I know I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist continuing my online conversation with that twerp who fouled up my FB inbox with his presumptious, arrogant behaviour making fun of my one little article. True it was made me very upset, as evident from my last post. Fortunately, I have a bit more maturity and self esteem than a regular teenager, else I might have ended up like one of those unfortunate cyber bullied suicide cases. However, I have to admit that I'm not really that mature. After getting it into my head that he was just an annoying nobody trying to prove himself better than me, I've spent all my life being mostly nice and trying to refrain from being insulting or berating even to obviously obnoxious people online, and here was the one person whom I could unleashed all the frustrations I have on and not worry about him feeling bad about it, since he wasn't capable about feeling bad about anything. Again, won't go into the details, but it was quite therapeutic in a way. But I've had my fun and not angry anymore, so decided to block his royal pompousness.
I know I kinda made it out like I feel like there are only pigheads in my life, which is of course not true, and it would be a very lame reason to want to leave the country. I have many good friends, those who actually read this ranting blog included, whom would certainly be missed if I really actually get round to moving over to another country. I don't actually know if such a move would really make me happy... maybe it would make it worse. But on the logical side of things, I have the future of 3 nieces to think about and looking at the way things are going here, I can't help but think that the only way to ensure a good future for them is to make sure they can get an easy ticket out of the country through me. Oh well, still depends on my own luck on getting a PR. Perhaps I should try looking for an Aussie guy online to help along the process.
Huuuhuhu, I'm kidding.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
A ugly face of a 'true Malaysian'
So my other blog got quite a bit of attention recently due to a certain article I wrote that went pretty viral, and this blog might be feeling a tad bit lonely these days. I'd been doing much better in the past couple of months after a couple of years of brooding and making this piece of online space my little place to brood. I started caring about things a little bigger than myself, being more aware of the news and especially taking to the FMT website and enjoying little debates with commenters there. As things were getting rather kooky in this country over the past weeks and seeing a lot of angry tirades online about certain issues, I felt motivated to write that article, wanting to do a local language version as it was meant for a certain target audience, but decided to do an English version first so gauge if my opinion really reflected that of others. It got a lot more nods than I expected, even making it onto the blog of a local respected politician. Of course, that made me little proud of myself, like my first little achievement since coming out of my emotional slump, but the intention wasn't to inflate my ego, it was to try and bridge a gap. So I wrote the local version, not really knowing if it would really make any difference to make things better but helping at least it would to a few people. But feeling a bit frustrated too coz' I know it's not much, and I even considered a few times just quitting my job and becoming one of the things I'd never thought I'd want to be... a damn politician. I even had the funny idea of taking a few weeks off to travel to Sabah and Sarawak and educate the poor people there so they know a little better next election, but it was a crazy idea of one person and I know I can't make much difference without a team at least.
Couple of days ago, along comes this message on my FB from some Chinese guy I don't know who pretty much starts berating me for that article and making all sorts of assumptions about my intentions. That I just want attention to stoke my ego. That I'm just a 'keyboard warrior' with no idea what I'm writing coz' I'm a typical Chinese who have little friends of that race which makes me 'less Malaysian', and urbanites don't need that message anymore (which I personally feel is mostly but not completely true, based on my observation and even my own colleagues). The best part was him calling me a college kid, which I shall take as a compliment that I look younger than I am. But all in all, it was infuriating that some stranger pretty much came up and flung all sorts of assumptions about what kind of person I am and how little I actually know based on one article I wrote. His argument? That the real work needed to be done on the ground with the rural folks, not urban ones, which is what he and a group of multiracial friends are doing. Which is great work, of course, which I respect. What I didn't respect was him proclaiming that made him so much more of a true Malaysian than me, in addition to his continued beration of me and accusations that I didn't know what really needs to be done to make the country a better place. The fact that I had aging parents and the future educational costs of 3 nieces to think about is just an excuse. And my explanation that I don't have many friends of 'that' race is mainly because I'm generally untrusting and introverted in the first place, with people of any race, was just me trying to get 'sympathy'. Even when I did admit that I did feel little proud of that article because it was the first big thing I did since my depression and having lived a life where I felt like my opinons don't matter even to my own mum, this insensitive turd had only one word for me. Pathetic. All this coming from someone who is supporting the same side as me, and claims himself to be a 'true Malaysian', but only made himself out to be the most arrogant and judgemental person I've met in my life.
I don't intend to go into the details of my conversation of him. I do think I was an idiot trying to justify myself to another idiot who knew nothing about me but pretended like he knows everything. If he had talked with a little politeness and explained his work, I would have been so much more supportive of his work. But instead his behaviour was just like the infuriating leaders of this country. Not making any effort to understand the problems of people different from them and then misjudging their intentions, and provoking people to become angry and inflamed to the point of petty arguments about stupid things that don't matter in the big picture. The only difference is that anyone misjudged by the leaders gets charged and thrown in jail, while this turd was just being an annoying little prick. So much that he got the honour of being on the receiving end of my own little tirade of foul language that no one else in my life has ever heard me speak.
Actually, it wasn't so much me being mad at him. After all, he's just a stranger trying to stoke his own ego by belittling some miniscule efforts of an ordinary person while he runs back to his gang and makes fun of me like an immature high school jock (yeah, his royal pompousness told me that's exactly what he would do). What I am really mad at is why this had to happen, after so long of trying to work through my internal issues and trying to open up with people. And especially, after almost decided to go back to church again, which I did last week when I visited CBC. Why, just when I'm starting to turn my life around and have a bit more faith in the goodness of humanity does one stupid annoying little imbecile have to come along and unravel everything? If it's true that God works through people, I can only wonder what great and awesome plan he has for sending the biggest pighead in the country into my life to undermine my self-worth, in addition to all the other pigheads I've known although their pigheadedness was nothing compared to this. Really, God? I don't think I think I ask for much, just one person among 7 billion people whom I can really connect with so I don't have to deal with a messed up world by myself. Even in my latest attempt to join some social events to get to know more people, the curse of meeting weird guys strikes me again. Which is another story in itself which I decided was not worth ranting about anymore, and just consider another amusing addition to the collection of weird guys I meet. At least this time, I know I'm not the only one who sees him as weird, coz' it turned out he and I have mutual friends whom when I asked them about el weirdo, spent an entire night telling me the many ways in which he pissed them off.
I guess it's still for the best to assume there really is no God, so the most logical explanation is that I must have done something really terrible in a past life that karma is coming back to bite me in the ass. Whatever it is, whatever motivation I had to make something little better of myself and try and make some small difference is kinda down the tube right now. I had recently starting asking some friends in Australia about life there and prospects of getting a PR, just considering a move as an option. But after meeting the face of a true Malaysian and finding out a true Malaysian has the ugliest character among everyone I've ever met, I guess my decision is pretty much made up. No need to stay in a country where one is not appreciated, not by leaders and not even by people supposed to be on the same camp. I guess that makes me selfish and immature, but hey, if life's a bitch, after a while, you just need to be a bitch right back.
Couple of days ago, along comes this message on my FB from some Chinese guy I don't know who pretty much starts berating me for that article and making all sorts of assumptions about my intentions. That I just want attention to stoke my ego. That I'm just a 'keyboard warrior' with no idea what I'm writing coz' I'm a typical Chinese who have little friends of that race which makes me 'less Malaysian', and urbanites don't need that message anymore (which I personally feel is mostly but not completely true, based on my observation and even my own colleagues). The best part was him calling me a college kid, which I shall take as a compliment that I look younger than I am. But all in all, it was infuriating that some stranger pretty much came up and flung all sorts of assumptions about what kind of person I am and how little I actually know based on one article I wrote. His argument? That the real work needed to be done on the ground with the rural folks, not urban ones, which is what he and a group of multiracial friends are doing. Which is great work, of course, which I respect. What I didn't respect was him proclaiming that made him so much more of a true Malaysian than me, in addition to his continued beration of me and accusations that I didn't know what really needs to be done to make the country a better place. The fact that I had aging parents and the future educational costs of 3 nieces to think about is just an excuse. And my explanation that I don't have many friends of 'that' race is mainly because I'm generally untrusting and introverted in the first place, with people of any race, was just me trying to get 'sympathy'. Even when I did admit that I did feel little proud of that article because it was the first big thing I did since my depression and having lived a life where I felt like my opinons don't matter even to my own mum, this insensitive turd had only one word for me. Pathetic. All this coming from someone who is supporting the same side as me, and claims himself to be a 'true Malaysian', but only made himself out to be the most arrogant and judgemental person I've met in my life.
I don't intend to go into the details of my conversation of him. I do think I was an idiot trying to justify myself to another idiot who knew nothing about me but pretended like he knows everything. If he had talked with a little politeness and explained his work, I would have been so much more supportive of his work. But instead his behaviour was just like the infuriating leaders of this country. Not making any effort to understand the problems of people different from them and then misjudging their intentions, and provoking people to become angry and inflamed to the point of petty arguments about stupid things that don't matter in the big picture. The only difference is that anyone misjudged by the leaders gets charged and thrown in jail, while this turd was just being an annoying little prick. So much that he got the honour of being on the receiving end of my own little tirade of foul language that no one else in my life has ever heard me speak.
Actually, it wasn't so much me being mad at him. After all, he's just a stranger trying to stoke his own ego by belittling some miniscule efforts of an ordinary person while he runs back to his gang and makes fun of me like an immature high school jock (yeah, his royal pompousness told me that's exactly what he would do). What I am really mad at is why this had to happen, after so long of trying to work through my internal issues and trying to open up with people. And especially, after almost decided to go back to church again, which I did last week when I visited CBC. Why, just when I'm starting to turn my life around and have a bit more faith in the goodness of humanity does one stupid annoying little imbecile have to come along and unravel everything? If it's true that God works through people, I can only wonder what great and awesome plan he has for sending the biggest pighead in the country into my life to undermine my self-worth, in addition to all the other pigheads I've known although their pigheadedness was nothing compared to this. Really, God? I don't think I think I ask for much, just one person among 7 billion people whom I can really connect with so I don't have to deal with a messed up world by myself. Even in my latest attempt to join some social events to get to know more people, the curse of meeting weird guys strikes me again. Which is another story in itself which I decided was not worth ranting about anymore, and just consider another amusing addition to the collection of weird guys I meet. At least this time, I know I'm not the only one who sees him as weird, coz' it turned out he and I have mutual friends whom when I asked them about el weirdo, spent an entire night telling me the many ways in which he pissed them off.
I guess it's still for the best to assume there really is no God, so the most logical explanation is that I must have done something really terrible in a past life that karma is coming back to bite me in the ass. Whatever it is, whatever motivation I had to make something little better of myself and try and make some small difference is kinda down the tube right now. I had recently starting asking some friends in Australia about life there and prospects of getting a PR, just considering a move as an option. But after meeting the face of a true Malaysian and finding out a true Malaysian has the ugliest character among everyone I've ever met, I guess my decision is pretty much made up. No need to stay in a country where one is not appreciated, not by leaders and not even by people supposed to be on the same camp. I guess that makes me selfish and immature, but hey, if life's a bitch, after a while, you just need to be a bitch right back.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Renewed
The past month has been pretty good. Good in that every negative feeling just dissolved into nothing and I feel almost like a third person looking at myself and my situation and analyzing things from a calmer and more positive perspective. I've been quiet about it coz' I wasn't quite sure if was just a temporary after effect of what was possibly my most emotionally challenging period. But it seems like the effect of that experience may have effectively short circuited the part of my brain connected to the ability to feel pissed. Or maybe I was so pissed, I completely exhausted my internal supply of pissiness. Whatever the reason, I'm no longer pissed, or sad, or lonely. I've just been thinking and digesting my newfound state of mind and now I think I'm actually happy.
I now consider it possible that all the shit in my life happened for a reason. Possibly to make me less judgemental of people who make mistakes when they are frustrated with life, which probably puts me in a better position to counsel people who are going through difficulties. It's easy to see someone doing something harmful to themselves like smoking, doing drugs, spending unnecesssary money til they go bankrupt and assume they are just idiots. It's easy because when you have not done something similar or equally stupid out of desperation, you have no understanding of what drives a person to do such things. Like I used to wonder why educated, intelligent people who are perfectly aware of the health risks of smoking would start anyway. I've talked to friends who are smokers. They know dang well that smoking is going to kill them faster, but they do it anyway because it's difficult to stop and they started doing it because something drove them to do it. And I kinda get that. I've also talked to people who have not made such mistakes in life, not because they don't have difficulties, but it's easier to not want to jump into doing stupid things when you have a support system like supporting family or friends. And well, they just don't get it, why I did what I did. Evidently I've come to the point where I think talking to happy people about my problems isn't going to help coz' they wouldn't understand and I wouldn't wanna make happy people depressed anyway. Talking to jaded people also might not be good coz' I'd make them even more jaded.
