Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Over the Weekend…
it has once again dawned upon me that I do not have friends, especially girlfriends in this city I called home for the longest time I could remember.
It never used to occur to me because I always had the older sibling and vice versa. She has been off to some destitute part of Asia to help restore the vision of the poor and trying her hands at living out of her comfort zone…
I mean, I only just realised I have been devoid of a girlfriend whom I can spend many a weekend doing girly things like shoe shopping, indulge in idle chat over a cup of tea or hi-tea, beauty therapy or do the after work wind down glass of wine or cocktail catch up at a slinky bar while perving at tall well built corporate suited male professionals with that manly charms about them. And now I should be in the best position to do so- I can finally afford my own little indulgences without much of the guilt from the old teenage days where I would quietly pull out a few $50 dollar bills from Mom’s purse to satisfy my little whims and fancies.
Seriously, I wouldn’t know who to call or turn to in need of help if the sibling wasn’t around. Of course, there is DL. But I mean someone girly to vent or someone interesting to banter with if I needed to.
Last weekend, I spoke to no one. As in anyone that I know as a friend or am acquainted to. I was alone all weekend and would be so for the next couple of weeks.
I visited the hairdresser who looked at the state of my hair and decided my hairstyle was “no style” in his Hongkie English accent when he learnt that the last I visited him was six months ago. I was kept in the salon for a good six hours because obviously, he reckoned there was much to fix up in the way of my hair-do. Which I thought might just as well be since I had nowhere to go or any social appointments scheduled in as they tend to be non-existent in my daily world.
I felt like a bloody anti-social and must be fast losing my social skills because no one spoke to me for the most part while I sat on the chair and was treated me like a “foreigner”. You see, I spoke such bad Cantonese in a salon filled with Hong Kong and mainlander Chinese hair stylists that I didn’t dare risk embarrassing myself and for some reason, they didn’t think I speak Mandarin although I entered the salon telling one of them in Mandarin that I wanted Jet, the boss to cut and colour my hair. It didn’t help that my favourite Shampoo Boy was not working there…
A series of unfortunate events ensued straight after my six-hour ordeal (of no communication and lack of good reading material. I tried my hands at deciphering the traditional Chinese characters on the Hong Kong tabloid magazine where the article of the history of the underground drug slum in Yew Ma Ti proved to be highly interesting although I was mainly trained in simplified Chinese so had to struggle through that bit as well as reading them in the Cantonese grammar to make light of the story). After handing a couple of hundred bucks to my hairstylist who is the owner of three highly busy salons in the vicinity, I was instantly being tripped over by a stupid guy who later broke the heel of my new boots, followed by my attempt to duck a drug addict and in the midst of doing so, I lost my heel as my hastened steps transcended to a quick run. As a result, I had to shop for a new pair of shoes at the nearest store I could find at 7pm (bearing in mind most shops would have shut at that hour) which I didn’t need and which gave me blisters. To top it off at the shoe shop, I was told by the shop assistant that she only accepts cash and nothing else. My nearest ATM would have been back in Chinatown but since I had visited a few cash machines prior to my hair appointment and was to realise for a strange reason that they have all decided to go on strike and be out of service, I knew with my better judgement that it would be stupid of me to walk all the way back looking silly, one boot with heel and one boot flat soled. So I sojourned to the nearest ATM within the convenience store and I am damn sure I would be charged a few dollars rather unnecessarily in transaction fees, which I am definitely not happy about!
Great! I thought now I could finally go watch a movie in peace. And yes, I finally did. Then to round off the night, I headed for the supermarket to fetch a few household items in which the weight of shopping was too hard for me to bear, while I limped feebly on my blistered feet in my new killer shoes and somehow found my way home in the wintry cold at ten o’clock at night.
I quietly wondered how and where have my life been with all these years flashed past and was fast becoming aware of my own mortality, my youth flying by and before I know it, my closest friends will get married and be firmly entrenched to their new families (as most people do) and I haven’t even have enough fun yet. By the time a late bloomer like me decides to settle down, I am almost sure I would have no girlfriends spontaneous enough to have a fun, crazy hens’ night to celebrate the end of my bachelorette-hood.
