was with another guy two months before they met and started chatting,” said my husband. “You’d need more than mere two months to get over someone you cried your eyes out for.”

My poor friend was indeed involved in four bad love triangles prior to being involved with this guy.

Before this guy, she had a short, turbulent relationship with a guy she met for 3 hot, steamy days, who turned out already having another girlfriend.

Before Mr. Steamy & Turbulent, there was a friend of ours, another jerk who had a short affair with her, while being engaged to another woman, who was 4 months pregnant (by him of course) at the time.

Just shortly before Mr. Jerk, there was another European guy, who had about six-month relationship with her before they met here for two weeks, and when the holiday was over, he went back home and never called her back again.

And shortly before Mr. 2-Week-Euro, she had another relationship with a Teuton who invited her to the land of the Teutons, but acted strangely toward her, just before she found out he was married and had three kids.

All those guys have something in common: they were in their late 30s or early 40s, highly unattractive, but have a rather good job and sort of stable situation.

So why would a young exotic demoiselle fall in love with such lousy guys?? Come on, none of them was like, a Sex God. They were rather Mr. Nobody who’d not have anyone turn twice to admire their features.

Hubs and I concluded that she was looking for a security and a stability only a much older guy – supposedly – could offer. She comes from a rather financially difficult family, so it’s only normal she wishes for more.

But hubs was more in another optic that she was actually only pretending to be in love with those men. Just because she wants to have a boyfriend and point is, she doesn’t care how ugly he looks and how suspicious he could be, as long as he is stable and rather well off.

I think hubs is partly right, but then again who won’t want an easy life? Who won’t want to do nothing and live a good damn holiday, eternally?

I want to live that kind of life, but just after I know I’ve worked hard for it and do my best to get there. No conscience-eating thing!

She kept daydreaming for months before the day she flew up North.

But when she finally set foot back in his Western homeland, it was a not happiness – it was catastrophe waiting. A time bomb set to explode any minute then.

She ended up finding out about him cheating on her with another woman, and the worst part was that she was actually the third person. The other woman in the relationship. And that there had been a proposal, only she was not the proposed party, the engagement was between her cheri and his longtime girlfriend.

How did it happen? She found some photos in his camera, from last year’s holiday. Another woman at his house, smiling and kissing and being kissed by him and wearing her clothes. The very clothes he said he kept there for her for when she comes visiting in winter. Those clothes actually belong to the other woman.

All her dreams were shattered, broken and bitter. She had never suffered that much… Particularly because this man would’ve been – could’ve been the guy she’d marry.

Now she’s waiting for her flight back home, back to her friends and her old life, where she can finally find a shoulder to cry on.

We’ve met the guy several times and have always liked him. A simple-looking man, in his early forties, seemingly geeky and introverted, yet still tricky enough to cheat on any woman.

He spent some weeks in Jakarta, on and off, and seemed to genuinely care about her and her family, and he partly maintained her life financially. I thought they would eventually end up getting married, but they were simply not made for each other.

I don’t understand how a guy that seems so nice could have been monstrously corrupted in his relationship? How could he, behind his eternally smiling, serene mask, actually keep and nurture a continuous lie?

How could a guy who seemed so romantic and loving turn out to be a cheating bastard??

But the thing is, we can never judge a book by its cover. Completely true. My mother once said, “be careful with guys who seem too good to be true”.

I think I still prefer my direct, lip-service-less, but honest husband.

I was thinking:

- Where would I be?  In Jakarta or somewhere else?

- Will I already be married?  Who will I end up marrying?

- Will I have a career?  Do I like my job?

- Will I think my life as fulfilled?  Will I be happy?

Ten years later, I watched as the last seconds of 2009 vanished and 2010 officially began.  I was with my husband and some friends, atop a skyscraper tower in the heart of Jakarta, watching fireworks going off one by one all over the illuminated city.  I’ve got all my questions answered.

I am back in Jakarta.  I was hoping for somewhere which sounded fancier, like NYC or Paris, but Jakarta is so far the best place you can live and do your business in.  It’s a developing country and that’s the best thing about it: everything develops, not stagnant, and the space to make money – which is already huge – increases everyday.

I am married.  I ended up marrying someone whom I fell in love at first sight with.  Not any highschool sweetheart, but someone completely new.  And I actually enjoy being married.  We have a home and a dog and share things.  It’s actually cool being married.

I have a career, and I like my job.  And I’ll do whatever it takes to make our business grow.  I never thought I’d be running my own company, and I’m grateful for what happened in 2009, so I’ll put all my heart and my efforts into the newborn enterprise.

I don’t think my life is totally fulfilled already, but it’s on the way there.

And the most important thing is, I am happy.

Now you ask me what would my New Year Resolutions be?

1. Work harder for the sake of the company, try to optimize and perhaps expand,

2. Try to earn more, but save more,

3. Buy a property,

4. And get healthy.

We fired several people who aren’t really in best terms with us, not by means of personality but by means of working.

And just after you’ve fired them, you find out how nasty they could be.

Okay, we hadn’t been so happy either when my hubs was fired last time, about four years ago. But we accepted it and moved on, holding no grudge whatsoever for anyone at the company. Let it be. And at that time, we were just 23.

One of the employees we fired was 33, has two kids and frankly did a lousy job keeping himself un-fired.