The best people to talk to are those who've gone through similar shit and come out of it with still a positive mindset. At this point in time, I only know one such person. And that person once told me that he's been working on trying to widen his social circle, try new activities and also considering volunteering for Befrienders to counsel people. And I think that's a path I should go along as well. I've been trying out Play By Ear guitar lessons, so see if I can do something more impressive on a guitar other than basic strumming. I heard about this new dance/fitness fad called Bokwa and sounds interesting, so I contacted an instructor and hopefully will join some workshops in the near future...maybe train to be a part-time instructor, depending on my time and interest. Maybe not jumping into the Befrienders things, coz' I don't think I'm quite ready for counselling to that extent. I'd be one of those counsellors that if some annoying teenager started whining over the phone to me about stories like she's in love with A, but A is infatuated with B, and B is a jerk, I might start to hurl. But I'm just doing easier stuff, like if I see a friend on FB in a dejected mood, then I just try to give some advice or lighten them up.
Another possibility is that going through many disappointments is a way of making sure I don't take for granted something good if I get it. My blog these past few years has been nothing more but me getting hung up on my problems. But not everything sucks. In fact, I have a lot of good things going for me now. I like the place I'm staying at now, even though it's rented but I have good neighbours and I have gotten to know some good people around my neighbourhood. I have an adorable and loving dog who always makes me smile even though he likes to high five me on the face when I'm on the couch or bed. I have some reliable and good friends, especially a couple of female friends who've been making a lot of effort to keep in touch with me since they knew about my recent meltdown. And most unexpectedly is that I've gotten very good pay raises in the past one year, and I've just been promoted to assistant manager of my department, though I'm on probation for 3 months, after which I get another raise. So finances are not an issue, I have no commitments, no husband to appease, no kids to take care of, and with my new position, I will probably have more opportunities to travel to places other than boring old Indonesia. And since I've had plenty of experience taking care of myself and being independant, I'm in the best position right now to get out there and experience the world and try to make a difference doing the sustainability related work I do.
And to think, all this time I've been moping around about not being able to find love and feeling lonely. Good grief, how much time I wasted harping on that when I could have used my time better to unleash my full potential instead of hoping someone else would make me happy. Sure, I may never know what it's like to have someone I can trust enough to talk to about anything and everything. Or if I have problems, I have to fix it myself. Or if I want something or lose something, I have to buy it myself. Or if I want to watch a concert of a relatively unknown band or movie, no one's going to take the time to watch it with me just because. But since life has turned out so perfectly well that I can easily take care of myself and enjoy my independant life doing whatever the heck I want... well, I can't really complain now, can I?
Of course, I may end up living my life so much that I grow old with no close family or friends.... but well, my friend who's experienced shit and now feels positive about life also has an interesting idea on how he plans to deal with that. I won't go into the details, coz' it not something most people would think is a good idea. But basically. his plan is to be productive for as long as possible, and once he reaches the point where he no longer able to contribute to the world and no one is there to take care of him, then well, he'll simply take care of himself.
Hmm, will cross that bridge when I come to it. It's going to be another weeks of travelling and soon I'm going to have to fly.
I now consider it possible that all the shit in my life happened for a reason. Possibly to make me less judgemental of people who make mistakes when they are frustrated with life, which probably puts me in a better position to counsel people who are going through difficulties. It's easy to see someone doing something harmful to themselves like smoking, doing drugs, spending unnecesssary money til they go bankrupt and assume they are just idiots. It's easy because when you have not done something similar or equally stupid out of desperation, you have no understanding of what drives a person to do such things. Like I used to wonder why educated, intelligent people who are perfectly aware of the health risks of smoking would start anyway. I've talked to friends who are smokers. They know dang well that smoking is going to kill them faster, but they do it anyway because it's difficult to stop and they started doing it because something drove them to do it. And I kinda get that. I've also talked to people who have not made such mistakes in life, not because they don't have difficulties, but it's easier to not want to jump into doing stupid things when you have a support system like supporting family or friends. And well, they just don't get it, why I did what I did. Evidently I've come to the point where I think talking to happy people about my problems isn't going to help coz' they wouldn't understand and I wouldn't wanna make happy people depressed anyway. Talking to jaded people also might not be good coz' I'd make them even more jaded.
The best people to talk to are those who've gone through similar shit and come out of it with still a positive mindset. At this point in time, I only know one such person. And that person once told me that he's been working on trying to widen his social circle, try new activities and also considering volunteering for Befrienders to counsel people. And I think that's a path I should go along as well. I've been trying out Play By Ear guitar lessons, so see if I can do something more impressive on a guitar other than basic strumming. I heard about this new dance/fitness fad called Bokwa and sounds interesting, so I contacted an instructor and hopefully will join some workshops in the near future...maybe train to be a part-time instructor, depending on my time and interest. Maybe not jumping into the Befrienders things, coz' I don't think I'm quite ready for counselling to that extent. I'd be one of those counsellors that if some annoying teenager started whining over the phone to me about stories like she's in love with A, but A is infatuated with B, and B is a jerk, I might start to hurl. But I'm just doing easier stuff, like if I see a friend on FB in a dejected mood, then I just try to give some advice or lighten them up.
Another possibility is that going through many disappointments is a way of making sure I don't take for granted something good if I get it. My blog these past few years has been nothing more but me getting hung up on my problems. But not everything sucks. In fact, I have a lot of good things going for me now. I like the place I'm staying at now, even though it's rented but I have good neighbours and I have gotten to know some good people around my neighbourhood. I have an adorable and loving dog who always makes me smile even though he likes to high five me on the face when I'm on the couch or bed. I have some reliable and good friends, especially a couple of female friends who've been making a lot of effort to keep in touch with me since they knew about my recent meltdown. And most unexpectedly is that I've gotten very good pay raises in the past one year, and I've just been promoted to assistant manager of my department, though I'm on probation for 3 months, after which I get another raise. So finances are not an issue, I have no commitments, no husband to appease, no kids to take care of, and with my new position, I will probably have more opportunities to travel to places other than boring old Indonesia. And since I've had plenty of experience taking care of myself and being independant, I'm in the best position right now to get out there and experience the world and try to make a difference doing the sustainability related work I do.
And to think, all this time I've been moping around about not being able to find love and feeling lonely. Good grief, how much time I wasted harping on that when I could have used my time better to unleash my full potential instead of hoping someone else would make me happy. Sure, I may never know what it's like to have someone I can trust enough to talk to about anything and everything. Or if I have problems, I have to fix it myself. Or if I want something or lose something, I have to buy it myself. Or if I want to watch a concert of a relatively unknown band or movie, no one's going to take the time to watch it with me just because. But since life has turned out so perfectly well that I can easily take care of myself and enjoy my independant life doing whatever the heck I want... well, I can't really complain now, can I?
Of course, I may end up living my life so much that I grow old with no close family or friends.... but well, my friend who's experienced shit and now feels positive about life also has an interesting idea on how he plans to deal with that. I won't go into the details, coz' it not something most people would think is a good idea. But basically. his plan is to be productive for as long as possible, and once he reaches the point where he no longer able to contribute to the world and no one is there to take care of him, then well, he'll simply take care of himself.
Hmm, will cross that bridge when I come to it. It's going to be another weeks of travelling and soon I'm going to have to fly.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Monday, June 10, 2013
He called me to say that two drowning people cannot keep each other afloat
And made it clear we can't contact again for a long time so we could both find ourselves again.
Today I visited City Discipleship Presbyterian Church and asked to visit a cell group.
I really feel like Switchfoot wrote the soundtrack to my life.
Today I visited City Discipleship Presbyterian Church and asked to visit a cell group.
I really feel like Switchfoot wrote the soundtrack to my life.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
More irony
Well, it's been a emotional roller coaster month. I started off being really excited and really happy to get to know someone awesome, to being realy confused, dejected and angry to the point of suicidal thoughts (to be honest, it wouldn't be the first time I've thought of it, it's just that it would the first time I've actually said it out loud coz' it's the kind of comment that makes everyone uncomfortable) and now after the air is cleared and the anger subsided, I'm back to square one where another awesome person will mostly disappear out of my life again. He says otherwise, but I've learned from experience that guys can say whatever they want and most of the time they don't mean it.
The first thing I really don't like about this whole experience is it felt like I became like the most negative and immature person I know whom I never wanted to become. Negative, unreasonably angry and proclaiming intent of suicide which is nothing more than a depressing way to grab people's attention and make certain people feel guilty. I think it's rather ironic that I think said person became that way also due to multiple disappointments by men in her life, among other crappy life experiences, but most recently, that. Even more ironic is that the most of the guys I liked who have disappeared out of my life have the same thing in common. Highly intelligent and interesting to talk to, but have been severely disappointed by women they cared about resulting in them having issues that in turn make them disappear. Given how I'm seeing a pattern of how good people can get really messed up by such relationships, and honestly, I myself have little qualms about leaving a guy in the lurch if he's not to my liking, I'm not making any more effort to meet guys for a while coz' I don't feel it's right to spread the mess to more people. Maybe a long time. Maybe forever. I had considered some sort of revenge on the entire single male species by manipulating them for while then dropping them like a rock. Too bad I still have too much of a conscience to do such a deplorable thing. Perhaps that evil fantasy will take up a few pages in my book. Lol.
Another thing I really don't like about what happened is that I clearly was not able to control my emotions as well as I thought I had learned to. Primarily I guess because I allowed myself to hope again that this guy would be different from the rest. Well, he was certainly different...but the end nett result is essentially the same. And this time the emotional backlash was much worse than before coz' it was completely sudden and unexpected. It's again ironic that his issue was not being able to connect or feel anything emotionally with me, even though we had a great time together, while I, who have been trying to train myself to avoid getting too emotionally connected and even asked God to have some form of mercy on me by turning me into an emotional robot, have clearly failed miserably. This whole emotional suppression thing obviously isn't turning out like I wanted it to. Which makes things pretty tough. I'm always hoping the next time will be different. That little bitch inside of me continues to whisper little dreams and encouragement into my head, and whenever I listen to it, this kind of shit happens. On the other hand, if not for that hope, I probably would have made good on my suicidal tendancies a long time. Can't live with it, can't live without it.
So anyway, I decided it's best to channel my energies into other more creative things. The book idea is one fun way to kill time. Am also hoping to write more music, although I can't imagine how badly it would suck considering I only play guitar and I'm not even really good at that. Crazy things can happen on the wonderful world of Youtube, however. And unleashing my creative potential has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time, just never got round to it once I started working.
I've been listening to Switchfoot recently. They are one of the few Christian bands I still listen to regularly now, coz' they actually have the balls to write about the struggles a Christian goes through and their lyrics are poignant and thought-provoking while their music is just awesome. I would love to be able to write like them. I wonder when I'll stop wishing for silly things.
The first thing I really don't like about this whole experience is it felt like I became like the most negative and immature person I know whom I never wanted to become. Negative, unreasonably angry and proclaiming intent of suicide which is nothing more than a depressing way to grab people's attention and make certain people feel guilty. I think it's rather ironic that I think said person became that way also due to multiple disappointments by men in her life, among other crappy life experiences, but most recently, that. Even more ironic is that the most of the guys I liked who have disappeared out of my life have the same thing in common. Highly intelligent and interesting to talk to, but have been severely disappointed by women they cared about resulting in them having issues that in turn make them disappear. Given how I'm seeing a pattern of how good people can get really messed up by such relationships, and honestly, I myself have little qualms about leaving a guy in the lurch if he's not to my liking, I'm not making any more effort to meet guys for a while coz' I don't feel it's right to spread the mess to more people. Maybe a long time. Maybe forever. I had considered some sort of revenge on the entire single male species by manipulating them for while then dropping them like a rock. Too bad I still have too much of a conscience to do such a deplorable thing. Perhaps that evil fantasy will take up a few pages in my book. Lol.
