THE CAREER MAN
GABRIEL PEH, 26
Growing up without a father (he passed died before Gabriel was born), Gabriel formed a tight bond with his mother, Dora, but is not a mommy's boy. Actually, these days, he finds that he is in many ways, the parent in the relationship. In fact, in many aspects, his mother is a more carefree soul than he is.
You would never think of it to look at him now but Gabriel was a nerd in school. Skinny, bespectacled and pimply, he was always the wallflower of the class.
An especially big scar in his school life was his rejection by Ellie Chua, the most popular girl in school. Having been harboring the hots for her for 3 years of secondary school, she sent him out the door with a rejection and a snide remark. However, all that was resolved. Having to choose between him and the guy she was originally engaged to – Chad – she chose... Gabriel.
Gabriel is currently running his own agency, Angel Advertising. It's a really small agency – just him and his creative director, Danny, but they have a small and loyal client following.
Now that he's found the woman he was chasing, Gabriel is monogamous. Gabriel and Ellie have not had sex, as they have sworn off pre-marital sex.
GABRIEL'S OBJECTIVE:
He sees himself being married to Ellie by the time he's 30. He'll have three kids – two boys and a girl – all by the time he's 36 (they'll be two years apart). He wants to be the kind of father he never had. He will spend the twilight years of his life growing old with Ellie, still madly in love.
OTHER QUIRKS AND CHARACTERISTICS:
Old fashioned when it comes to romance. He sends flowers, writes little notes, and is very creative when it comes to love.
Gabriel lives for the moment. He is the sort of person who will not make a reservation at a restaurant that is known to be busy during peak hours, instead preferring to just "chance it" and show up. Which is the total opposite of Ellie.
He is also the kind of guy who shows up when he's ready, not the most punctually-precise person on earth. It's not that he is disorganized – he just doesn't think he should kill himself to be on time.
Gabriel is impulsive – he's the sort of person who might set out to buy a basic handphone for $200, and end up getting a 3G state-of-the-art for $999. He is also partial to charities. A bleeding heart, he is the sort of guy who would lend his life savings to a friend for a life-saving operation without checking up on it first.
He does not manage money that well. He always feels that somehow – through some karmic law – if you spend money with a good heart, you will always get it back somehow.
Gabriel has a comics collection, ranging from old copies of Beano and Dandy when he was young, to Marvel and DC comics.
THE ROMANTIC
ELLIE CHUA, 25
Living most of her life as an orphan (her parents passed on in a car accident when she was 10), Ellie has been taken care of by her Uncle Robert since. She returns home (even though she sometimes disregards this tiny island as "home") to help him with his new pet store chain and in the process falls in love, then out of love, then finally in love again with Gabriel.
After closing down her veterinarian clinic, Ellie found herself feeling lost and not really having a direction in life. Through a friend of a friend, Ellie was recommended to a pet magazine – a new startup in Singapore called MyPet Monthly. First starting off as a freelancer, Ellie is now a junior editor at the magazine. Besides overseeing a team of writers and graphic artists, she also writes an agony aunt column for the magazine, giving pet owners advice on dealing with problem pets.
ELLIE'S OBJECTIVE:
Ellie does not plan to stay with MyPet Monthly forever. She is putting aside her salary as savings so she can start a pet store chain on her own, similar to the one she was working at. Although she has had offers to join other veterinary clinics, she wants to be independent, her own boss. She thinks she will be very good at running her own business, and that is what she plans to do eventually – open a chain of pet stores around the region. She wants to be a millionaire by the time she's 35, modeling herself after the many businesswomen in Singapore with success stories.
OTHER QUIRKS AND CHARACTERISTICS:
Ellie is a control freak. She needs to be a part of every decision that is made, and will usually obsesses over the minutest details. This is what often makes her endearing to Gabriel, but the rest of the time, drives him crazy.
She is also concerned what people think of her. She is the sort of person who will not be happy if one person in the room is dissatisfied.
Ellie runs her life with clockwork precision. The complete opposite of Gabriel, she will start planning her weekend activities at the beginning of the week, making sure that her dinner reservations, spa appointments, etc. are booked well in advance. She carries a PDA around with her where she records all her appointments. She feels naked without it around, as the order of life is what keeps her grounded.
She is not impulsive. When shopping, she will look around for the best deal before settling on something. She is very prudent with her money, and in extreme cases, considered stingy. But she believes she is saving up for the future.
Ellie is into self-help books, the ones written by so-called business and self-help gurus, like 10 Mistakes That Highly Competent People Make. She is always trying out tactics she learns in the books on Gabriel and her friends, which sometimes drives them crazy.
THE INDEPENDENT
APRIL TAY, 25
April's parents – and her family for that matter – live in Malaysia. She was sent to Singapore to study as a young girl because her cousin was coming to school here. An aunt took care of the three of them in a flat in Bishan, sending them to school and making sure they studied and ate right.