What a sad and pathetic thought, I thought to myself. It’s true that no man’s an island. If I wanted some fun, I kind of need company. It never occurred to me for the longest while. My needs in my youth were a lot easier to satisfy with what money could buy.
I then wondered why did I have so many friends in my youth and my larger than life sociable personality. Have I since lose it?
Nope, I realised I never lost it. I still have it in me to be affable in social situations. Again, I always operated alone but people were there quite conveniently as they do when one is in a place where one grows up in. I hardly keep in touch with people except for a few but there were always new acquaintances and friendships forged with friend of friend. It’s akin to a business development manager who happens to have a combination of good network and sheer luck given that she is on home ground and she needs very little effort to originate deals as they tend to flow through rather smoothly. Whereas now, I need to put myself out there to make things work. Nowadays, I this last minute thing where I might kind of chickened out where I would re-schedule or take a raincheck on any social efforts made by another party at the eleventh hour, citing busy schedule. Then any attempts at meeting up weekends would be politely declined by my family commitments to head back inter-state to spend time with DL and Fluffball. Really, I just want downtime on a non-working day. But then again, it isn’t like I have any other social commitments on school days and I pretty much have seven days a week to myself in non-working hours. How many more days alone do I need, I ask myself. I am beginnning to think I’m a recluse.
Like I always say to B jokingly with that mischievous twinkle in my eye when she muses about my lack of social life here, "You must know that I am like the flower who only blooms once a year..." Or twice, depending on the number of overseas trips I make. Then again, I need a partner-in-crime, like her to conquer the world with me. And vice versa. I always had a duo gig when I hit the clubs for some fun. B and I get each other and there is no battle of egos here. We compliment each other greatly- Ice Queen and Miss Sunshine. Guess no man is really an island eh? Or is it takes two to tango? ;)
Yet another crap post! I promise something more scintillating is coming up soon! It has been a long day at work and I must have exhausted my writing skills and creative juices on writing people assessments! Thanks to those who bothered reading through this very uninspiring post!
it has once again dawned upon me that I do not have friends, especially girlfriends in this city I called home for the longest time I could remember.
It never used to occur to me because I always had the older sibling and vice versa. She has been off to some destitute part of Asia to help restore the vision of the poor and trying her hands at living out of her comfort zone…
I mean, I only just realised I have been devoid of a girlfriend whom I can spend many a weekend doing girly things like shoe shopping, indulge in idle chat over a cup of tea or hi-tea, beauty therapy or do the after work wind down glass of wine or cocktail catch up at a slinky bar while perving at tall well built corporate suited male professionals with that manly charms about them. And now I should be in the best position to do so- I can finally afford my own little indulgences without much of the guilt from the old teenage days where I would quietly pull out a few $50 dollar bills from Mom’s purse to satisfy my little whims and fancies.
Seriously, I wouldn’t know who to call or turn to in need of help if the sibling wasn’t around. Of course, there is DL. But I mean someone girly to vent or someone interesting to banter with if I needed to.
Last weekend, I spoke to no one. As in anyone that I know as a friend or am acquainted to. I was alone all weekend and would be so for the next couple of weeks.
I visited the hairdresser who looked at the state of my hair and decided my hairstyle was “no style” in his Hongkie English accent when he learnt that the last I visited him was six months ago. I was kept in the salon for a good six hours because obviously, he reckoned there was much to fix up in the way of my hair-do. Which I thought might just as well be since I had nowhere to go or any social appointments scheduled in as they tend to be non-existent in my daily world.