Another thing I really don't like about what happened is that I clearly was not able to control my emotions as well as I thought I had learned to. Primarily I guess because I allowed myself to hope again that this guy would be different from the rest. Well, he was certainly different...but the end nett result is essentially the same. And this time the emotional backlash was much worse than before coz' it was completely sudden and unexpected. It's again ironic that his issue was not being able to connect or feel anything emotionally with me, even though we had a great time together, while I, who have been trying to train myself to avoid getting too emotionally connected and even asked God to have some form of mercy on me by turning me into an emotional robot, have clearly failed miserably. This whole emotional suppression thing obviously isn't turning out like I wanted it to. Which makes things pretty tough. I'm always hoping the next time will be different. That little bitch inside of me continues to whisper little dreams and encouragement into my head, and whenever I listen to it, this kind of shit happens. On the other hand, if not for that hope, I probably would have made good on my suicidal tendancies a long time. Can't live with it, can't live without it.
So anyway, I decided it's best to channel my energies into other more creative things. The book idea is one fun way to kill time. Am also hoping to write more music, although I can't imagine how badly it would suck considering I only play guitar and I'm not even really good at that. Crazy things can happen on the wonderful world of Youtube, however. And unleashing my creative potential has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time, just never got round to it once I started working.
I've been listening to Switchfoot recently. They are one of the few Christian bands I still listen to regularly now, coz' they actually have the balls to write about the struggles a Christian goes through and their lyrics are poignant and thought-provoking while their music is just awesome. I would love to be able to write like them. I wonder when I'll stop wishing for silly things.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Psycho dog hater
Tonight I took my dog Friendster out to the field near my place as I do every day when I'm not travelling. I usually let him off the leash to run around and eventually he comes back to me. Previously he was well behaved. Lately he's been getting more naughty in going off the field onto the road, chasing the occasional cat, and barking at people. It's a bit exasperating and I try to punish him but he doesn't get it, but I don't want to restrict his freedom since I'm out all day and that's the only time he gets to run around.
Today at the field, he chased and barked at a Malay man and a young boy about 10 years old, probably his son, on a motorcycle for all of two seconds. My dog does this for fun and doesn't intend to bite. Most bikers also seem used to it and just go faster, some even laughing it off. However, this guy came back a few minutes later and started calling my dog. I was wondering what the heck he was up to and got a rude shock when he came over to Friendster and started swinging a spanner at him!
Immediately I was between the crazy guy and my dog, and I swear I have never screamed so loud in my life while the idiot kept trying to swing the spanner at my dog. At some point he could have swung it at me instead, but I didn't really give a crap. I had only my dog chain as a weapon and was ready to whip it hard enough to leave 10 stitches on his head if he so much as touched my dog. I was yelling at him to put it away, and I said my dog was like my son and if he hurt my dog, I'd hurt him back. At one point I threatened to report him to the police, which in hindsight was a useless threat coz' police here are useless and they'd side with the retard in a skullcap whether or not he was threatening bodily violence.
Fortunately he did not injure Friendster and my screams were loud enough that it drew the attention of car shop workers nearby that came to break it up and the idiot in a skullcap got on his bike and went off. Amazing thing is that he would do all that in front of his young son, who would no doubt learn that threatening to injure a pet of a woman is a very righteous and godly thing to do, or whatever it is these retards in skullcaps believe. Does nothing to enhance my respect for religious turds!
Now I'm worried the psycho will come hunt down my dog when I'm not at home and try to poison him or something. I have no choice but to tie him up at the grill now so he does not pick up foreign food.
Best part is just yesterday I told my dog that when he dies, I will most likely kill myself too. I'm not sure how serious I am or whether I would actually do it, but that mutt is one of the few things I really love right now that and keeps me company without driving me insane. Losing him would be very detrimental to my health. It's hard to believe it's a mere coincidence that this incident happened one day after I said that. Someone up there is really testing my limits.
Perhaps in a slightly more positive note, I had a chat today with the latest guy who broke me to the point where I publicly announced suicidal tendancies on FB. As immature as it may be, I was so pissed with him that I've been trolling him with angry texts and FB posts to the point where I wondered why the idiot didn't just block or unfriend me, after which I would proceed to stalk him in other ways. The fact that he was quiet the whole time just fuelled the insanity. Until today I berated him for having no remorse and still calling himself a Christian. Then he replied, very apologetic and explained his issues. He had two girlfriends before who had cheated on him, and although he wanted to, he could no longer connect with people although he tried with me. He'd told me before about his cheating exes, but his sudden disappearance on me made me think he was just out to hurt girls the same way he'd been hurt, and that's what sent me off the deep end. After he explained himself, I was no longer angry. And even offered to still be friends, which he accepted.
I can only imagine if I hadn't gotten his explanation today, I would have still been brooding mad and probably cracked the head of that guy in the skullcap anyway.
I seriously have to write a book about my crazy life one of these days. I'd make millions, quit my job and travel around with my dog doing the backpacker thing and working as a dive guide so I can dive everyday and get paid for it.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Cursed
Today I decided that I am convinced there is a God. I am convinced because I cannot believe I can be disappointed time and time again in my life and that this is purely due to some unfortunate luck. It has happened so many times and today it happened for a reason that is too ridiculous for me to understand that the only way I can make sense of why this is happening is that there is a God and he has cursed me.
I'm going to hide in my zen room now.
I'm going to hide in my zen room now.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Peace
Most of my life growing up in the church, I learned that peace comes from Jesus, or God, the Holy spirit, perhaps one taking turns while the other is busy supposedly helping the world in some way or another. I'd always hear testimonies of people who didn't feel at ease with themselves until they accepted Jesus into their lives, and learned the joy of his forgiveness. Perhaps I could never quite grasp the concept of 'letting go and letting God'. I do think I tried. Perhaps I didn't try hard enough. But I could never really find the peace that Christians say come automatically once they join the fold.
In the past few months since I decided I no longer count myself as one, I posted before about how I wanted to essentially train myself to stop feeling. To be honest, I thought even I couldn't do it. I thought eventually once I'd gotten over past events, I would be back to my old self, hoping for things I've never been able to get and getting disappointed again. And there were a few times when I lapsed and the emotions would hit me like a tonne of bricks.
Well, nothing we want comes without a bit of effort, and after some recent events, I think that I've come pretty close, if not completely achieved what I set out to do. I do not want to go into the details what the events were, but essentially one involved several family members creating a mountain out of a molehill during what was supposed to be happy occasion, which led to me getting personally attacked for making what I meant as a benign comment. The other was finding out a person I care about and respect a lot turned out to be a lot different from what I thought, and keeping a lot more secrets from me than I was led on to believe.
Previously in such situations, I would have broken down, gotten upset, and a lot of other things which makes me really unproductive and probably not much fun to be around. This time, I had completely no such reaction. No sadness. No anger. Just some slight amazement at how things turned out the way they did. That's it.
And I am quite pleased with myself. I have learned that a lot of things in life, particularly the behaviour of people, is out of my control and getting emotional about it brings no benefit to me whatsoever. I cannot hope for people to change and so many of my expectations of people, heck, of life in general, have not been met. Nevertheless, rather than choose to let it affect me like before, I'd now rather let it slide as part and parcel of life. I can only change myself, and even that also, is a challenge in which I must in some aspects learn to accept the way I am, of course always trying to improve, but not feeling like shit if I fail.
I guess I can say I got the peace I've been looking for all along, and the best part was that it came from no one and nothing else but myself.
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Lessons from my mum
People say a mother's love is the truest form of love there is in human form. I don't doubt the truth of this, even with my own mum whom I'm not proud to say I prefer to spend as little time around as possible. I believe a lot of things she has done or said to me was her way of loving me, but the way it was done was far from conducive in creating a bond between us. It would have been easy to write this post in spite, but knowing that my mum had good intentions, my purpose here is not to rant, but to make this sort of as a form of advice. Not just advice to other mothers, but fathers and even people in general... but most importantly to mothers because as long as you take on the job of raising a kid, like it or not, you are the biggest influence on that child's life.
One might think that love is all that matters and the only thing you need to make your kid turn out right. I can personally tell you, it's not the case. You can really really love someone and still really really hurt them unintentionally. I think that applies to a relationship with anyone you love, but I'm going to stick to the parent-child topic... subjects are in no particular order.
Protecting your children can be detrimental to their well being
I guess it's pretty much a given that all parents don't want any harm to come to their child, except for the loony parents. And when your kid wants to get involved in an actvity which you perceive as dangerous, such as some form of extreme sport, the natural reaction is to forbid them from doing it. The thing is, what you see as hazardous to their health is what they probably see as something to add more adventure and wonder to their lives, and in that sense, helping them to appreciate their life. So to me, I would say the best way is either advise them to make sure they take all necessary precautions, and if you can, try to join them too so you can help watch out for them. Forbiding them altogether can do more harm than you think. Let me elaborate with my experience.
I am quite a nature loving person, although not a total extreme nature freak. I just enjoy the occasional hike in the jungle and some scuba diving every now and then, and even once tried sky diving. I like these things because observing nature and life was and still is one of the few things that really amaze me, and pretty much the only thing that could still make me believe there is a God that created all this cool stuff. Bugs amaze me coz' they all look like aliens in tiny form. Looking up at super clear night sky at a beach or village area amazes me coz' all the twinkling stars that blanket the sky remind me big the universe is and there are so many things are there that are yet to be discovered. Being underwater also amazes me for the same reason... and I almost feel like a mermaid flipping around in the water, albelt a rather clumsy one with a big chunk of metal strapped to my back and making Darth Vader noises.
I would have loved to be able to share all these experiences with my family. It's sad enough none of them share my love for nature, but it's even worse that since I was young, my mum forbade me from joining such nature activities, even simple hikes, is disheartening. She worries about me falling down a cliff, getting lost in the jungle, getting attacked by a tiger or a shark, drowing in the water, etc, etc, etc. Even after trying to explain to her that such accidents happen usually when people take unnecessary risks, which I don't, and it's far more likely that I'll die in a road accident that a hiking or diving accident, she still forbids me. Or at least she tries to. I simply plan such nature trips without telling her about it until it's time for me to go, and even then I try not to tell her what I plan to do. And the biggest risk I take is doing such things on my own because I have no one to go do it with... I've gone on a dive trip by myself, and I've gone hiking by myself, almost got lost once and almost had trouble getting out on my own another time coz' my knee injury started acting up badly at one point. It would have been safer if I had family members that appreciated this stuff and could join me, but under such circumstances, it's either obey and live out my life all the time 'protected' in the mundane polluted concrete jungle staring at computers and the idiot box everyday (where I could get into a nasty car accident and die anyway) OR do what I enjoy and get to appreciate the beauty and adventure this world has for us to see. I'm not too happy about keeping secrets from my mum, but I'm not much into the idea of spending the rest of my days as a zombified city person either.
Nevertheless, it's understandable that my mum forbade from nature activities to protect me. But in her attempt to protect me, she also forbade me from doing other things which I thought were good and right thing to do. There was once when I was teenager when I was visiting this old Indian lady living in the apartment across the street from ours. She lived alone and I forgot how I met her, but I know she just wanted to have someone to occasionally keep her company, and I thought she was nice and interesting to talk to, so I did go visit her a few times. Until I told my mother one day who I was going to visit. Her reaction was to forbid from seeing this woman ever again. She was afraid this woman would try to cheat me of my money, or maybe get someone to kidnap me, or God knows what other scenarios she envisioned an old lady could do to harm me. Of course I argued, and in return I was accused of being rebellious. I was so mad I shut myself in my room the whole day crying and wondering why I was made to feel terrible for trying to do something good. As a kid, I wanted to be a person that could do some good in the world, be a humanitarian or something of the like. My desire to do so was pretty much killed after that incident. No doubt my mum did it because she wanted to protect me from bad people But that incident and similar ones like it just taught me to avoid getting close to people, which has carried on til today. She didn't have to react that way. She could have taken some time to go with me to visit her so she'd know that I'm not going to visit a potential axe murdurer. But she chose to assume that I was simply incapable of discerning good in people and decided restricting me from seeing her was the best way to protect me.
So sure, you can restrict your kids from doing anything you think is 'dangerous', but indirectly you may be killing a part of them that is very important... such as their zest for adventure and desire to help others. You are also indirectly sending the message that you just do not trust your children to be capable of taking care of themselves out of staying out of trouble, which is also very demoralizing for the kid. And leads me to my next topic.