I didn’t like him so much since the first time I arrived in the company – didn’t like his works actually. He was the typical GD I don’t like – the ones graduated from the art school I was accepted to, nine years ago (God! Nine years!!), which was super-duper overrated in my opinion, whose admission staff was shouting at me like crazy when I told her curtly I didn’t want the place in the school anymore. I ended up going to an expensive private school that compensated the price by giving us exclusive, high-end techie classrooms, quality lessons conducted by dedicated teachers with international experiences (all the teachers there are graduated from the US or Europe and more or less share my opinions about things in life and in arts) and yes, there’s always a price to pay when you expect good results.

People say that education is expensive, yes it is true. And you can’t expect quality people to teach you for nothing, can you? I agree that, even though education should not be excessively expensive, in some ways it has to pay the teacher a good life so teaching will become their passion, not just an obligation.  I learnt so much in that school.  Two years later, I was accepted to the best arts and media school in Germany, as one of the 83 freshmen there, beating out about 9,000 other applicants.  But my story was by then a print media and communication girl wanting to make a big break in the advertising world. That didn’t happen.

Instead, I actually grew up and bloomed into a WD since 2005, when me and then-boyfriend-now-hubs started an internet business. After that, I never looked back into the offline world. I got stuck with the online universe cos it pays more for an abstract thing which is the web sites we sell, and it is pretty much simpler to do and doesn’t need much investments to start, but even though it seemed easy, there had been several changes in my way of working that I learnt from my hubs.

And that’s actually it, people always have to learn and learn, open up and look for more out there, see what others are doing and try to improve your method, your ways, your means, your work quality, instead of shutting yourself inside your own private clamshell.

And you gotta be ready to accept critics.  My hubs is an avid criticizer, but he does it for a good reason, when he has nothing to object he gives you his rare compliment and then you know you’re doing good.

Well, the problem was, the guys we fired cannot, and will not accept critics. Even the character-building critics. They keep themselves shut in their own mind and don’t want to change for anything in the world. That was part of the reason we fired them, additioning unexplained absences at work, poor job results, and insanely repeated stuff they don’t hear.

Thing is, if the separation was pretty much well-passed, twenty days later (trivia-stopper: yeah just like the movie, but eight days less) he did an idiotic thing: trashing us on his Facebook status, while my hubs was still on his list (I never added him and my FB is private).

“Stupid, mean man took my job away. A loser and a coward who can never admit his mistakes and always blames others for them. I am very hurt and I will let God leash his punishment upon him.”

How about a little reticence?

That’s a lesson any employee should learn: Never trash or talk shit about your boss on FB. And whatever you say, the boss is always right.  When your boss finds out, then it means the end for you (if it hasn’t) and good-bye good words and recommendations to your next employer(s) in years time!

The funniest part was, he asked my boss for a reference letter a few hours after he trashed hubs, and my boss redirected him to me.  And the coward who shouted out coward didn’t even have the courage to mail me for the so-called reference… Did he know we find out about the status?  We never said a thing, though.

Lessons taken: when you fire someone, just expect the grudge, even though it’s a heartache where it’s not: there’s always a reason why we have to let go someone from the company.

On a lighter note, the situation is improving much, I like working with the ones left in the company and 2010 promises a bright, prosperous future.

Tomorrow I’ll be on the road again, so I’ll maybe post my last entry for 2009.

While I was having a long-distance relationship with my old boyfriend (“old” as in has-now-become-husband) I used to write how much I missed him, how much I loved him. At that time, blogging was our way to express the unspoken words.

He also blogged – in fact I fell in love with him partly because of his writings, the beautiful way he knits the words together – he’s a good writer, a clever speaker and a dominant leader. And I still remember his own domain with the blog he created himself. He used to write about me, he used to review things and days we spent together.

We lived four hours apart train-wise, and we were madly in love. A passionate, jealous, possessive love. We spent five months being distant, jumping on the train to see each other almost every weekend.

I remember we used to write long, long blog entries that we’d both then spend hours to read, reread, contemplate. We used to write a lot.

Then we moved in together and the posts gradually became less and less. Rarer and rarer. He became my everyday’s life just like I became his, and we didn’t really put the things into blog archives anymore. And as the young new love slowly matures in the pot of a daily couple’s life and understandings grow through a lot of things and so much time, we both didn’t feel the needs to express our passion for each other into writings anymore.

Then we got married and even though at times I wished I still had a blog, I never had the time to take care of my old blog. I only wrote on it a couple of times – or maybe three – on special occasions that needed my emotions to be poured into texts, one of the most unforgettable one was when my father passed away.

Work, stress and business have absorbed my writings into simple, distant notes I publish rarely on Facebook.

This year, our life changed drastically in the terms that, we finally are in the brink of realizing our old dreams of having a company of our own. There are still a lot of work to do, papers to sign, deals to be talked about, projects to close, and I know it’d be a long and windy road to the absolute prosperity, but at least we have something of our own, legal, established and standing.

So I guess this leap merits to be marked on a blog. A new one. I’d be spending a lot of time on the road to meet clients, and I can post through WordPress Mobile, so I think it’d be a good idea to write, rather than being lost in endless contemplations and thoughts or mindless tittle-tattles with my friends whenever I’m in the car. We have a driver so I don’t even have to think about traffic jam.

I don’t have much time, in fact I spend most of my time working, but I don’t mind – even though I complain sometimes, and God knows my husband hates it so much when I’m complaining (cos he works even more than I do) but I’m a woman and I complain.

So there, in this blog you will most likely read about my life, my emotions, my works, and my trivial rants but hey, that’s what a blog is for – so you can pour yourself into it.

Will ask my husband about what he thinks, but I’ll perhaps invite him to be a guest author in this blog too.

- Anonymous so I can be free;

- Kept updated as often as I can;

- And I promise to tell everything.