I’m a single girl all alone in a great big town
A single girl gets so tired of life letting her down
The life’s unreal and the people are phony
And the nights can get so lonely
I need a nighttime life to get me through the day

Jakarta is often like a frontier town for the single, or ‘singly-inclined’ male. With money in their pockets and none of the hometown restraints in play, well…boys will be boys.

But as Sandy Posey sings, it can be a very different story for the single girl in this great big town. Jakarta24 went out and about and spoke to a number of single Jakarta-based women on how they viewed life in the Big Durian.

What follows is not the definitive version but a series of interesting insights.

A DOUBLE SINGLE LIFE
Jo, Kate and Lucy’s love affair with Indonesia began with short trips from school and university. These trips became longer and longer until eventually they decided that long distance relationships never work and so made the decisive move. While these three semi-Sydneysiders had never met before they moved here, they have been united by their similar experience of the triumphs, frustrations and all-round craziness that comes with life as single bule girls in Jakarta. Jo now works for an international donor organisation, Kate for a local NGO and Lucy with a Jakarta university.

Westerners who first come to Indonesia find the adjustment to life in Jakarta difficult. If your pre-Jakarta experience has been all about immersion in the language and culture, it’s hard to feel comfortable about buying imported Froot Loops at Rp. 100 000 a go instead of making do with a nice gado-gado for breakfast. Even the most intrepid explorers won’t go anywhere without their vegemite, and having to deal with Indonesian officialdom, endless macet and random hassle, causes you to surrender and be the bule the men at the end of the street never let you forget you are. On these days, the sunset call to prayer signals g&t hour - gin courtesy of Kemang Duty Free, tonic by Carrefour, and limes from the guy who came past with his kaki lima this morning. This is what’s known as the best of both worlds, and it’s a term you come to appreciate, living the schizophrenic life of the single bule chick in Jakarta.

BULE LIFE
Two things Jakarta does best are overstatement and extravagance. The very word ‘creambath’ evokes luxury fit for Cleopatra and they are as good as they sound. An hour and a half of head and shoulder massage, with the added benefit of a deep conditioning treatment comes all for less than the price of a cocktail. Pedicures are another example – if you were a pedi virgin when you arrived it won’t be long before trips to the salon become a fortnightly event, and it turns out that feet really aren’t all that bad once they’ve been scrubbed and painted and pampered. Freshly beautified feet need new shoes, and luckily Jakarta has more choices in shoes than you could poke a Manalo Blahnik at. Pasar Raya alone has an entire level devoted to women’s footwear, and even if you don’t find the perfect pair of heels, it’s always good fun looking at what kinds of hideous-spangled-fluro-purple-stilletos are on offer. Even better value, are the Blok M markets next to the mall, where you can find a pair of funky shoes for less than 25,000 rupiah – not to mention a huge array of (genuine, of course) designer bags, belts and sunglasses, or even a pair of jeans that makes you look like Britney Spears - if the salesman is to be believed. The whole shopping experience can be topped off perfectly with a slice of juicy papaya for the taxi ride home. The soothing powers of beauty treatment and retail therapy are enough to make any self-respecting single girl wonder if she ever really needs to go home again.

When you can’t face another plaza and even Sex in the City fails you, there’s the weekend hop to Bali, where long, leisurely brunches by the water replace hurried cake-bread toast before work, sarongs, bikinis and strapless tops are worn openly in the street, unfettered by jackets protecting bare shoulders from shocked eyes, and endless white beaches replace the endless black tarmac of the tolls.

Sometimes it can be very easy to forget that you’re in Indonesia when sipping champagne in a high-rise apartment, surrounded by assorted diplomats and development workers. One finds oneself making long-lasting friendships, forged on the basis of being far from home, facing similar challenges and drinking many many caprioskas. But when it comes down to it, single bule women stick together because only they know what it feels like to be single bule women living in Jakarta.

INDONESIAN LIFE
Tiptoeing through a traditional Indonesian kampong after one (or four) too many capiroskas, politely slurring that you were just out for an early morning walk to your pious neighbours who are already up for their morning prayers, is probably when it’s the most difficult to forget that you’re in Indonesia. The concept of ‘privacy’ as we know it tends to be pushed aside and sometimes seems non-existent when living in an Indonesian neighbourhood. While this may take a fiercely independent single bule girl a while to get used to, for those who do, the communal life and daily adventures of an Indonesian kampung are constantly surprising and definitely worth it all.