Trust your children and believe in their capabilities
Children or teenagers may sometimes do stupid things that may end up in them being hurt. But just because you hear of such cases a lot does not give you can automatically assume your own child will definitely end up the same way. All my life, she and dad made it a point to teach me about all the bad people out there and what people may do to hurt me. They taught me not to simply trust strangers, they told me stories of how children are tricked and then kidnapped, how girls get drugged at night clubs, how women get conned by casanovas or being attacked while driving, etc, etc. I appreciated such lessons and I think it's good for parents to teach their kids about such things. But after that, you need to able to trust that your kid is smart enough to avoid such situations and protect themselves, unless your child has a history of reckless endangerment, in which case you'd definitely need to do something about it. But assuming the worst in your child before they have displayed such behaviour is just really frustrating for the child. In my case, I think I did pretty much everything right as a kid. Didn't get involved in gangs. Didn't touch drugs or cigarettes. Wasn't very interested in clubbing. Never been completely drunk. Never been cheated by a guy. And yet my mum still could not trust that I was smart enough to judge people correctly and not get into trouble when I'm out. Which is quite ludicrous considering at one point in time when she was incredibly depressed with life, she would get drunk in our house and be smoking cigarettes, thinking I wouldn't know about it. I suppose if the parent has trouble controlling themselves, it's only understandable that they'd assume their kid is no better. The only really stupid thing I ever did, I did it because I just wanted to find one person, just one person in a world of 7 freakin' billion people, who I could completely be myself with, without being constantly demoralized, because I wasn't really getting that at home. But of course, that's another story.
Some mums sometimes also fail to trust their kids to responsible at home, even to do routine simple things like housework or taking care of pets. I think it's also important to entrust children with some routine responsibilities at home from as young as possible and then not taking over for them if you feel their way is not the best way or you can do it better. Of course, as the mum, you probably would have established your perfect system of doing things and it may irk you if your kid (or spouse, for that matter) doesn't wash their clothes with enough soap, or mop the floor thoroughly enough, etc, etc... but the best thing you can do is tell them how to do it until they do it right. If they forget to do something they're supposed to do, just remind them of it instead of taking over for them. And even if things are not done exactly the way you'd like, it's just housework. It's not the end of the world and no one is going to die. Unless it involves taking care of a baby or a child. Even then, as a grandmother or a grandmother-in-law, the mother of the child is the one who is spending most of her time caring for the baby, and if you brilliantly come in and try to take over the job completely just because you've already had the experience, how inadequate is that going to make the mother feel? In any case, you don't need to get frustrated, complain and nag about it and take over the job, which will just make them feel like they are incompetent at anything you ask them to do. In the end, they'll just decide the best way is to let you do everything your way, in which case you'll be very tired and get even more naggy and complaining. I've heard similar gripes from some friends about their mothers, and some men about their wives, so I know this is a sadly common occurence.
When I wanted to move out and get a dog, my mum scoffed at me, thinking I would be incapable to running the house, my dog would probably starve to death coz' I'd forget to feed it and I would constantly run out of drinking water coz' I'd forget to refill the dispenser. In reality, I clean my house regularly without complaints (in fact, I find it quite calming sometimes), especially my floor which gets icky annoyingly fast because it's unpolished marble coupled with the incredible amount of fur my dog sheds on a daily basis. Sure, it's not perfectly clean, but why do I need it to be? I'd rather be spending time doing other things, not housework that never ends. I never run out of water. My dog is well cared for and certainly a lot more loving to me than the psychotic shih tzu that my mum has taken care of. Which only goes to show that I am perfectly capable of all the things she thinks I'm not capable of. All she needed to do was trust my ability to do things and not give up on me just coz' I didn't follow her way of doing things exactly or I didn't do things when she thought it needed to be done.
As a positive example, I know a family from my church with 3 young kids below 9 years old. All of them, including the youngest boy, since the time he could walk, but taught by the parents to do housework on their own. They would even help to vacuum the church floor after service or wash the dishes, and they wouldn't complain about it. And this family has a maid who could have done all the work for them. I'm sure they don't clean up perfectly all the time, but the parents are ok with it, and I think it's great to teach their kids such responsibilities from a young age instead of trying to do everything for them and then stressing themselves out. And when you are so busy doing everything for your children, you have less time spent actually getting to know your kids and seeing them as people and not just a living being that you feel responsible to keep alive and take care of. Again, leading me to my nex topic.
Be involved, and don't be a Martha
My mother, as the eldest of five children in a poor family, was stuck with doing most of the chores and taking care of her siblings. With that in mind, I can sort of understand why she's overbearing when it comes to housework and in her mind no one can do it like her. I also guess that it's because of her background that she did not make me help around the house at all when I was a kid... because she didn't want me to be unhappy about it (which I don't think was right, as I already explained above).
One bad effect is that she became a bit too much like Martha of the bible...always busy with things until she forgot the most important thing was spending time with people who mattered. When I was younger she'd spend a lot of time cooking, and then lot of time cleaning up, but in between she didn't take the time to sit down with the family and eat with us. It may not sound like a big deal, but today my dad acknowledges that her being M.I.A. during meal times has had its negative effects, and so do I. As a kid, most of the day is spend at school, doing homework, playing games, etc, while dad is at work and mum is doing stuff around the house (or working too, these days). Meal time is one of the few times a family sits down together and has opportunity to talk. If you can't be bothered to do so, you miss out on getting to know your family better. Eventually it became such that during meal times, we'd all just eat whenever we want to, whether or not anyone else was there with us. So I learned to be ok with eating alone, and doing pretty much anything on my own, and now instead of wanting to live with family, I'd just rather live alone. Which is of course not only a result of mum not being there at meal times, but due to a combination of other things like losing the ability to be open with people, and the regular warzone going on at that place I'm supposed to call a home. The ability to be completely independant is good, but living alone in a world of 7 freakin' billion people? You don't need to do the math to know that's probably not how life is supposed to be. People don't live alone coz' they really want to. It's because they feel that circumstances made it such that it is their only or best option.
Another thing is my mum never bothered with is getting to know my friends. I would have liked to invite friends over more often, but she wouldn't like it. The ridiculous reason being she hated cleaning up afterward. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity to know the people your children hang out with and being involved in their lives, she focused on the petty issue of getting the house messy which I could have easily helped out with. Which is also probably the reason why she is unable to trust my ability to judge people's character. After all, if you can't be bothered to find out what your children's friends are really like, you can only guess that she's probably hanging out with some druggie losers or conjobs out for money.
Actions speak louder than words
One of the funny things about my mum is that she somehows believes that the way she behaves will not impact me whatsoever. My mum is always picking on my dad and getting mad at him for something. My dad is a pretty cool-mannered guy but he annoys me sometimes too for the same reasons that annoy my mum. So when I was young, I would get impatient with him easily. Even today, I still do but I try to control it. But because my mum feels children must respect their parents, she would get mad at me whenever I got impatient with my dad. In other words, in her mind, it's ok for her to degrade him in front of me, but I, under no circumstances am I allowed to behave the same way towards him. Even the suggestion that I picked up my behaviour from her sends her into a fit. My own father even said to me that the only reason I behave that way is because it's the only thing I've observed all my life from my mum.
In other words, it's ok to be a hypocrite just coz' you're the mum. Not. Seriously, children learn from observation, and if you think it'll be easy for them to ignore it just because you tell them to, expect to be disappointed.
Be supportive and respect their opinions
This should be a necessity in any relationship, but for some parents, such a concept totally flies over their head. In the not-so-good old days when times were tougher, and my grandparents were struggling to make ends meet, I can sort of understand if the priority was to focus on getting enough money to survive instead of spending quality time with your children. I did not know my mother's father at all as he died before I was born, but what I'm told, he was a strict disciplinarian who felt it was most important to ensure his 5 children, including my mum who was the eldest, always towed the line. As such, he was never close to his children and their opinions did not matter. All that mattered was that they obeyed him.
One would think that growing up having her voice suppressed by her father would make her want to it differently for her children as well. Unfortunately it didn't quite turn out that way. Anytime I had a difference of opinion with her, she would take it as an argument and me being rebellious. As the child, I had to respect my mum and dad and just do what they said. When I went to Sunday School as a kid, her hope was not that I would become a good Christian. She only wanted me to become a good daughter, i.e. one who would obey my mother and father just like in the 10 commandments. She didn't quite count on me actually wanting to get more involved in church activities and camps (which she also restricted me from joining, again for my 'protection'). So as kid, I tried to explain to her about why I wanted to join all these so-called 'dangerous' extracurricular activities, i.e. my nature trips, my church camps, me wanting to visit old ladies, and she'd always take it as I'm the rebellious little upstart who refuses to obey her mum.
Even in discussion with other family members, whenever there was a topic that came up where I agreed with someone else instead of her, she also wouldn't like it, and she took it as a form of betrayal.
If that was not bad enough, the few times I did try to be open to her about something, she'd have something negative to say about it. Like in my previous job when I was having problems with my boss and wantedto quit. When I told her about my problem, her first reaction was that maybe my boss was being difficult because I was the one with the attitude problem. This, by the way, was the same boss who refused to allow me to attend my own brother's wedding in the US even though I told him months before that my plane ticket was booked and I was one of the bridesmaids. And I had TWO jobs prior to that where I had no problems with my bosses. Why did my mum have to immediately assume the worst about me when I was trying to tell her my problem?
It should come as no surprise that these days I no longer talk to my mum. I refuse to tell her anything personal about my life and I would rather not spend time around her even if I'm not talking, coz' usually she's be complaining about something. I know she wishes I would spend more time with her. She even recently told me that I can talk to her about anything. Which in my head was really funny considering in all my experience, anytime I do try to talk to her about anything, it just goes downhill from there. If I tell her all my problems, I'd have to tell her that most of my problems are a result of her behaviour. And I'm not interested in experiencing the backlash that will come out of that revelation.
Perhaps the root of the problem can be summed up in my last point:
Be positive in life
Obviously my mother is not a ray of sunshine. Her negative outlook on everything not only affects her but her whole family and her constant complaining and refusal to listen to any opinion other than her own does nothing but demoralizes the people she cares about. I can't change my mum, I can only learn from it and hope other people can learn from it. As such, I personally make it a point that no matter how sucky my life is, I will try my best not to bring down the people around me.
And if I ever have kids, my only hope is that I don't screw them over too much.
One might think that love is all that matters and the only thing you need to make your kid turn out right. I can personally tell you, it's not the case. You can really really love someone and still really really hurt them unintentionally. I think that applies to a relationship with anyone you love, but I'm going to stick to the parent-child topic... subjects are in no particular order.
Protecting your children can be detrimental to their well being
I guess it's pretty much a given that all parents don't want any harm to come to their child, except for the loony parents. And when your kid wants to get involved in an actvity which you perceive as dangerous, such as some form of extreme sport, the natural reaction is to forbid them from doing it. The thing is, what you see as hazardous to their health is what they probably see as something to add more adventure and wonder to their lives, and in that sense, helping them to appreciate their life. So to me, I would say the best way is either advise them to make sure they take all necessary precautions, and if you can, try to join them too so you can help watch out for them. Forbiding them altogether can do more harm than you think. Let me elaborate with my experience.
I am quite a nature loving person, although not a total extreme nature freak. I just enjoy the occasional hike in the jungle and some scuba diving every now and then, and even once tried sky diving. I like these things because observing nature and life was and still is one of the few things that really amaze me, and pretty much the only thing that could still make me believe there is a God that created all this cool stuff. Bugs amaze me coz' they all look like aliens in tiny form. Looking up at super clear night sky at a beach or village area amazes me coz' all the twinkling stars that blanket the sky remind me big the universe is and there are so many things are there that are yet to be discovered. Being underwater also amazes me for the same reason... and I almost feel like a mermaid flipping around in the water, albelt a rather clumsy one with a big chunk of metal strapped to my back and making Darth Vader noises.
I would have loved to be able to share all these experiences with my family. It's sad enough none of them share my love for nature, but it's even worse that since I was young, my mum forbade me from joining such nature activities, even simple hikes, is disheartening. She worries about me falling down a cliff, getting lost in the jungle, getting attacked by a tiger or a shark, drowing in the water, etc, etc, etc. Even after trying to explain to her that such accidents happen usually when people take unnecessary risks, which I don't, and it's far more likely that I'll die in a road accident that a hiking or diving accident, she still forbids me. Or at least she tries to. I simply plan such nature trips without telling her about it until it's time for me to go, and even then I try not to tell her what I plan to do. And the biggest risk I take is doing such things on my own because I have no one to go do it with... I've gone on a dive trip by myself, and I've gone hiking by myself, almost got lost once and almost had trouble getting out on my own another time coz' my knee injury started acting up badly at one point. It would have been safer if I had family members that appreciated this stuff and could join me, but under such circumstances, it's either obey and live out my life all the time 'protected' in the mundane polluted concrete jungle staring at computers and the idiot box everyday (where I could get into a nasty car accident and die anyway) OR do what I enjoy and get to appreciate the beauty and adventure this world has for us to see. I'm not too happy about keeping secrets from my mum, but I'm not much into the idea of spending the rest of my days as a zombified city person either.
