Rather "DUH" advice for most girls with brains I presume, but just wanna relate two recent incidents where I carelessly didn't heed my common sense, did exactly the opposite of this sound advice and regretted it. Don't worry, nothing terrible happened. I was just very very annoyed at my stupidity, and at the two guys involved.
Case #1 - Andy, the early morning caller
Andy is one of those lanky, Indian guys who hang around arcades and seem to have nothing else better to do with their time. At least, that's the impression he gave me when I first saw him at the video arcade at Summit about a month or two ago. I go there every now and then to play my favourite game...the Mickey Mouse DDR game (which I'm not too shabby at playing, if I do say so myself...:)). Andy was sitting next to the token counter, perhaps a friend who was hanging out with the token girl, or just bugging the girl for fun. So I played the DDR game, which was in full view of the token counter, for a few rounds. At one point, Andy came over, stood behind me and watched me play. Later on when I went to change more tokens, he struck up a conversation with me and said I was a pretty good at the game (See? I'm not the only one who thinks so! :P). He didn't seem to me to be one of those gangster type guys who would make trouble for me if I got too friendly, so I was quite friendly and invited him to play with me. One thing led to another, and soon he was saying that I was such a friendly girl and he asked for my number. And not quite knowing how to say no after being that friendly, I DID give him my number.
Silly me.
He called me quite a few times after that, sometimes late at night past 1am. It annoyed me, but would've annoyed me a lot more if I was actually asleep at those times. Fortunately for him, I was always awake. But I didn't know quite what to say to him during the times he called me, so whatever he said, I was like "yeah...uh huh...ok...". Or I would tell him that I was actually busy at the time and couldn't talk much. Which was actually the truth anyway. I kinda hoped he would get the hint and stop calling me, but he didn't. And a lot of times when he called, he would say things like I'm such a friendly girl...and I wasn't quite sure what his intentions were behind saying that. Needless to say, I wasn't very comfy with such conversations.
One night, he made a call to me that was the weirdest. He told me his brother had kicked him out of the house and he was walking around on the streets with no place to go. He didn't directly ask me for help, but he kept saying "I don't know what to do", as if hinting me to do something for him. This was again past 1am, so I definitely couldn't go out or else my parents would have a fit. And I certainly couldn't offer him a place to stay at my house. So I told him straight out that I couldn't help him. Plus I was very suspicious about why I was the first one he called when he was in such a dire situation. I asked him why he didn't call sme other closer friends to stay with. And he avoided the question, which made me all the more suspicious. So I finally told him straight out, in a polite manner, that his call was making me uncomfortable, I didn't know what he wanted from me, and I would like him to not call me again. Without a word, he just hung up.
That wasn't that though, coz' the next day, he sent me an sms saying he slept on the street that night, and he apologized for whatever he did, and said I was a good friend and was SO close to his heart (or something along those lines). He sounded desperate for me to stay as his 'friend'. And I couldn't rule out that maybe he WAS telling the truth, and he didn't have any ill intent towards me...but with all the crazy psychos running around this country, I wasn't about to take the risk of trusting this guy. So I replied bluntly that we weren't friends... that I didn't even know him and I only gave him my number to be polite. I also told him to go make some new friends and get a job...which wasn't the most tactful thing to say, but I think the most practical. He never called or smsed me again.
That experience made me feel kinda bad coz' I wonder whether or not the guy was telling the truth about him being on the streets and just needed some help. Maybe he actually had no one else to turn to coz' everyone else had rejected him. And if that were true, I'd made things worse by rejecting him too when initially I was quite nice to him. It's possible. But it was also possible that he wanted to trick me into trusting him so that he could do something bad to me. I didn't want to find out which was the real case, so I had to let him down in as nice but blunt a manner as possible. Ah well.
And the moral of the story is...(refer to topic title)?
Case #2 - Justin, the Casanova security guard
I met Justin a little later than Andy. He's a security guard at my apartment and I met him one night at the apartment gym. He's from Sabah so he spoke mainly Malay...plus he was a Christian too, so I started talking to him about church and stuff like that. He seemed really nice and when he asked for my number,...and still having not learned my lesson from Andy, I got friendly with him as well and also let him have my number.
I never saw him face to face since our first meeting, but he did sms me a few times. The first time was the night right after our first meeting, when he asked me to join him for dinner. I was busy, so I declined. Didn't hear from him again until Chinese New Year, when he smsed me with a CNY greeting.
The third time he smsed me, I got a shock at what he wrote. It went like this:
"Cinta akan kuberikan dari hati(ku) yang damai, sebagaimana rindu berpaut ditangkai hatiku yang sentiasa merinduimu. SMS ini lambang satunya jiwa kita selamanya."
For those who don't understand Malay, that SMS translates into one of the most romantic and sappy messages you could ever get. Which would be good and all if we actually had a relatinship going on. But, blady hell, this came from a guy I'd only ever met once and gotten a few smses from. What the heck was he thinking sending me an SMS like that???
I certainly didn't know how to reply to that, so I didn't reply at all. And I haven't heard from Justin ever since either.
And the moral of the story is...(refer to topic title)???
*Sigh*, I don't understand what's wrong with so many guys I meet around here. It's weird enough that they ask for my number when they hardly know me. Then they call me or sms me all these weird things. Are these guys really so desperate for friendship or a relationship or something? Ugh, we need more therapists in Malaysia, me thinks. Anyhow, I've learned my lesson, and next time I get too chirpy around a new guy who asks for my number, I'm not going to be so obliging. :P
1 comment:
As u've well learnt, the problem here is that we all just wanna be nice and find it so hard to say no. Although we've just met the guy for few minutes or half an hour, we don't wanna act mean or harsh when they do ask for our number especially after a pretty decent conversation. Maybe it's because we think we might bump into the person again (which each time I did a lot of times)... or just that we don't want the conversation to end in a sour note.
But oh well, that's where experience comes in, I guess. Heheheh... and it takes some pretty unpleasant ones to make a realize we don't owe it to them and grow us a spine. :) Plus, trust ur instincts. If u feel slightly uncomfortable abt the idea, u'll sure find out that u'll regret it if u do give it away. The best way is to actually bump into the person a few times 1st - that way u know whether u still click as well after so many times, and also that ur chances of seeing this person (and having conversational topics) are higher.
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