Single girls may be faced constantly with the recurring (and somewhat unsettling) questions of ‘are you really here by yourself?’ and ‘aren’t you scared to be alone?’(should we be?) from local taxi/ojek drivers, fruit sellers and random passers-by. However, you only have to live in a kampung for a short period of time to realise that you are indeed not living by yourself, especially when your neighbours or pembantu who lives down the road can tell you exactly what time you crept in last night – even though you thought you were being really, really quiet. But hey, when it comes down to it no one can complain about the ‘shared life’ of the kampung. When you’re battling with a lack of running water in the house, malevolent rats day and night, cats falling through paper-thin ceilings, snakes sleeping on your shoes, cockroaches everywhere and electrical problems (lets face it, how often do single bule girls think twice about wattage and issues arising from using a stereo, TV and hairdryer all at the same time?), you only need to walk out your front door with an I’m-a-single-girl-please-help-me look on your face before you have your neighbour’s brother’s friend’s son standing on your doorstep ready to help.

And what they don’t know won’t hurt them. When Saturday night comes around there are a few preparations that need to be made in order to successfully exit the kampung with a minimum of attention from that helpful neighbour’s brother’s friend’s son (and his 15 friends). 1. Always be prepared to wear a jacket over your boob tube. 2. Head out with your thongs on and stilettos in your handbag, not only to avoid unnecessary wolf-whistles, but also because breaking a heel on a pothole is not a good start to your night. 3. Offerings of wine and vodka to the Jakarta party gods must be carefully disguised in opaque Pasar Raya bags. After all, as far as the kampung is concerned, you’re just heading out for a quiet nasi goreng.

Those who have packed their bags and crossed oceans to take up work in Jakarta will find adapting to a local Indonesian office life an experience in itself. This is not to say that one can’t get use to the relaxed work hours, constant flow of food and general relaxed nature of the office. It may take a while to adjust to the sight of your boss napping in the office but it won’t be long before you realise a few hard hours of work deserve a nap. Fridays can be slightly less than productive, when the men head off for prayers, but this is when the ceweks take advantage of the extended lunchbreak to have a good gossip.

The dance of the sexes takes a few interesting twirls for a bule chick in Jakarta. For starters, you’re fairly unlikely to be seeing a bule boy unless you brought one with you – most of the unattached ones hook up with gorgeous Jakarta girls on arrival. Why bother with Westerners, though, when we seem to be so irresistible to Indonesian men? Why get dressed up and sit in trendy bars when a girl can wander through Menteng of an evening wearing old jeans and get showered with flattery and the occasional marriage proposal? What’s the point of waiting around for that cute International from one of those aid agencies to call, when if you’d given the same number to the polite Javanese boy who approached you on the bus, he would have called you twice before you got home and once before 6 am the next day? And maybe even passed it on to a few of his friends as well. And continued to call even after you’d stopped answering the phone!

There are a number of ways to deal with the constant background noise of attention – at best, confidence building, at worst, harassing – that showers the bule girl in Jakarta wherever she goes. Unless you are someone who gets off on the power trip of crushing suitors beneath the heel of your flip-flop, the reality is that most women don’t find hassle a turn-on, and in any case the best approach is to smile and say very little at all. There are exceptions, naturally, and if you find yourself being groped in a nightclub – or by the side of the road – then a swift pointy-toed kick and a disdainful ‘Kirain loe siapa?’ (‘Who do you think you are?’) tends to do the trick. At the same time, writing off the nice guy you just met on your trip from Blok M to Plaza Indonesia, purely because he’s not playing the Western cool dude hard-to-get game, is pure folly. Dating across cultures brings with it a whole set of unique problems – but then, what relationship doesn’t?

It can be easy to forget that there is a nightlife in Jakarta outside of the swanky bars and bule parties. But for a single bule girl eager to reconnect with local life, the best evenings are those spent hanging out at warungs with friends, drinking coffee and eating nasi. These weeknight hangouts rarely serve alcohol, the food is simple (but oh so tasty) and other bules are scarce. Even at local music spots entry is free and audience members are encouraged to get up and perform (regardless of talent) but, you’re a single bule girl so what have you got to lose? They’ll love you anyway. Good friendships are formed listening to music and chatting about politics, motorbikes and art.

