This was the best opportunity to give advice to the young man. He could open his mouth but he could not reply, as the sizzling dental scaler swept away the tartar on his teeth. He was a captive audience sitting in the $30,000-dentist chair. He was all ears.
"What happened to the girlfriend?" I asked the dentist.
"It was like a meeting of warlords in Afghanistan," Dr Tan adjusted her scaler and suction tube to suck out the water from the youth's mouth. "It was very much like a meeting with the Mafia godfather! The girl had threatened to jump down from the 20th floor of the HDB apartment but the what could the parents do?"
"What happened to the girlfriend?" I asked. "Did she commit suicide due to unrequited love?"
The family dentist continued in a maternal voice, "I have had known you since you were in primary school. I regard you as my own son. Listen to my advice. Focus on your undergraduate studies in Murdoch University in Australia and excel academically. Don't go steady. Girls distract you from your studies."
Juliet, the youth's mum nodded her head vigorously in concurrence with Dr Tan's view but had not interferred with her son's romances. The dental assistant did not comment.
"Hey Dr Tan!" I objected above the whine of the dental scaler. "Why are you not supporting your own gender? Here, your advices are going to break the heart of a Singapore girl!"
Dr Tan ignored my protest. She is a mother of a son and would have had put her foot down on puppy love before graduation.
What happened to mothers of undergraduate sons? Weren't they girlfriends once and in first love once? Hm, probably their puppy loves faded away and they knew that puppy loves would not last. Now that they have become mothers, they did not want their undergraduate sons to be distracted and to fail their studies.
"Perhaps," I threw out a proposal which I knew would find favour with the youth's mother. "Juliet ought to retire. Go to Perth to cook, keep the place clean and look after the young man."
Juliet's eyes brightened. She pursed her lips and closed her eyes as she gave her sweetest happiest smile. She could see her son growing up instead of suffering the 'empty nest syndrome'. No more corporate politics and the need to reply to nonsensical e-mails in the office. No more long hours of work going home till past 8 p.m. She could wake up, breathe in fresh countryside air of the suburbs near the Murdoch University. Do nothing. Less stress. Her white hairs now growing in leaps and bounds, all camouflaged by the hair dyes would revert back to the natural black as stress levels plummet.
"An excellent idea!" Juliet said solemnly.
The dentist nodded her head vigorously in assent as she continued scaling. Mothers are really from another world! They haven't a clue about the intensity of puppy loves of youths.
This time the youth was no longer docile. He gurgled some words, shook his head as vigorously as he could and said, "No, mum."
He had just turned 21 years old and legally, he was independent. He did not want to be tied to the mother's apron's strings. What would his classmates think of him?
The jolly dentist laughed heartily at the youth's reaction. I was sure that the patients waiting outside must have heard her happy laughs resonated in the small cramped dental room.
I knew the futility of advising youths not to fall in love.
I said, "Singapore girls are nowadays more 'aggressive' and forward than during my time some 30 years ago. They get their men, like the Canadian Mounties are famed to do so. They make the first moves and why not? It's every girl for herself in competitive Singapore".
"Well," I threw in my 2 cents' worth of advice to the youth and in support of the two mothers fighting an uphill battle and losing the war of emotional young loves.
I said to the young man, "If you focus on your studies, you will be successful after graduation. There will be many fishes in the ocean.
"One day, you will meet and marry a high-powered woman like your mum. Somebody who has a doctorate in Physics. A lady with beauty and brains."
"What rubbish are you talking about?" Juliet protested. "I don't have a Ph.D in Physics."
"OK, I exaggerate. Your mum has a First Class honours in Physics."
"What nonsense!" the mother muttered. The dentist and her assistant were all ears as my silence was deafening and Juliet did not care to clarify and elaborate.
"OK, OK," I said. "Your mum has a Second Class Upper Honours in Physics. In Singapore during her time, only top students were permitted to go to study the Honours degree in the 4th year. I would say that women who studied Physics are very intelligent and high-powered mentally."
I continued, "However, you may find such high-powered women too smart and hard to handle! Maybe it is better not to marry one."
The youth could not comment as Dr Tan took a dental mirror which reflected blood-red ulcers in the gums below his incisor teeth and said, "You had not been brushing your teeth properly since you went to Australia."
Would this young man forsake his Singapore girlfriend? Not likely but who knows?
There was no turning back to abstinence for the youth despite the good maternal advices of two graduate mothers.
I just hope that he would remain faithful to his Singapore girlfriend and not play the field in Australia. I guess all's fair in love and war in the Murdoch University campus and 'out of sight, out of mind'. Thank god there is Skype and the text messages.
But nobody can foresee the future? One thing I know now.
Mothers of undergraduate sons are from another world. They are not supportive of their gender. They don't want their youthful sons to fall in love while still studying. They believe that first loves are transient and will distracting their sons from achieving academic success. As for Dr Tan's client's daughter who threaten to kill herself when jilted, the dentist did not know what happened to her.
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