Three-year Twitter courtship before marriage: Malaysian couple’s modern romance captivates social media
Tan Mei Zi,Malay Mail 19 minutes ago
PETALING JAYA, Dec 18 — It was a love story that could only take place in the 21st century.
Zulkifli Theplak has always been a shy wallflower but loves cracking silly jokes on his Twitter account.
Little did he know that this was how he would catch the eye of his dream girl.
He recently shared a tweet using the “start of decade/end of decade” meme to show the progression of his relationship with his wife, Nik Tasnim Nik Hamdani.
One picture shows a screenshot of Zulkifli’s tweet in 2015, which reads, “If the car’s headlights are on fire, do I need to call the fire brigade?”
Nik Tasnim then replied to the post with, “If you call me, that’s okay too.”
The picture next to the screenshot is a photo from the happy couple’s wedding earlier this year.
The tweet has gotten over 4,600 retweets and 9,300 likes so far and Malaysian Twitter users have been gushing over the duo’s modern-day romance.
In an interview with mStar, Zulkifli said he initially couldn’t believe it when he read Nik Tasnim’s witty reply to his tweet four years ago.
“I don’t have many female friends and I’m a very shy person. Everything I post on Twitter is just for fun and joking around.
“I didn’t expect her to reply like that. She’s a pretty person and popular too,” said the 27-year-old.
Nik Tasnim said they spent three years getting to know each other through direct messages on Twitter before she finally got him to exchange numbers with her.
“I got his phone number but whenever I tried to call him, he wouldn’t pick up and gave a lot of excuses.
“Meeting up in person was a whole other problem. I didn’t ask just once but several times and after three years, he finally agreed to meet on the condition that someone came along with us.
“Just imagine, on our first date I brought a friend and on the second we both brought friends along too.
“It was only on our third date that we finally got to spend time with just the two of us,” she said.
Two months after their first face-to-face meeting, Zulkifli managed to overcome his bashfulness and asked Nik Tasnim to go steady with him.
The Ampang-born lass said she quickly fell in love with Zulkifli’s patience, maturity, sense of responsibility, and the way he treated her parents with respect.
In a moment that could only be compared to a scene from a television drama, Nik Tasnim realised that Zulkifli was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“I met up with him with tears in my eyes and asked him to marry me.”
Zulkifli was shocked at the surprise proposal but admitted that it gave him a sense of confidence to move forward with their relationship.
A month later, they carried out the merisik (surveying) customs before getting engaged and tying the knot in March this year.
“It doesn’t matter who took the first step. I decided to marry her because she has all the traits of my ideal wife including being willing to compromise.
“We complete each other,” he said.