Nevertheless, it's understandable that my mum forbade from nature activities to protect me. But in her attempt to protect me, she also forbade me from doing other things which I thought were good and right thing to do. There was once when I was teenager when I was visiting this old Indian lady living in the apartment across the street from ours. She lived alone and I forgot how I met her, but I know she just wanted to have someone to occasionally keep her company, and I thought she was nice and interesting to talk to, so I did go visit her a few times. Until I told my mother one day who I was going to visit. Her reaction was to forbid from seeing this woman ever again. She was afraid this woman would try to cheat me of my money, or maybe get someone to kidnap me, or God knows what other scenarios she envisioned an old lady could do to harm me. Of course I argued, and in return I was accused of being rebellious. I was so mad I shut myself in my room the whole day crying and wondering why I was made to feel terrible for trying to do something good. As a kid, I wanted to be a person that could do some good in the world, be a humanitarian or something of the like. My desire to do so was pretty much killed after that incident. No doubt my mum did it because she wanted to protect me from bad people But that incident and similar ones like it just taught me to avoid getting close to people, which has carried on til today. She didn't have to react that way. She could have taken some time to go with me to visit her so she'd know that I'm not going to visit a potential axe murdurer. But she chose to assume that I was simply incapable of discerning good in people and decided restricting me from seeing her was the best way to protect me.
So sure, you can restrict your kids from doing anything you think is 'dangerous', but indirectly you may be killing a part of them that is very important... such as their zest for adventure and desire to help others. You are also indirectly sending the message that you just do not trust your children to be capable of taking care of themselves out of staying out of trouble, which is also very demoralizing for the kid. And leads me to my next topic.
Trust your children and believe in their capabilities
Children or teenagers may sometimes do stupid things that may end up in them being hurt. But just because you hear of such cases a lot does not give you can automatically assume your own child will definitely end up the same way. All my life, she and dad made it a point to teach me about all the bad people out there and what people may do to hurt me. They taught me not to simply trust strangers, they told me stories of how children are tricked and then kidnapped, how girls get drugged at night clubs, how women get conned by casanovas or being attacked while driving, etc, etc. I appreciated such lessons and I think it's good for parents to teach their kids about such things. But after that, you need to able to trust that your kid is smart enough to avoid such situations and protect themselves, unless your child has a history of reckless endangerment, in which case you'd definitely need to do something about it. But assuming the worst in your child before they have displayed such behaviour is just really frustrating for the child. In my case, I think I did pretty much everything right as a kid. Didn't get involved in gangs. Didn't touch drugs or cigarettes. Wasn't very interested in clubbing. Never been completely drunk. Never been cheated by a guy. And yet my mum still could not trust that I was smart enough to judge people correctly and not get into trouble when I'm out. Which is quite ludicrous considering at one point in time when she was incredibly depressed with life, she would get drunk in our house and be smoking cigarettes, thinking I wouldn't know about it. I suppose if the parent has trouble controlling themselves, it's only understandable that they'd assume their kid is no better. The only really stupid thing I ever did, I did it because I just wanted to find one person, just one person in a world of 7 freakin' billion people, who I could completely be myself with, without being constantly demoralized, because I wasn't really getting that at home. But of course, that's another story.
Some mums sometimes also fail to trust their kids to responsible at home, even to do routine simple things like housework or taking care of pets. I think it's also important to entrust children with some routine responsibilities at home from as young as possible and then not taking over for them if you feel their way is not the best way or you can do it better. Of course, as the mum, you probably would have established your perfect system of doing things and it may irk you if your kid (or spouse, for that matter) doesn't wash their clothes with enough soap, or mop the floor thoroughly enough, etc, etc... but the best thing you can do is tell them how to do it until they do it right. If they forget to do something they're supposed to do, just remind them of it instead of taking over for them. And even if things are not done exactly the way you'd like, it's just housework. It's not the end of the world and no one is going to die. Unless it involves taking care of a baby or a child. Even then, as a grandmother or a grandmother-in-law, the mother of the child is the one who is spending most of her time caring for the baby, and if you brilliantly come in and try to take over the job completely just because you've already had the experience, how inadequate is that going to make the mother feel? In any case, you don't need to get frustrated, complain and nag about it and take over the job, which will just make them feel like they are incompetent at anything you ask them to do. In the end, they'll just decide the best way is to let you do everything your way, in which case you'll be very tired and get even more naggy and complaining. I've heard similar gripes from some friends about their mothers, and some men about their wives, so I know this is a sadly common occurence.
When I wanted to move out and get a dog, my mum scoffed at me, thinking I would be incapable to running the house, my dog would probably starve to death coz' I'd forget to feed it and I would constantly run out of drinking water coz' I'd forget to refill the dispenser. In reality, I clean my house regularly without complaints (in fact, I find it quite calming sometimes), especially my floor which gets icky annoyingly fast because it's unpolished marble coupled with the incredible amount of fur my dog sheds on a daily basis. Sure, it's not perfectly clean, but why do I need it to be? I'd rather be spending time doing other things, not housework that never ends. I never run out of water. My dog is well cared for and certainly a lot more loving to me than the psychotic shih tzu that my mum has taken care of. Which only goes to show that I am perfectly capable of all the things she thinks I'm not capable of. All she needed to do was trust my ability to do things and not give up on me just coz' I didn't follow her way of doing things exactly or I didn't do things when she thought it needed to be done.
As a positive example, I know a family from my church with 3 young kids below 9 years old. All of them, including the youngest boy, since the time he could walk, but taught by the parents to do housework on their own. They would even help to vacuum the church floor after service or wash the dishes, and they wouldn't complain about it. And this family has a maid who could have done all the work for them. I'm sure they don't clean up perfectly all the time, but the parents are ok with it, and I think it's great to teach their kids such responsibilities from a young age instead of trying to do everything for them and then stressing themselves out. And when you are so busy doing everything for your children, you have less time spent actually getting to know your kids and seeing them as people and not just a living being that you feel responsible to keep alive and take care of. Again, leading me to my nex topic.
Be involved, and don't be a Martha
My mother, as the eldest of five children in a poor family, was stuck with doing most of the chores and taking care of her siblings. With that in mind, I can sort of understand why she's overbearing when it comes to housework and in her mind no one can do it like her. I also guess that it's because of her background that she did not make me help around the house at all when I was a kid... because she didn't want me to be unhappy about it (which I don't think was right, as I already explained above).
One bad effect is that she became a bit too much like Martha of the bible...always busy with things until she forgot the most important thing was spending time with people who mattered. When I was younger she'd spend a lot of time cooking, and then lot of time cleaning up, but in between she didn't take the time to sit down with the family and eat with us. It may not sound like a big deal, but today my dad acknowledges that her being M.I.A. during meal times has had its negative effects, and so do I. As a kid, most of the day is spend at school, doing homework, playing games, etc, while dad is at work and mum is doing stuff around the house (or working too, these days). Meal time is one of the few times a family sits down together and has opportunity to talk. If you can't be bothered to do so, you miss out on getting to know your family better. Eventually it became such that during meal times, we'd all just eat whenever we want to, whether or not anyone else was there with us. So I learned to be ok with eating alone, and doing pretty much anything on my own, and now instead of wanting to live with family, I'd just rather live alone. Which is of course not only a result of mum not being there at meal times, but due to a combination of other things like losing the ability to be open with people, and the regular warzone going on at that place I'm supposed to call a home. The ability to be completely independant is good, but living alone in a world of 7 freakin' billion people? You don't need to do the math to know that's probably not how life is supposed to be. People don't live alone coz' they really want to. It's because they feel that circumstances made it such that it is their only or best option.
Another thing is my mum never bothered with is getting to know my friends. I would have liked to invite friends over more often, but she wouldn't like it. The ridiculous reason being she hated cleaning up afterward. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity to know the people your children hang out with and being involved in their lives, she focused on the petty issue of getting the house messy which I could have easily helped out with. Which is also probably the reason why she is unable to trust my ability to judge people's character. After all, if you can't be bothered to find out what your children's friends are really like, you can only guess that she's probably hanging out with some druggie losers or conjobs out for money.
Actions speak louder than words
One of the funny things about my mum is that she somehows believes that the way she behaves will not impact me whatsoever. My mum is always picking on my dad and getting mad at him for something. My dad is a pretty cool-mannered guy but he annoys me sometimes too for the same reasons that annoy my mum. So when I was young, I would get impatient with him easily. Even today, I still do but I try to control it. But because my mum feels children must respect their parents, she would get mad at me whenever I got impatient with my dad. In other words, in her mind, it's ok for her to degrade him in front of me, but I, under no circumstances am I allowed to behave the same way towards him. Even the suggestion that I picked up my behaviour from her sends her into a fit. My own father even said to me that the only reason I behave that way is because it's the only thing I've observed all my life from my mum.
In other words, it's ok to be a hypocrite just coz' you're the mum. Not. Seriously, children learn from observation, and if you think it'll be easy for them to ignore it just because you tell them to, expect to be disappointed.
Be supportive and respect their opinions
This should be a necessity in any relationship, but for some parents, such a concept totally flies over their head. In the not-so-good old days when times were tougher, and my grandparents were struggling to make ends meet, I can sort of understand if the priority was to focus on getting enough money to survive instead of spending quality time with your children. I did not know my mother's father at all as he died before I was born, but what I'm told, he was a strict disciplinarian who felt it was most important to ensure his 5 children, including my mum who was the eldest, always towed the line. As such, he was never close to his children and their opinions did not matter. All that mattered was that they obeyed him.
One would think that growing up having her voice suppressed by her father would make her want to it differently for her children as well. Unfortunately it didn't quite turn out that way. Anytime I had a difference of opinion with her, she would take it as an argument and me being rebellious. As the child, I had to respect my mum and dad and just do what they said. When I went to Sunday School as a kid, her hope was not that I would become a good Christian. She only wanted me to become a good daughter, i.e. one who would obey my mother and father just like in the 10 commandments. She didn't quite count on me actually wanting to get more involved in church activities and camps (which she also restricted me from joining, again for my 'protection'). So as kid, I tried to explain to her about why I wanted to join all these so-called 'dangerous' extracurricular activities, i.e. my nature trips, my church camps, me wanting to visit old ladies, and she'd always take it as I'm the rebellious little upstart who refuses to obey her mum.
Even in discussion with other family members, whenever there was a topic that came up where I agreed with someone else instead of her, she also wouldn't like it, and she took it as a form of betrayal.
If that was not bad enough, the few times I did try to be open to her about something, she'd have something negative to say about it. Like in my previous job when I was having problems with my boss and wantedto quit. When I told her about my problem, her first reaction was that maybe my boss was being difficult because I was the one with the attitude problem. This, by the way, was the same boss who refused to allow me to attend my own brother's wedding in the US even though I told him months before that my plane ticket was booked and I was one of the bridesmaids. And I had TWO jobs prior to that where I had no problems with my bosses. Why did my mum have to immediately assume the worst about me when I was trying to tell her my problem?
It should come as no surprise that these days I no longer talk to my mum. I refuse to tell her anything personal about my life and I would rather not spend time around her even if I'm not talking, coz' usually she's be complaining about something. I know she wishes I would spend more time with her. She even recently told me that I can talk to her about anything. Which in my head was really funny considering in all my experience, anytime I do try to talk to her about anything, it just goes downhill from there. If I tell her all my problems, I'd have to tell her that most of my problems are a result of her behaviour. And I'm not interested in experiencing the backlash that will come out of that revelation.
Perhaps the root of the problem can be summed up in my last point:
Be positive in life
Obviously my mother is not a ray of sunshine. Her negative outlook on everything not only affects her but her whole family and her constant complaining and refusal to listen to any opinion other than her own does nothing but demoralizes the people she cares about. I can't change my mum, I can only learn from it and hope other people can learn from it. As such, I personally make it a point that no matter how sucky my life is, I will try my best not to bring down the people around me.
And if I ever have kids, my only hope is that I don't screw them over too much.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Tales of the weirdos
These days I call myself a weird guy magnet. Though I am glad to say I still have many reasonably normal male friends, my encounters with strange or socially inept characters of the opposite sex has been so many in the past couple of years that I could almost start a collection of short stories. Or just a blog post about it, which is what I'm doing now. Perhaps if I accumulate more stories in the future, I'll just add to this post, so I have an easy reference point in case I ever do have enough stories to write a collection book. I don't list some of my older experiences, however, coz' my memory is bad enough that after a while I start forgetting this weird experiences (which is I like my bad memory sometimes).