Jakarta is a city where shopping centres are abundant and public space is practically non-existent; lazing away a Sunday afternoon on the beach is not an option. However, when desperate times call for desperate measures a trip to Ancol can go some way to satisfying outdoor cravings. Ok, so it might not quite live up to Bondi, and watching a man fish plastic bag after plastic bag out of the water ain’t pretty, but if you sit back and enjoy the palm trees and (fresh?) sea breeze, you can almost imagine it’s the real thing. If you want to swim though, try your local pool, even if it is full of circumference swimmers. Apparently mercury poisoning isn’t much fun.

While sometimes leading this seemingly double life can be exhausting, ultimately it is the only way to really experience Jakarta. These two sides are inextricably linked and to fully enjoy Jakarta life you can’t have one without the other. After a big Saturday night out, the best hangover cure is a paper bag full of gorengan and some super-pedas rujak, but after a week of kampung and work life, there’s nothing better than a debrief over a cosmopolitan (or three) at a posh bar with your girlfriends. Finding this balance does not come easily and adjustments have to be made, but with patience and an acceptance that the occasional cultural faux pas will take place, life as a single bule chick in Jakarta is like a good es cendol: sweet, colourful and always surprising.

STARRY SARI NIGHTS, SUPI
Being single and staying single is quite an ordeal for career-minded women who come from eastern cultures. I am of Indian ethnicity but I have managed to stay single. I have warded off all potential suitors who claim they are the best and that I wouldn’t find anyone else like them. However, my parents still try to find me a fat wallet of a man, which is important because a woman has to fulfill her materialistic destiny; forget the rest.
Whenever there was an Indian wedding in town, I could hear my parents saying, “Hey, we have to go to this wedding. Make sure you wear a nice Indian outfit, you have to look your best.” Okay Mom, okay Dad. Will do, so all the available single men can size me up and rank me.
Have any of you been to an Indian wedding? It is like a massive promotion of available meat, all graded by lineage, bank statements and so-called reputations. It is almost like cattle herding or even a court hearing. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Exhibit A.” Yeah, I might as well be just a tasty piece of pork on a shelf. The older you get, the lower your shelf in this exhibition. By the age of 24, a “good” Sindhi girl – Sindhi being the group of Indians I belong to – ought to be married with two children and four dogs. You just have to keep up with that ‘barefoot and pregnant’ image. I mean, it is the in thing. In order to achieve this lofty goal, Sindhi girls are sent to weddings galore, all over the world. Hell, you get free holidays.
Sindhis have an amazing network. They are simply everywhere and once their child reaches ‘marriageable’ age, which is like 20, their horoscopes – yes astrological charts – are sent all over the place to be matched with some other child who has come of age. The fax machine was an invention very welcomed by Sindhi parents. If the horoscopes match, and this child is somewhere other than your hometown, one of you gets a paid vacation. I mean, come on, the stars matched, they have to meet, they will surely “click”.
Here I am, a single Sindhi woman, 34 years of age and never been married. I’ve had my fair share of those free holidays because the stars wanted it, and the stars demanded that my parents want it too, because, the truth is in the stars and they are never wrong.
I was once sent to Hong Kong, because these “charts” matched me to an eligible Sindhi bachelor. We were “told” to have dinner together, and he starts off the conversation with “Can you cook?” Hmph. Although I can, I just had to say, “ No, actually, I was hoping you would do the cooking. You could wear my apron, while I wear your pants.” Another time, I was sent to Madrid and commanded to have coffee with this Sindhi man of agreeable planets. The conversation was non-existent, there were no sparks as such, but hey, I’m sure those stars were doing the tango. Oh, by the way, the coffee was to die for.
Yes, that is how it happens. A blind date, all fixed up, and you may be destined to live with him forever and ever. Imagine the trauma, the pressure, the anxiety that each of us single girls has to deal with, because our families revere the old traditions and believe that they have to live by all the rules, no matter what damage is done to a girl’s soul. Most frequently uttered words in Sindhi homes: “She’s having a nervous breakdown…so what?!!! She still has to meet this man and get married, she’s 27 for heaven’s sake. Who will want her now?!! She’s too short and too dark skinned anyway. We have to do something.”
Your brain and your mind are irrelevant; it is your appearance that matters, your family’s financial status, your reputation within the society and your “pedigree”. Who am I to go against a bunch of neurotic elders who believe in the skies above and their elders? It’s all about older bodies getting heavenly bodies to determine the fate of younger bodies.
I am just going to sit back and try to enjoy it.

SINGLE PUTRI
Trying to interview Putri during the soccer season is like trying to find a taxi when it rains in Jakarta, almost impossible. This 41-year old single professional woman shares a passion for soccer with her nephews and is prepared to stay up all night to indulge it.

