Meet my boyfriend, the accessory

So, how many times have you come across girls who stick to their boyfriends tighter than elephant glue, like as though they are a limb that grows out of their boyfriend. You see them hanging around with each other so often that you confuse them with the Siamese twins. It's not surprising anymore, and like a fabulous piece of clothing article or a new charming bracelet, the girl wears her love for her boyfriend on her sleeve for all and sundry to witness.

True everlasting love or an essential accessory, like your latest Nokia handphone model that you never leave home without?

Similarly, like clinching a book deal is testament to a writer's worth, securing yourself a boyfriend is validation that you have the charms, you have what it takes to make a guy want you to be his girlfriend. You silently laugh and cast a disparaging glance over your shoulder at the unattached singletons and recommend that they go to SDU (Sad, Desperate, Ugly).

Hence, newly-attached folks will be very eager to flaunt their non-singleton status as soon as their said status is cemented. For some, it is an ego trip sparked off by years of being alone, wondering if one is unattractive to the opposite sex.

In other cases, it is ignited and fueled by a feeling of pride, they show off their boyfriends in the same manner that a seven-year-old kid shows off his trophy to his mum. "Look, ma! I won first prize in the swimming contest!" Which, in a way, makes him superior or on par with others. Otherwise, insecurity and self-esteem issues bugs him like a pimple on an adolescent's forehead that won't seem to go away.

Boyfriends have become a form of currency to one's self-worth. The more you accumulate, the more 'market value' you have. Because it proves that you're in demand, damnit! A cursory glance over any teenage magazine, and you see teens mourning their singleton status to Aunt Agony.

"Why, oh why, when my friends are all attached, am I the only one still single? Is there something wrong with me? Am I unattractive? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not well-liked? If not, why am I the only one in my clique that is still unattached? What must I do to get myself a boyfriend? Start having sex?"

OK, I added that last sentence in myself. But, that's what teenagers are doing today to 'prove' their love. Not sure about their love, but they have successfully proven their stupidity.

But, seriously, the absence of a boyfriend has become a very real problem for teenage girls, especially in this increasingly shallow society.

Think about this: A woman in her 30s, financially secure, she has a group of good buddies that she hangs out frequently with, but if she doesn't have a boyfriend or isn't married, ugly names like 'spinster', 'widow' or maybe 'So grounchy, no wonder no one wants to marry her" starts surfacing, sprouting out rapidly like mushrooms in the presence of 'fungus and bacteria' (public opinion).

What more even so in the context of a 19-year-old girl, at an age where one is grappling with a mountain of insecurity issues, at an age where even a pimple can provoke the license to stay at home all day long, where vanity issues reign supremacy in one's waking hours.

It doesn't help at all when one is living on a pile of superficial trash that is Planet Earth, where people would rather bring a mirror than say, a compass or survival kit, if stranded on an island. Where a beauty queen's first thought upon consciousness after a serious car accident is to ask the nurse to bring her the mirror, where...

A boyfriend is this season's must-have, a trend that is increasingly gaining momentum. Having a boyfriend is cool, is fashionable, is the 'in' thing!

And this trend?

It never goes out of fashion.