An entire lifetime
30 years is how long my aunt (my mother's sister) has been away from the Philippines. Her last visit to Manila was in 1976 when we were still assigned in India. The last time she saw me I was a bratty 3 year old toddler with curly hair and big eyes.

Yesterday after much hesitation (I'm not a big fan of family reunions) my sister and I (along with my parents) treated her and our uncle to native delicacies at Via Mare. So between acclamations of "ang sarap", the topic of our conversation ranged from their various travels around the world, the prices of real estate properties, which condo to buy, their kids (my cousins who I haven't seen since they were born in the US of A) to the usual banter of reminiscing over days of yore which are a very distant memory to my short attention span brain.

So even though the dreaded question was asked ("Do you have a boyfriend?" "No, I don't" followed by the usual "Why not?"), I merely shrugged it with a faint smile, it was all rather painless (I thought she would scrutinize every aspect of my boring existence) and we all had a nice time filled with laughter and delicious food.

Next weekend is the grand family reunion (with over 50 people expected to attend, yikes!) at the house of another uncle (who is also visiting town) somewhere in Rizal. One event I cannot back out from because it was decided that my contribution to the potluck affair would be cake and buckets of ice cream. The only items I could think of without having to spend hours in the kitchen (I don't want to poison them).

Now I have one week to come up with an appropriate reply to the 64 million dollar question "Why are you still single?".
I doubt it if they would accept my "I am a free spirit, independent minded woman who values my personal space to the point of obsession I don't need a guy to make me feel complete although surely it would be nice if I had someone to carry my groceries, lift heavy furniture, go watch foreign movies at film festivals and have heated discussions about any subject under the sun. But I think he is perhaps a figment of my imagination because such a person probably doesn't exist so I rather stay single until he barges into my life to make my head ache with his refusal to understand that I am very territorial so I need alone time even when I am in a relationship" answer to their question.

In short I am high maintenance! =)

*Chuckles*