I felt like a bloody anti-social and must be fast losing my social skills because no one spoke to me for the most part while I sat on the chair and was treated me like a “foreigner”. You see, I spoke such bad Cantonese in a salon filled with Hong Kong and mainlander Chinese hair stylists that I didn’t dare risk embarrassing myself and for some reason, they didn’t think I speak Mandarin although I entered the salon telling one of them in Mandarin that I wanted Jet, the boss to cut and colour my hair. It didn’t help that my favourite Shampoo Boy was not working there…
A series of unfortunate events ensued straight after my six-hour ordeal (of no communication and lack of good reading material. I tried my hands at deciphering the traditional Chinese characters on the Hong Kong tabloid magazine where the article of the history of the underground drug slum in Yew Ma Ti proved to be highly interesting although I was mainly trained in simplified Chinese so had to struggle through that bit as well as reading them in the Cantonese grammar to make light of the story). After handing a couple of hundred bucks to my hairstylist who is the owner of three highly busy salons in the vicinity, I was instantly being tripped over by a stupid guy who later broke the heel of my new boots, followed by my attempt to duck a drug addict and in the midst of doing so, I lost my heel as my hastened steps transcended to a quick run. As a result, I had to shop for a new pair of shoes at the nearest store I could find at 7pm (bearing in mind most shops would have shut at that hour) which I didn’t need and which gave me blisters. To top it off at the shoe shop, I was told by the shop assistant that she only accepts cash and nothing else. My nearest ATM would have been back in Chinatown but since I had visited a few cash machines prior to my hair appointment and was to realise for a strange reason that they have all decided to go on strike and be out of service, I knew with my better judgement that it would be stupid of me to walk all the way back looking silly, one boot with heel and one boot flat soled. So I sojourned to the nearest ATM within the convenience store and I am damn sure I would be charged a few dollars rather unnecessarily in transaction fees, which I am definitely not happy about!
Great! I thought now I could finally go watch a movie in peace. And yes, I finally did. Then to round off the night, I headed for the supermarket to fetch a few household items in which the weight of shopping was too hard for me to bear, while I limped feebly on my blistered feet in my new killer shoes and somehow found my way home in the wintry cold at ten o’clock at night.
I quietly wondered how and where have my life been with all these years flashed past and was fast becoming aware of my own mortality, my youth flying by and before I know it, my closest friends will get married and be firmly entrenched to their new families (as most people do) and I haven’t even have enough fun yet. By the time a late bloomer like me decides to settle down, I am almost sure I would have no girlfriends spontaneous enough to have a fun, crazy hens’ night to celebrate the end of my bachelorette-hood.
What a sad and pathetic thought, I thought to myself. It’s true that no man’s an island. If I wanted some fun, I kind of need company. It never occurred to me for the longest while. My needs in my youth were a lot easier to satisfy with what money could buy.
I then wondered why did I have so many friends in my youth and my larger than life sociable personality. Have I since lose it?
Nope, I realised I never lost it. I still have it in me to be affable in social situations. Again, I always operated alone but people were there quite conveniently as they do when one is in a place where one grows up in. I hardly keep in touch with people except for a few but there were always new acquaintances and friendships forged with friend of friend. It’s akin to a business development manager who happens to have a combination of good network and sheer luck given that she is on home ground and she needs very little effort to originate deals as they tend to flow through rather smoothly. Whereas now, I need to put myself out there to make things work. Nowadays, I this last minute thing where I might kind of chickened out where I would re-schedule or take a raincheck on any social efforts made by another party at the eleventh hour, citing busy schedule. Then any attempts at meeting up weekends would be politely declined by my family commitments to head back inter-state to spend time with DL and Fluffball. Really, I just want downtime on a non-working day. But then again, it isn’t like I have any other social commitments on school days and I pretty much have seven days a week to myself in non-working hours. How many more days alone do I need, I ask myself. I am beginnning to think I’m a recluse.
Like I always say to B jokingly with that mischievous twinkle in my eye when she muses about my lack of social life here, "You must know that I am like the flower who only blooms once a year..." Or twice, depending on the number of overseas trips I make. Then again, I need a partner-in-crime, like her to conquer the world with me. And vice versa. I always had a duo gig when I hit the clubs for some fun. B and I get each other and there is no battle of egos here. We compliment each other greatly- Ice Queen and Miss Sunshine. Guess no man is really an island eh? Or is it takes two to tango? ;)
Yet another crap post! I promise something more scintillating is coming up soon! It has been a long day at work and I must have exhausted my writing skills and creative juices on writing people assessments! Thanks to those who bothered reading through this very uninspiring post!