If you're thinking the weird guys I meet are all met online, which is true in some cases, half the time, the weirdos I meet are people that I meet for the first time in person at an event. Some from Christian events too. So my conclusion is that weird guy can be found just about anywhere, online or offline.
So here they are in order of "Why can't this guy converse normally?" weird (which is not that bad) to "I hope I never bump into this guy ever again" weird. Fortunately I have not come across the "Psychotic murderer-like traits" type, coz' if I did I would have gottena restraining order on him by now.
1) The smiley face guy
Obviously this is on chat conversations, where I can be very chatty with people online if they have something meaning to say in a conversation. However, if I repeatedly get something like below again and again and again, after a while I just give up on trying to have any meaningful conversation (taken from actual online chat conversations) coz' I'm not sure what to say to someone to comes up online and shoots me with nothing else but a smiley face.
Example 1:
1:54 PM Guy: :) *silence*
Example 2:
Example 3:
This example is from a different guy from the one above, annoying because he spammed me with smiley faces. Unfortunately I don't have actual chat records for this one. But it pretty went something like this.
Guy: Hi! :)
How are you doing? :) :)
Yeah, I was working today. :)
Managed to get out early today! :D
But the traffic jam was crazy today! :)
Anyway, you free to meet up this weekend? :)
I like your photo :)
Me (in my head): *Stop with the smiley faces for the love of god, pleasepleasepleaseplease*
2) The conversation killer
Similar to the smiley face guy (and actually, in this case, they are the same guy), this guy injects the chat with comments or expressions, such as "ooooo" or "ooooiiiccccc" that serve nothing to add to the conversation, shows his lack of ability to spell properly, and follows up with silence, leaving me wondering if he expects me to do all the talking for the two of us.
Example 1 (conversation about why I sleep late regularly):
Example 2:
Yeah, maybe I was a bit mean on that last one, but really couldn't help myself.
3) The paraphrased sms spammer
I blogged about this on an earlier post, but the guy was weird enough that he deserves a spot on this list. Fortunately, he wasn't something interested in me (I can't imagine having my sms inbox spammed every few seconds with this guy trying to ask me out). This was a housing agent I got in contact with when I was looking for a place to rent.
'Nuff said
4) The Bot
I can mostly assure you that this next guy is in fact not a bot but a real live person because I met him before. At a Christian event too. Although I cannot guarantee that he has not since been abducted by aliens and turned into a bot, based on my Facebook conversations with him, particularly this one (note the dates).
'Nuff said too.
5) The total un-recaller
This was a recent event where a guy messages me on Whatsapp with one of those cheeky Whatapp symbols, as if we had known each other for a long time and no introduction was necessary. However, I had no idea who this person was, and even after he told his name, and gave information about where we met before (which apparently was a year ago, which is not that long ago and I know my memory isn't that bad in forgetting people) I still had no clue who he was and no memory of ever meeting him. And he 'somehow' couldn't recall all the details either.
His profile photo showed him wearing sunglasses and was a filtered greenish colour, so I really couldn't tell what he looked like. So I asked him for a better photo. And he changed to a photo of him ALSO wearing sunglasses in a properly coloured but blur photo.
When I asked how he met, he said we met in Subang. I asked for what? He couldn't recall.
Then he said I was with another girl, but he couldn't recall who.
Then I asked what we talked about, and he said general stuff, can't recall the details.
Then he said he doesn't know how to recall back those memories.
After that I said nevermind, and blocked him.
6) The persistent little bug
It's normal to be interested in someone and not have your interest. I should know, I've been shot down by my fair share of guys, and telling when the object of yoiur interest is not returning the favour is not that difficult. If they ignore you all the time, that's usually a pretty good sign that they are not interested. For some reason, some guys just fail to understand this concept. Hence, I term them the persistent little bugs. My example for this one is particularly long, coz' he was annoying not only for his persistence, but also other reasons to be revealed.
I met this guy online in September last year. Chatted for a bit but didn't meet. At first he sounded normal and interesting. Then at some point, I totally tuned out and lost interest in chatting, which I shall admit is not his fault because I was moving out at the time and was more preoccupied with that. And after I was done moving out, I wasn't in the mood to hang out with anyone new.
The persistent little bug, true to his name, persisted in trying to chat with me on Whatsapp, although at that point my responses were very deadpan as I was not feeling particularly chatty at that point in time. But over the next few weeks he kept bugging to meet up with me.
After a while, I relented and said ok. Meet up once, see it goes, and hopefully he turns out to be someone I won't mind hanging out with on a regular basis.
It turns out this guy, in addition to being annoyingly persistent, is also annoyingly ignorant of physical cues or know when he's close enough to be considered encroaching into my personal space. On this FIRST meeting, he would walk so close me, we'd be brushing shoulders, and when I moved away, he'd move closer again. And at one point, he reached over to pluck a hair off my blouse.
I would consider such behaviour from a very close guy friend very weird. From a guy I have just met for the first time, I was almost ready to get out my pepper spray. Fortunately, he didn't try anything funnier than that. Plus the conversations was boring. So I decided I am never meeting this guy again. But of course I didn't tell that to him straight out, as I understand that all men have egos, some being more fragile than others. So I was hoping that by ignoring him completely, he will save himself the embarassment of me telling him what a boring weirdo he is, and just shimmy along his way.
Few weeks later, after a period of silence, he tries to make an excuse to meet me again.The brilliant excuse was that he thought my dog is cute (I had my dog as my profile pic on Whatsapp for a while) and he wanted to meet my dog. I ignored him.
Few weeks later, he pops me a message saying "Hey pretty". I ignored him.
A month later, he says, "Merry Chistmas". I still ignored him.
2 months later, he messages me again, this time I'm so annoyed that I decide to humour him for a while and respond. Of course, he asks to meet me again, to which this time I tell him flat out that I'm not interested. Which doesn't seem to faze him one bit.
Then just for the fun of it, I asked him why he is soooo persistent in trying to meet me, even though it should have been blatantly obvious that I'm not interested, considering I'd been ignoring him for months (my theory is that the part of his brains that registers this sort of thing wasn't really functioning).
His response was that he thinks I'm interesting.
Now I've only met this guy ONCE, and the chat conversations we had had up to that point were not particularly fascinating far as I was concerned, and 'interesting' is not really an adjective most people would use to describe me coz' I know I'm not particularly interesting. So I had no clue what on earth would make him say that when he knows much less about me than the average person in my social circle. So I asked him exactly that. What makes me so interesting when he knows practically nothing about me?
And he said I'm interesting because I'm mysterious.
Right. Ok. If someone told me I was interesting because I had fascinating insights into subjects which most people don't, or I was strongly opiniated about things, or I can do the hula hoop while standing on one leg while patting my head, then maybe I could accept it. But to tell me I'm interesting because I'm mysterious. The only reason I'm mysterious to him is because I got bored of talking to him and went from being somewhat chatty to completely mum. And most normal guys who know how to take a hint would know to call it quits and move on. Heck, even I know how to do that if a guy disappeared on me. The fact that this guy only seemed to want to get to know me because of my so called mystery made it obvious that he's just out to amuse himself... or wants a challenge. And probably once he does get to me and how truly normal and non-mysterious my life is, he'd get bored too.
So in my annoyance I promptly flamed him with rants about how guys like him should learn to appreciate girls who actually care to give them the light of day, instead of trying to go after girls who clearly not interested, just for the 'challenge'... only to drop them like a rock after that.
Then I blocked him on Whatsapp before I could read any more of his dribble.
I suppose in hindsight, his behaviour apart from the inability to respect personal space wasn't really that strange. Most people are attracted to people who aren't all that easy to get. Just that, well, it just seems like a game to me that guys like to play. When you're interested in them, they don't give you light of day. And when you don't give a hoot about them, they start coming after you. It's just so lame and stupid, I really can't be bothered anymore. And he just happened to be the unfortunate one to be the butt of my rants for annoying me so.
Sigh, I don't need to meet any more weird el creepos for a long time.
If you're thinking the weird guys I meet are all met online, which is true in some cases, half the time, the weirdos I meet are people that I meet for the first time in person at an event. Some from Christian events too. So my conclusion is that weird guy can be found just about anywhere, online or offline.
So here they are in order of "Why can't this guy converse normally?" weird (which is not that bad) to "I hope I never bump into this guy ever again" weird. Fortunately I have not come across the "Psychotic murderer-like traits" type, coz' if I did I would have gottena restraining order on him by now.
1) The smiley face guy
Obviously this is on chat conversations, where I can be very chatty with people online if they have something meaning to say in a conversation. However, if I repeatedly get something like below again and again and again, after a while I just give up on trying to have any meaningful conversation (taken from actual online chat conversations) coz' I'm not sure what to say to someone to comes up online and shoots me with nothing else but a smiley face.
Example 1:
1:46 PM Guy: hey.... :P
1:47 PM me: yes...
Example 2:
9:15 AM Guy: hello morning again!
9:20 AM me: morning
Guy: :)
9:24 AM me: :) *silence......*
| 43 minutes |
10:08 AM Guy: ;)
Example 3:
This example is from a different guy from the one above, annoying because he spammed me with smiley faces. Unfortunately I don't have actual chat records for this one. But it pretty went something like this.
Guy: Hi! :)
How are you doing? :) :)
Yeah, I was working today. :)
Managed to get out early today! :D
But the traffic jam was crazy today! :)
Anyway, you free to meet up this weekend? :)
I like your photo :)
Me (in my head): *Stop with the smiley faces for the love of god, pleasepleasepleaseplease*
2) The conversation killer
Similar to the smiley face guy (and actually, in this case, they are the same guy), this guy injects the chat with comments or expressions, such as "ooooo" or "ooooiiiccccc" that serve nothing to add to the conversation, shows his lack of ability to spell properly, and follows up with silence, leaving me wondering if he expects me to do all the talking for the two of us.
Example 1 (conversation about why I sleep late regularly):
10:12 AM me: minimum hours of sleep required for an adult is 6 to 8 hours and varies on the individual
10:13 AM Guy: lol ok :) *silence..... until I decide to comment*
| 6 minutes |
10:19 AM me: some docs say at least4 is required
10:20 AM Guy: oh reallly i didnt know that
| 12 minutes |
10:32 AM me: well, as long as you're not half dead during the day, it's your optimal hours of sleep
Guy: oooiiccc :) *silence again.....*
Example 2:
9:42 AM
Guy: any xmas plans lah ?
| 17 minutes |
10:00 AM me: yes, going outstation with some friends
10:01 AM and then xmas dinner at my church
10:02 AM Guy: oooooo *awkward silence**After 23 minutes of waiting for something to happen....*
10:25 AM me: eeeeeee
10:26 AM Guy: wat happened???
10:32 AM me: u go ooooo I go eeeeee lor
10:35 AM Guy hahaaha ur funny carol... lol
:P
10:38 AM me: I can also go aaaaaa
or iiiiiiiiiii
although that's just weird
*silence* Yeah, maybe I was a bit mean on that last one, but really couldn't help myself.
3) The paraphrased sms spammer
I blogged about this on an earlier post, but the guy was weird enough that he deserves a spot on this list. Fortunately, he wasn't something interested in me (I can't imagine having my sms inbox spammed every few seconds with this guy trying to ask me out). This was a housing agent I got in contact with when I was looking for a place to rent.
'Nuff said
4) The Bot
I can mostly assure you that this next guy is in fact not a bot but a real live person because I met him before. At a Christian event too. Although I cannot guarantee that he has not since been abducted by aliens and turned into a bot, based on my Facebook conversations with him, particularly this one (note the dates).
'Nuff said too.
5) The total un-recaller
This was a recent event where a guy messages me on Whatsapp with one of those cheeky Whatapp symbols, as if we had known each other for a long time and no introduction was necessary. However, I had no idea who this person was, and even after he told his name, and gave information about where we met before (which apparently was a year ago, which is not that long ago and I know my memory isn't that bad in forgetting people) I still had no clue who he was and no memory of ever meeting him. And he 'somehow' couldn't recall all the details either.
His profile photo showed him wearing sunglasses and was a filtered greenish colour, so I really couldn't tell what he looked like. So I asked him for a better photo. And he changed to a photo of him ALSO wearing sunglasses in a properly coloured but blur photo.