April sometimes goes back to Malaysia to visit her parents, but for her, home is in Singapore. Despite being away from her parents, she had a fairly regular upbringing and one which, in fact, has made her independent and some would say, a bit stubborn.
April had one true love – or at least she thinks – Siong Yun, this guy in her secondary school who was going out with her best friend for a while. The sparks were there, but she never made a move and neither did he. Eventually Siong Yun broke up with her best friend and went abroad on a scholarship to study. They never kept in touch, but she never stopped thinking about him all through polytechnic, wondering what if...
Since then, April has had one boyfriend after another, but she hasn't been able to hold down a relationship for longer than three months. In fact, she always gets worried round the three month mark that it's not going to last... and it often turns out to be true. Some would say it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. She has alternately been called by her ex-boyfriends too independent, too stubborn, too insecure, too cold, too suffocating, too... When it comes to everything else in life, April has got it all together. But throw her into an interpersonal relationship, and she just loses all manner of control.
A sporty girl, April graduates from polytechnic with a degree in physical education. She gets a certification and works as a personal trainer in a gym. She has many interesting clients, including Mrs Wong, a lady in her late-40s who gives her advice on relationships, being a serial dater herself.
APRIL'S OBJECTIVE:
April wants to find true love – a man who will love and accept her for what she is. Someone who will tolerate her quirks and will not be afraid to stand up to her independence. She is demanding as a partner – sometimes she wants her space, and men find it hard to be at her beck and call when she needs them and then ignored when she wants to be alone.
OTHER QUIRKS AND CHARACTERISTICS:
April is a hygiene freak. While she is not obsessive-compulsive, she does believe that cleanliness is next to godliness. She always carries disinfectant with her, just in case. She does not share utensils when eating.
She is also very outspoken and frank. She says what is on her mind, even if she regrets it later. She is the sort of person who, if she sees a pregnant woman standing on the train, will ask a young man to get up and give her his seat.
April likes going to the movies alone. She also keeps the ticket stubs from all the movies she's seen, so she can remember when she saw which particular movie. She is also the sort that will take adventure holidays – trekking in Nepal, skydiving, etc. And she doesn't mind going on her own.
THE OPEN-MINDED
DANNY MERELES, 26
Danny went to the same secondary school as Gabriel. Although they were both classmates, they were different in personality. While Gabriel was a shy, nerdy mommy's boy, Danny was the guy who got all the girls. Except Ellie. Somehow or other, she never quite succumbed to his charms, a fact which still bugs Danny till today.
Because he spent more time on girls than grades, it was no big surprise that Danny couldn't get into university. Despite not being academically-inclined, Danny does have one talent – he is artistic. He is always filled with great creative ideas – the only problem is, he doesn't have the stamina or discipline to follow any of them through. If he did, today Singaporeans might be enjoying innovations like chicken rice flavoured ice-cream (a food and dessert, in one package), Menstruation Menus in restaurants (they're like Confinement Food, except for ladies who are going through that time of the month. After all, they have degustation menus, right?), and the MacLiver Burger (liver is healthy, right?)
He spent four years at LaSalle College For The Arts, driving girls crazy and his lecturers too, but for different reasons. He graduated (barely) with a degree in Visual Arts or Design – he's not really sure which. After that, it was a series of freelance jobs, one after the other. None of the freelance jobs paid really well, but Danny has a habit of being able to find money, even if he isn't able to hold on to any of it. He either borrows from his friends, gets his dates to pay (and yes, they do) or simply talks his way into favours. In short, he's a hustler with a heart.
When Gabriel decided to set up his own agency, he ran into Danny. Gabriel made him creative director because (a) Danny talked his way into it; (b) he pays Danny on a commission basis, so Danny doesn't get paid if he doesn't bring any jobs in, and (c) because Danny has a way with the lady clients.
Secretly though, Gabriel is still jealous of Danny's ways with the ladies. Somehow, they just can't seem to help being attracted to him.
DANNY'S OBJECTIVE:
Danny wants to date (or more in particular, have sex with) women from just about every major race on Earth before he finally settles down. In other words, he doesn't plan to get attached to one girl until he feels he's had a comprehensive idea of what girls from both sides of the world are like, in bed and out.
OTHER QUIRKS AND CHARACTERISTICS:
Danny can give sexual statistics of the top of his head – he knows which country has the highest frequency of sex, how frequently males in Asia over the age of 30 have sex, etc. etc. In other words, he pretty much has a one track mind.
Danny does not like animals – to him, animals and children are in the same category – noisy, annoying and prone to public displays of their bodily function.
He also has a long string of ex-girlfriends – of all ages, social denominations and different marital status. It is not unusual, when the four friends are out that they are always bumping into someone who has "been" with Danny.
Danny is intimately familiar with the Kamasutra.
by MediaCorp