Putri said her parents, especially her father, raised her and her siblings to be independent. Her brothers had to share in the household chores and are now quite proficient in the kitchen. The independence of the girls was sometimes at odds with the world outside the family - so much so that she and her sisters were known as rebels in high school.

Although Putri has a busy social life with her extended family, she lives away from them in her own house, which is unusual for single women in her culture. She says she explained her moving out to others in terms of convenience and traffic patterns, but she actually just likes being on her own. Living independently is not the only cultural tradition she changed. She, as you would expect from someone with her upbringing, gave her five younger brothers and sisters permission to marry without waiting for her to marry first. Interestingly, none of the girls in the family are married yet.

In her high school days, she wanted to be a pilot, because it was the only way she could imagine being able to see the world and also be in charge. She has fulfilled her ambition of traveling the globe extensively, but not as a pilot. University studies took her to UI, where she majored in English Literature and then on to the University of Hawaii, where she studied International Business. Her father had studied in Holland and Sweden, as had two of her aunts, so she was just continuing a family tradition. She took one step further however; since completing her education, she has only worked for multi-national organizations.

Marriage is not a high priority for Putri. She did come close to marrying a man from her own culture but it didn’t eventuate for various reasons. She later heard that he later married a highly educated woman but apparently this woman was required to stay at home and raise the family and she never persued a career. So she doesn’t in any way regret not being married, now believing “it is just a piece of paper” and remarking that she has observed many people who don’t take the institution with the gravity it requires, marrying for social or economic reasons instead. Surprisingly, she says she would consider living with the right person but says she would never do it out of respect for her mother.

She also doesn’t mind not having children, she is thinking of adopting because so many children with needs are out there, just another example of her social awareness.

When Putri was younger, she went clubbing in Jakarta but no longer fancies the bar scene. In part, it’s because her friends no longer have time to go to clubs but it is also because she got tired of being mistaken for an opportunistic woman in search of a foreigner. Having been her own woman for a long time, she was never in search of husbands at clubs, just good music. Now she reads and watches films, she loves to talk about books and movies. She says she happy with who she is and knows her liberal upbringing and her world experiences made her the contented woman she is today. Now, if only her team would win, life would be perfect.

ELLY
Slim, taller than average and with long hair that she constantly pushes back off her forehead, Elly is not conventionally pretty. She is, however, bright and articulate and with her excellent English, she’s very attractive and extremely good company.

When I meet her, she isn’t wearing make-up. She’s dressed modestly in a dark yellow sweater and jeans and looks quite unexceptional in the upmarket mall where she tells me her story over a coffee.

“I was born in Jakarta. I am the youngest of six and I come from a good family. When I was four, my mum died and I was sent to live with my aunt in a kampung in Java. I don’t know why I was the only one to go. I think my father was disappointed that his last kid was a girl – he wanted another son.

I didn’t like it there. I never saw my real family, and when I was nine, my cousin started playing with me. I really hated it and I really hated him.

When I was eleven, I came back to Jakarta, but I didn’t fit in anymore. I went to high school near Blok M – I didn’t know any thing about Blok M then! After that I started studying at college.

I don’t know why, but I always liked older men – maybe I was looking for another father. Anyway, I had a relationship with a lecturer at the college and got pregnant. Stupid girl! I thought how come if you’re so clever, you go and get pregnant. Goblok!

The man was married and said he’d pay for an abortion. I didn’t want to have an abortion – it’s against my religion – so I decided to have the baby.

My family was very ashamed of me. When I was pregnant and relatives came to the house, they’d hide me in a back room until they’d gone. Then, just before the baby was due, my father said I had to move out. So, when my daughter was born, I was sharing a room in a kost with my best friend from college.

I had hardly any money. My family sent me just a little each month – not even enough to live on. Otherwise, they just cut me off. And that’s how I became a business girl, I suppose.

My friend would sometimes take me to lunch at Pasaraya and one day we met some nice bule men. I liked them and found it easy to talk to them – I was always the first in my class for English. One of them was very generous and bought lots of clothes for my little girl. He was much older than me but he was kind and after a while, I became his girlfriend.

I used to meet him in a bar in Felatehan and I got to know the people there. I liked him but I also liked the money. For the first time I didn’t have to worry about the rent or anything because he paid for everything. He bought me lots of nice clothes too.

He went back to his own country after eight months and then I went out with one of his friends from the bar and then … you know. It was easy for me to find a man because men like talking to me and most of the girls can’t speak English very well … that’s my secret weapon!