When I asked how he met, he said we met in Subang. I asked for what? He couldn't recall.
Then he said I was with another girl, but he couldn't recall who.
Then I asked what we talked about, and he said general stuff, can't recall the details.
Then he said he doesn't know how to recall back those memories.
After that I said nevermind, and blocked him.
| . |
It's normal to be interested in someone and not have your interest. I should know, I've been shot down by my fair share of guys, and telling when the object of yoiur interest is not returning the favour is not that difficult. If they ignore you all the time, that's usually a pretty good sign that they are not interested. For some reason, some guys just fail to understand this concept. Hence, I term them the persistent little bugs. My example for this one is particularly long, coz' he was annoying not only for his persistence, but also other reasons to be revealed.
I met this guy online in September last year. Chatted for a bit but didn't meet. At first he sounded normal and interesting. Then at some point, I totally tuned out and lost interest in chatting, which I shall admit is not his fault because I was moving out at the time and was more preoccupied with that. And after I was done moving out, I wasn't in the mood to hang out with anyone new.
The persistent little bug, true to his name, persisted in trying to chat with me on Whatsapp, although at that point my responses were very deadpan as I was not feeling particularly chatty at that point in time. But over the next few weeks he kept bugging to meet up with me.
After a while, I relented and said ok. Meet up once, see it goes, and hopefully he turns out to be someone I won't mind hanging out with on a regular basis.
It turns out this guy, in addition to being annoyingly persistent, is also annoyingly ignorant of physical cues or know when he's close enough to be considered encroaching into my personal space. On this FIRST meeting, he would walk so close me, we'd be brushing shoulders, and when I moved away, he'd move closer again. And at one point, he reached over to pluck a hair off my blouse.
I would consider such behaviour from a very close guy friend very weird. From a guy I have just met for the first time, I was almost ready to get out my pepper spray. Fortunately, he didn't try anything funnier than that. Plus the conversations was boring. So I decided I am never meeting this guy again. But of course I didn't tell that to him straight out, as I understand that all men have egos, some being more fragile than others. So I was hoping that by ignoring him completely, he will save himself the embarassment of me telling him what a boring weirdo he is, and just shimmy along his way.
Few weeks later, after a period of silence, he tries to make an excuse to meet me again.The brilliant excuse was that he thought my dog is cute (I had my dog as my profile pic on Whatsapp for a while) and he wanted to meet my dog. I ignored him.
Few weeks later, he pops me a message saying "Hey pretty". I ignored him.
A month later, he says, "Merry Chistmas". I still ignored him.
2 months later, he messages me again, this time I'm so annoyed that I decide to humour him for a while and respond. Of course, he asks to meet me again, to which this time I tell him flat out that I'm not interested. Which doesn't seem to faze him one bit.
Then just for the fun of it, I asked him why he is soooo persistent in trying to meet me, even though it should have been blatantly obvious that I'm not interested, considering I'd been ignoring him for months (my theory is that the part of his brains that registers this sort of thing wasn't really functioning).
His response was that he thinks I'm interesting.
Now I've only met this guy ONCE, and the chat conversations we had had up to that point were not particularly fascinating far as I was concerned, and 'interesting' is not really an adjective most people would use to describe me coz' I know I'm not particularly interesting. So I had no clue what on earth would make him say that when he knows much less about me than the average person in my social circle. So I asked him exactly that. What makes me so interesting when he knows practically nothing about me?
And he said I'm interesting because I'm mysterious.
Right. Ok. If someone told me I was interesting because I had fascinating insights into subjects which most people don't, or I was strongly opiniated about things, or I can do the hula hoop while standing on one leg while patting my head, then maybe I could accept it. But to tell me I'm interesting because I'm mysterious. The only reason I'm mysterious to him is because I got bored of talking to him and went from being somewhat chatty to completely mum. And most normal guys who know how to take a hint would know to call it quits and move on. Heck, even I know how to do that if a guy disappeared on me. The fact that this guy only seemed to want to get to know me because of my so called mystery made it obvious that he's just out to amuse himself... or wants a challenge. And probably once he does get to me and how truly normal and non-mysterious my life is, he'd get bored too.
So in my annoyance I promptly flamed him with rants about how guys like him should learn to appreciate girls who actually care to give them the light of day, instead of trying to go after girls who clearly not interested, just for the 'challenge'... only to drop them like a rock after that.
Then I blocked him on Whatsapp before I could read any more of his dribble.
I suppose in hindsight, his behaviour apart from the inability to respect personal space wasn't really that strange. Most people are attracted to people who aren't all that easy to get. Just that, well, it just seems like a game to me that guys like to play. When you're interested in them, they don't give you light of day. And when you don't give a hoot about them, they start coming after you. It's just so lame and stupid, I really can't be bothered anymore. And he just happened to be the unfortunate one to be the butt of my rants for annoying me so.
Sigh, I don't need to meet any more weird el creepos for a long time.
Monday, February 18, 2013
The Meetup
My mum called me up this morning asking me out for a one to one hangout time tonight. Just the two of us. She nevers asks me out for one to one hangout times.
I know this sounds bad but I have a sense of foreboding about tonight, and I can only hope I'm not right.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Decisions decisions
I predict this year is going to be another challenging year, for I have many big decisions to make, especially financial related. I foresee that I'm going to need a lot of money to survive some pending turbulent issues, while maintaining my independance from the nest.
Where's the best place to dump my money for investment purposes?
Should I invest in property and continue to rent?
Or buy my own house?
Should I jump ship from a place where I enjoy the people and the environment, just for better financial prospects?
Should I write a book and hope it becomes the next bestseller?
Or record a few songs and hope I become the next Youtube sensation?
Should I buy lottery tickets and hope I get lucky?
Oh yeah, it's going to be a mind boggling year. Decision decisions.
For now, I'll just deal with the simpler decision.
Should I chop off the hair again, which is getting a bit out of control, or keep it long for a change? :P
Where's the best place to dump my money for investment purposes?
Should I invest in property and continue to rent?
Or buy my own house?
Should I jump ship from a place where I enjoy the people and the environment, just for better financial prospects?
Should I write a book and hope it becomes the next bestseller?
Or record a few songs and hope I become the next Youtube sensation?
Should I buy lottery tickets and hope I get lucky?
Oh yeah, it's going to be a mind boggling year. Decision decisions.
For now, I'll just deal with the simpler decision.
Should I chop off the hair again, which is getting a bit out of control, or keep it long for a change? :P
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
New mindset
Yes, I know my last post was a rather strange first post for the new year, but you'd have to forgive me considering 2012 was probably one of my most challenging years. On the bright side, there were good things about the year. I was fortunate to move into a neighbourhood that I
like, with the perfect environment for my dog, which to me is best dog in every aspect except that he likes chewing
stuff he's not supposed to. I have a really great neighbour who helps take care of my dog and also gives me good food every now and then. Work was busy but we had a great year, and I get along superbly well with my management still. So 2012 wasn't all that crappy.
Still it was an emotionally challenging year, in terms of love, family and spiritual life. All of which are major aspects in probably everyone's life. So I guess it's not unexpected that I would come out of it with a rather different mindset on all those aspects. Well, two out of three aspects anyway. My mindset on my family has not changed much. I still can't handle living around my parents and I'm still not very interested in having children, unless I get a guy who can convince me that he's capable of helping to raise hem in a way that their view on love and life will not turn out as jaded as mine. But for the other two, there was a change, and it certainly wasn't an overnight change. Or an easy one. But I find myself now in a much better and contented state of mind.
Most people would consider the new mindset rather depressing, so I'm trying not to go too much into the details coz' if I did, I might actually end up making my readers depressed, or break your faith in whatever it is I'm talking about, which is not my intention. I would just like people who actually care to know that this is how I really feel about things. On the outset I will still behave pretty much the same as I always have, just because I don't like being asked uncomfortable questions about my unorthodox frame of mind in public. Besides, the ability to convince people that I'm always happy is quite amusing, and I consider it a positive achievement.
So in brief, here's my new take on the two main areas of life:
1) Love life
I realized that I actually don't have many desires in life. I'm not interested in a lavish life, big house, big cars, handbags, clothes. I'm not driven to climb the corporate ladder. I don't really want children. I don't have a dream wedding. There's only been one thing I've ever really wanted. And given the difficulty in attaining that one, I decided it's best to downsize my desires even further. I'd still like a relationship. But far as I'm concerned, commitment and marriage are optional. If he's not up for it, then it's fine. We'll maintain it for as long as we want to. And when one of us gets bored and decides to break it off, then it's not so bad. Yes, I know that sounds terribly un-Christian-like. How I can even consider it an option is unthinkable in my faith. Well, will come to that in a minute.
Anyway, I know I can be loyal. Just that most guys just don't have a good attention span these days. Either that or I've been cursed to attract those types. In addition to wimpy and weird types. I have such a bad track record with the male species, that seems to be the most logical conclusion. But I admit I also have an unsually high standard for guys, which seems to be only gets higher with age. It might sound unusual, considering most woman my age would take whatever they can get and deal with the consequences later, but well, that's what happens when you grow up observing a very crappy marriage. And an additional one after my first brother got married. The only good marriage in my family is that of my second brother's, who is thankfully the one person in my family whom I actually honestly enjoy being with. However, he lives halfway around the world. So not much help.
Also when you have experienced pretty much close to everything you would want in a partner, settling for less is not an option. You'd only be giving the substandard specimen your second best, while wishing he/she was like the almost perfect one you couldn't have.
But I digress.
2)Spiritual life
Quite frankly, there is no more spiritual life, coz' sometime in May last year I decided I no longer consider myself a Christian. Hence I withdrew from both Sunday School and worship ministry. I decided to keep mum about it til now because I still was on the worship roster until December, and I thought rather than request to be immediately withdrawn and have the schedule rearranged which no doubt would have raised a lot of questions, I would just continue to sing song until end of the year.
And well, since I still had a reputation to maintain, I thought better to keep it myself til end of the year, after which I could discreetly do a disappearing act from church. Which so far has worked well, since no one has really noticed except the assistant pastor's wife, who did make an effort to ask me about my spiritual condition and why I resigned from the ministries. If she had tried to talk to me much earlier on, when I was asking God to do his 'thing' where he speaks someone's heart and get them to talk to me, I think I would have been a bit more open. But at that point, which is quite recently, I was too far gone and just gave her a very vague reply. If God decided now was a nice time to finally get back to me, I have serious misgivings about his timing, coz' I knew many years ago that my faith would derail, I knew exactly what I needed to stop it, and I asked for it many times and waited a long time, expecting for great things to happen which simply did not happen. Of course, it also goes to show that I'm not that great a Christian, since I wasn't patient or trusting enough, and my faith derailed for what some people may consider relatively minor reasons. Even more reason why I shouldn't be one, I guess.
Sorry to my Christian friends. I went into a bit more detail than I promised I would. On the 'bright side', I've not become a Christianity basher. I personally think it's great if God is working in your life, and I wouldn't make any effort to shoot down one's beliefs. Such actions would stem from anger, and I'm not angry. I've just accept that I probably made a mistake in relying on something else to make things miraculously work out and give me what I need, when I should have been making more effort to take responsibility for myself and building my own character.
To my friend whose faith I know has recently derailed as well, for different reasons, my personal apologies that I was not able to answer your questions about why God does things the way he does. Or doesn't. I was having trouble with the same question myself. But hey, at least we can derail together. Weeeee.
Still it was an emotionally challenging year, in terms of love, family and spiritual life. All of which are major aspects in probably everyone's life. So I guess it's not unexpected that I would come out of it with a rather different mindset on all those aspects. Well, two out of three aspects anyway. My mindset on my family has not changed much. I still can't handle living around my parents and I'm still not very interested in having children, unless I get a guy who can convince me that he's capable of helping to raise hem in a way that their view on love and life will not turn out as jaded as mine. But for the other two, there was a change, and it certainly wasn't an overnight change. Or an easy one. But I find myself now in a much better and contented state of mind.
Most people would consider the new mindset rather depressing, so I'm trying not to go too much into the details coz' if I did, I might actually end up making my readers depressed, or break your faith in whatever it is I'm talking about, which is not my intention. I would just like people who actually care to know that this is how I really feel about things. On the outset I will still behave pretty much the same as I always have, just because I don't like being asked uncomfortable questions about my unorthodox frame of mind in public. Besides, the ability to convince people that I'm always happy is quite amusing, and I consider it a positive achievement.
So in brief, here's my new take on the two main areas of life:
1) Love life
I realized that I actually don't have many desires in life. I'm not interested in a lavish life, big house, big cars, handbags, clothes. I'm not driven to climb the corporate ladder. I don't really want children. I don't have a dream wedding. There's only been one thing I've ever really wanted. And given the difficulty in attaining that one, I decided it's best to downsize my desires even further. I'd still like a relationship. But far as I'm concerned, commitment and marriage are optional. If he's not up for it, then it's fine. We'll maintain it for as long as we want to. And when one of us gets bored and decides to break it off, then it's not so bad. Yes, I know that sounds terribly un-Christian-like. How I can even consider it an option is unthinkable in my faith. Well, will come to that in a minute.
Anyway, I know I can be loyal. Just that most guys just don't have a good attention span these days. Either that or I've been cursed to attract those types. In addition to wimpy and weird types. I have such a bad track record with the male species, that seems to be the most logical conclusion. But I admit I also have an unsually high standard for guys, which seems to be only gets higher with age. It might sound unusual, considering most woman my age would take whatever they can get and deal with the consequences later, but well, that's what happens when you grow up observing a very crappy marriage. And an additional one after my first brother got married. The only good marriage in my family is that of my second brother's, who is thankfully the one person in my family whom I actually honestly enjoy being with. However, he lives halfway around the world. So not much help.
Also when you have experienced pretty much close to everything you would want in a partner, settling for less is not an option. You'd only be giving the substandard specimen your second best, while wishing he/she was like the almost perfect one you couldn't have.
But I digress.
2)Spiritual life
Quite frankly, there is no more spiritual life, coz' sometime in May last year I decided I no longer consider myself a Christian. Hence I withdrew from both Sunday School and worship ministry. I decided to keep mum about it til now because I still was on the worship roster until December, and I thought rather than request to be immediately withdrawn and have the schedule rearranged which no doubt would have raised a lot of questions, I would just continue to sing song until end of the year.
And well, since I still had a reputation to maintain, I thought better to keep it myself til end of the year, after which I could discreetly do a disappearing act from church. Which so far has worked well, since no one has really noticed except the assistant pastor's wife, who did make an effort to ask me about my spiritual condition and why I resigned from the ministries. If she had tried to talk to me much earlier on, when I was asking God to do his 'thing' where he speaks someone's heart and get them to talk to me, I think I would have been a bit more open. But at that point, which is quite recently, I was too far gone and just gave her a very vague reply. If God decided now was a nice time to finally get back to me, I have serious misgivings about his timing, coz' I knew many years ago that my faith would derail, I knew exactly what I needed to stop it, and I asked for it many times and waited a long time, expecting for great things to happen which simply did not happen. Of course, it also goes to show that I'm not that great a Christian, since I wasn't patient or trusting enough, and my faith derailed for what some people may consider relatively minor reasons. Even more reason why I shouldn't be one, I guess.
Sorry to my Christian friends. I went into a bit more detail than I promised I would. On the 'bright side', I've not become a Christianity basher. I personally think it's great if God is working in your life, and I wouldn't make any effort to shoot down one's beliefs. Such actions would stem from anger, and I'm not angry. I've just accept that I probably made a mistake in relying on something else to make things miraculously work out and give me what I need, when I should have been making more effort to take responsibility for myself and building my own character.
To my friend whose faith I know has recently derailed as well, for different reasons, my personal apologies that I was not able to answer your questions about why God does things the way he does. Or doesn't. I was having trouble with the same question myself. But hey, at least we can derail together. Weeeee.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Hypothetical Conversations 1 - Happy Whatever
Hope: Hey, happy new year! Sorry it's little late considering it's halfway through January!
Jade: Wait a minute, I got rid of you last year. You're not supposed to be bugging us anymore.
Hope: It's just like in the movies, you know. Good guys never die!
Jade: Huh, well it's too bad not everything in life happens like the movie happy endings. Then the two of us wouldn't always be at loggerheads.
Hope: Yes, unfortunately, I now solely exist for the purpose of conversational purposes. As much as I try, I don't have much influence on her anymore....You don't have a problem with me hanging around, do you? *blink blink*
Jade: I will if you cause any more trouble, but I suppose it would be fun to have you around and have someone to pick on every now and then. It was getting a bit boring in the Zen room.
Hope: So antisocial! It's a brand new year ahead. You should be looking forward to positive new things and new possibilities!
Jade: Well, in my opinion, there is no logic in having such expectations. And wishing people happy new year, happy birthday or happy whatever-the-occasion-is, is actually quite redundant.
Hope: Why so? :-( Everyone likes to look forward to good things
Jade: Simply because there's very little chance that anyone can go through an entire year constantly experiencing happy things. There will be crappy events as well, and one is unlikely to be happy through that. Birthdays are not always happy too. You might go out for a birthday meal with family and end up in a huge @ss nothing fight, a concept most clearly explained by Dane Cook. Then what is supposed to be a happy event turns out to be kinda sucky, and rather ironic when after a nothing fight, everyone sings that happy birthday song with some misguided conception that that will make everything better. Christmas isn't always merry either. A lot of people become more lonely and depressed during Christmas and New Year. Apparently the expectation to be happy during that time is just too much pressure to handle for some people that it's make them even more unhappy. So greeting people a happy-whatever sometimes just makes people pretend to be happy because that's what expected of you during new year, or Christmas or birthdays. Which might actually make them feel even crappier if they aren't actually happy during that time. So why make people pretend to feel something they don't actually feel? On the other hand, if they do actually enjoy themselves and have a wonderful year, birthday, or whatever event, then you don't need to wish them a happy one, since they would already be happy. Hence, redundant! So if I had it my way, we'd do away with greeting people with 'happy whatevers', perhaps replacing it with a greeting that raises less potentially false hopes, such as "May your new year/birthday/christmas be generally not crappy".
Hope: .......I don't think that idea is going to take off very well....
Jade: Yeah, I know it won't. People still like to wish happy whatevers coz' we like to think things will turn out great even if all indication shows otherwise. To think otherwise is to lose hope, and not many people can deal with living without hope. They end up doing dumb stuff like become alcoholics or druggies, jumping off buildings. The lonely ones are even worst. In some desperate attempt to hang on to whatever hope they have left, they sleep around for attention, or fall in love with some unknown people on the net and lose their life savings to them when they ask for it. Those are just examples of course. The stupid things hopeless people do are quite endless.
Hope: Gosh, that's terrible.... I guess that's why everyone needs a little bit of me! I mean, hope! *grin*
Jade: Usually yes, but hope, and that means you too, can be just annoying if reality doesn't commensurate with what one hopes for. Good thing is that it is actually quite possible to do without hope. One just needs to do away with emotions.
Think about it, without hope, you usually feel despair, sadness, depression, and you end up doing some or more of the stupid stuff I just mentioned. But without emotion.... There's no sadness or despair or loneliness. And no doing stupid things.
Plus you don't get pissed as easily at other people doing stupid things, which is definitely a plus point. Although it's quite difficult driving on Malaysian roads...
Hope: Whoa, whoa...waitaminute. No emotion also means no joy or happiness too. How can anyone enjoy life like that? Unless you only take the good without the bad?
Jade: Not possible. If you don't want to feel the bad, you can't really enjoy the good feelings either. Coz' there's always the possiblity that the source of your good feelings will lead to sucky feelings later on. Like having someone you consider a best friend and enjoy many good times with, suddenly up and betray you. By completely ignoring you. Or stealing your lover. That kind of sucky.
So best to remain emotionally platonic under all circumstances.
Hope: Hahahaha, ok now I'm convinced you're crazy. We're human, not robots! How can we just 'feeling' stuff. It's not like a switch you can turn on and off.
Jade: True that. But it's possible. All you need is the right motivation and the mental strength to not jump off a building first. I would say having one's hopes dashed multiple times in the course of a few months counts as good motivation.
Hope: ....Well, I refuse to believe that's that. And I'm going to do my best to show you that this year and every year after that can be happy! Ok?
Jade: Yeah ok. Whatever.
Update on 17th Feb 2013: This comic strip from Cyanide and Happiness pretty much says it all! :D
Jade: Wait a minute, I got rid of you last year. You're not supposed to be bugging us anymore.
Hope: It's just like in the movies, you know. Good guys never die!
Jade: Huh, well it's too bad not everything in life happens like the movie happy endings. Then the two of us wouldn't always be at loggerheads.
Hope: Yes, unfortunately, I now solely exist for the purpose of conversational purposes. As much as I try, I don't have much influence on her anymore....You don't have a problem with me hanging around, do you? *blink blink*
Jade: I will if you cause any more trouble, but I suppose it would be fun to have you around and have someone to pick on every now and then. It was getting a bit boring in the Zen room.
Hope: So antisocial! It's a brand new year ahead. You should be looking forward to positive new things and new possibilities!
Jade: Well, in my opinion, there is no logic in having such expectations. And wishing people happy new year, happy birthday or happy whatever-the-occasion-is, is actually quite redundant.
Hope: Why so? :-( Everyone likes to look forward to good things
Jade: Simply because there's very little chance that anyone can go through an entire year constantly experiencing happy things. There will be crappy events as well, and one is unlikely to be happy through that. Birthdays are not always happy too. You might go out for a birthday meal with family and end up in a huge @ss nothing fight, a concept most clearly explained by Dane Cook. Then what is supposed to be a happy event turns out to be kinda sucky, and rather ironic when after a nothing fight, everyone sings that happy birthday song with some misguided conception that that will make everything better. Christmas isn't always merry either. A lot of people become more lonely and depressed during Christmas and New Year. Apparently the expectation to be happy during that time is just too much pressure to handle for some people that it's make them even more unhappy. So greeting people a happy-whatever sometimes just makes people pretend to be happy because that's what expected of you during new year, or Christmas or birthdays. Which might actually make them feel even crappier if they aren't actually happy during that time. So why make people pretend to feel something they don't actually feel? On the other hand, if they do actually enjoy themselves and have a wonderful year, birthday, or whatever event, then you don't need to wish them a happy one, since they would already be happy. Hence, redundant! So if I had it my way, we'd do away with greeting people with 'happy whatevers', perhaps replacing it with a greeting that raises less potentially false hopes, such as "May your new year/birthday/christmas be generally not crappy".
Hope: .......I don't think that idea is going to take off very well....
Jade: Yeah, I know it won't. People still like to wish happy whatevers coz' we like to think things will turn out great even if all indication shows otherwise. To think otherwise is to lose hope, and not many people can deal with living without hope. They end up doing dumb stuff like become alcoholics or druggies, jumping off buildings. The lonely ones are even worst. In some desperate attempt to hang on to whatever hope they have left, they sleep around for attention, or fall in love with some unknown people on the net and lose their life savings to them when they ask for it. Those are just examples of course. The stupid things hopeless people do are quite endless.
Hope: Gosh, that's terrible.... I guess that's why everyone needs a little bit of me! I mean, hope! *grin*
Jade: Usually yes, but hope, and that means you too, can be just annoying if reality doesn't commensurate with what one hopes for. Good thing is that it is actually quite possible to do without hope. One just needs to do away with emotions.
Think about it, without hope, you usually feel despair, sadness, depression, and you end up doing some or more of the stupid stuff I just mentioned. But without emotion.... There's no sadness or despair or loneliness. And no doing stupid things.
Plus you don't get pissed as easily at other people doing stupid things, which is definitely a plus point. Although it's quite difficult driving on Malaysian roads...
Hope: Whoa, whoa...waitaminute. No emotion also means no joy or happiness too. How can anyone enjoy life like that? Unless you only take the good without the bad?
Jade: Not possible. If you don't want to feel the bad, you can't really enjoy the good feelings either. Coz' there's always the possiblity that the source of your good feelings will lead to sucky feelings later on. Like having someone you consider a best friend and enjoy many good times with, suddenly up and betray you. By completely ignoring you. Or stealing your lover. That kind of sucky.
So best to remain emotionally platonic under all circumstances.
Hope: Hahahaha, ok now I'm convinced you're crazy. We're human, not robots! How can we just 'feeling' stuff. It's not like a switch you can turn on and off.
Jade: True that. But it's possible. All you need is the right motivation and the mental strength to not jump off a building first. I would say having one's hopes dashed multiple times in the course of a few months counts as good motivation.
Hope: ....Well, I refuse to believe that's that. And I'm going to do my best to show you that this year and every year after that can be happy! Ok?
Jade: Yeah ok. Whatever.
******
Update on 17th Feb 2013: This comic strip from Cyanide and Happiness pretty much says it all! :D
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