That was three years ago and I still go to the same bar now. I’m quite successful. I usually have about three customers a week – sometimes fewer sometimes more – and I earn between three and four million a month. The girls talk a lot of bullshit about how much they charge .Yes, sometimes girls get four or five hundred thousand but not very often. The real price in Blok M is two hundred or two fifty thousand. It’s more if you go ‘uptown’, but you get the same story there. Everyone says they were paid a hundred dollars by a guy. Maybe that was true once for a tourist off the plane from Singapore but I bet he didn’t pay that the second time!

Like a lot of Blok M girls, I live in Bangka. I pay Rp. 300,000 a month for my room. I come in by bajaj and that costs Rp. 9,000 a trip. Then there’s food and clothes and make-up and I have to pay someone to look after my daughter. Of course, I don’t send any money to my family like most girls do – why should I? And I don’t waste my money on the latest Nokia handphone like a lot of girls so usually I can save some money each month.

All the girls in Blok M are freelancers – there aren’t any pimps – but a lot of them have husbands or boyfriends who ask for money. The only kind of pimps around are some taxi drivers and old mamas in the Bali Hai! So we get to keep our money – except sometimes you have to give a tip to the security at the hotel.

Usually I go with the man to one of the hotels around Blok M, but I’ve been to the big hotels as well. I’ve only been to a house or apartment a few times. Most of the men are alright. A lot of the girls think all bules are the same. But they’re not. From what I know, the British are the best educated (really? – Ed), the Americans are the most generous, and you don’t need to speak to the Aussies – just a short skirt will do.

You soon get to know who is who because the girls tell each other which ones pay well, which ones are nasty and which ones are kinky – there was a Frenchman here once who always wanted to lick the mud off the girls’ shoes, but he’s gone now.

Sometimes, you have to be realistic and go with a horrible man. Then I just close my eyes and think ‘money, money, money.’ I always make sure the man wears a condom now. Girls in Blok M know about AIDS but a lot of them don’t bother. I haven’t heard of anyone getting sick yet, but you wouldn’t, would you?

A lot of the men are drunk when you go with them and sometimes its funny. Twice I had men who went home with only one sock and one man lost his underpants – I don’t know how he explained that to his wife.

The girls never use their real names in case their families find out – they always tell them they’re working in a restaurant or karaoke and that’s where the money comes from. Some of them want to marry a bule but most just want to earn a living and help their family. Then they want to buy a store or some land when they ‘retire’ – anything but end up like the massage mamas in Bali Hai – that’s scary.

And me? I’ve just got lucky. I’ve met a man who has paid for me to go back to college, so soon I’ll be out of here, and no more bad girl for me … I think.”

MARY
Jakarta was a great career move for Mary, an attractive 31-year-old Georgetown University graduate. She has a high powered and responsible position with a multi-national company and really enjoys her work. And all the expat trappings that go with it – she has a beautiful company-subsided apartment, two maids, a luxury car and a driver on call 24hrs a day. What more could a woman ask for? Well, some kind of social life for a start as those two maids are too often the only company she has in the evening.

Steven, her colleague from work, by contrast, spends his evenings within a “malestrom” of fashionable cafés and bars, socializing with very attractive members of the opposite sex. Not so, Mary.

“Forget dating” Mary says “most western men are married and if they’re not married they’re playing around big time and the trouble is I don’t look anything like those sweet little Indonesian women. I’m not blaming them – good luck to them – but it gets kind of hard spending yet another evening at home alone.” And this loneliness is compounded by a lack of understanding in others. ‘Why don’t you have a husband?’ is a question she gets asked by taxi drivers, maids, waitresses and even the most casual of Asian acquaintances.

Mary’s situation is far from unique. Throughout Asia the single Caucasian female has to make big adjustments often without support – or a warning even – from their companies. “It’s pointless” Mary says “for me to even conjecture about why the playing field is so uneven for western women in Asia. The subject involves too many taboos and discussing it opens up all kinds of sexual and racial stereotypes. What I do know though, is that I’d like to have a better work/life balance here, just as I had back home.”

“So, why don’t I go back home right now?” Mary asks. “Well, your career can fast track in Asia and if I did go back I’d be one among many where it’s much harder to do special things.”

So despite a sometimes unfulfilling social life, Mary won’t consider returning to the States just yet as she wants to retain her satisfying job. “The one big advantage here” Mary smiles unconvincingly “is that there are no outside distractions and I can really immerse myself in my work.”