Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Faithless
In my life experience, harbouring hopes and expectations have almost certainly been crushed by disappointments and heartaches. If you readers have followed the stories of P's life long enough, you would have noticed that recurring theme- a vicious cycle of errors which have compounded my pain. Somewhere along the way, I have gradually devised a subverted coping mechanism that instills my phobia to commit in a relationship which in turn transformed me into a cynic who pre-empts and becomes ahead of myself in a situation which later allows myself to justify why a situation has become fucked up. Smart alec, I am.
*****
I remember the night Dope and I first got hooked up where that began our more than a year long sporadic grey arrangement.
It was a cool October Friday night in Spring. Earlier, we had bumped into each other in Sydney. It has been years since we left university in Sad Town.
In our semi tipsy state post dinner at a bar, he asked me to guess what he always remembered me by. He had two incidents in mind-one was the first day we met (actually his first but not mine for I have noticed him way before he did with me) when we were twenty and the other was his witness of my unreal flexibility. Then he asked to kiss me and the rest was history. I spent the night at his apartment.
The next morning, we woke up. Dope asked me excitedly, “What are we now? Maybe we could do this again and go out on the weekends when I don't get too busy with work.”
I gave a non-committal reply about being what we currently were, at status quo. I had my DL (and wasn't about to leave him suddenly for anyone since I am one who is skeptical of falling “in love” too quickly) and I assumed he would continue with his girlfriend whom he dated a couple of months before I dated DL at university. At that stage, we were both dating our respective partners for a good five years or so. So sure, why not, as and when we didn't have our domestic commitments.
**
About two weeks ago, Dope and I had lunch. Finally. We had taken so many rainchecks that we passed 2007 not having met up with each other.
I learnt that the girl I bumped into him with in March hadn't been so new after all. They have been dating for a year.
So what happen to the old girl? They broke up, he said. One day, he broke up with her. He had grown tired of her weekly break up threats and tantrums.
Then he quietly mentioned that whilst we first got together, he was actually single.
Oh, I said. I didn't know-thought he was still dating her.
No, he said.
Why didn't you tell me, I asked.
Because you didn't ask me, came his reply.
So there, his next morning excitement made sense now. I have always hoarded the memory of that morning since I could never quite put a finger to that mismatched enthusiasm (which I was quick to reason within myself that it was a case of tipsiness or a state of hang over and nothing to take too seriously) with his later standoff-ishness sporadically peppered with restrained affection.
I thought we were both willing parties of polygamy. He would never have left the girl, let alone for me. I remember my role as a victim all too well. All my ex-boyfriends left me for another girl or worst still, back to the ex-girlfriend. Only DL left me for his six-year long relationship. As for myself, DL has always been the one constant in my life, plus my Fluffball and my entire bitter-sweet domestic bliss awaiting me in Sad Town whilst I struggled to do good in my career in Sydney. So best stick to the script I know so lucidly.
Best way to cope-affection and companionship since I didn't want to demand exclusivity. Maybe I was buying time to commit and along the way, I lost insight that polygamy wasn't the norm for people to live.
Once I lamented about us in a fit of frustration and tantrum as I wrote him. I remembered him firing back that those talk and ideas were “thriftily conceived” on my part.
So there, I got the full story a year and a half on. Again, our arrangement wasn't a situation he was inclined to adapt smoothly to but he did try alright and trudged on for fourteen months.
I just deceived myself myself there and cut any real shot at trying. I reasoned we were never meant to be- it was less fearful and perhaps more merciful to create romantically tragic endings to capture a hauntingly beautiful joint memory.
*****
“Hey, do yourself a favour. Find yourself a nice guy and commit into proper relationship when you get back to Australia. Even just for the time being before you return in July,” the Koran said as he left my room after our unfruitful and aborted attempt at shagging satisfactorily which ended us lying in bed chatting.
It was the wee hours of the morning on the night where I flew back to Australia in January. Shit was about to hit the fan with the Old Boy with irreversible consequences for what was to come (and has come).
“No way!”
“Why?”
“Because I just got out of a seven-year relationship and don't think I want to commit. I like the certainty of no future. Make merry and enjoy my life. That's precisely why I chose to be single.”
“You sound like a man.”
**
The Koran also once said something along the lines that that was the reason why I led the life I led (read messy) and certain men treated me a certain way (he probably meant my dynamics with the Old Boy and possibly taken granted by men. Me still viewed as somewhat a damsel in his closet Muslim eyes as women being the weaker sex. But I cannot be too sure now- my selective memory is truimphing over my alert photographic memory). He sounded serious and emphatically sad. Or was it frustrated?
*****
Today, the Old Boy and I had our usual msn chat.
Every so often, our conversation would lead us back to the past of our break-up. Read my initial infidelity with the Koran.
It started with us talking about my his huge uneasiness with my public display of affection for him. He is a married man and I haven't been sensitive to him.
The Old Boy culled up the day where I got upset with him in the car when I put my hand around his shoulder and I recalled messaging his neck. He had to put a stop to it and told me he was uncomfortable and please don't do it in public.
I was hurt and upset there and then, not because of his remark about my actions in the car.
He has been attributing my silent treatment for him that day to this incident. But he has been so wrong.
**
I had been mindful for awhile now and have tried practising restraint. But his call for affectionate restraint in the car triggered my memory of the night before where the Koran and the rest of my male friends congregated at the whiskey bar where the Old Boy and I frequented. My entourage and I were heading off to boogie the night away. At this stage, the Old Boy has already learnt that Koran and I have kissed one tipsy night. Naturally, the Old Boy was not pleased.
But then again, you may call me naïve. Again, the Old Boy has drummed in me that we were never exclusive; he was more polygamous than I was. I reckon a single and independent girl like me should be able to handle it and take it like a man(?). I did love him enough and thought we would stick to the script of non-exclusivity. I wasn't about to go man hunting but if the opportunity arises, so be it. Even then, I was mindful of incurring the pain and wrath of the Old Boy.
My friends gathered at the table in the bar where the Old Boy and I were seated. The Old Boy was not pleased to see the Koran (given that OB knew about the pashings). I made every attempt to assure the Old Boy that he was still my man (noting his insecurities) and me his girl and hung on close to him and held his hand or wrapped my arms around him (making one big exception to OB's no-PDA rule more to dispel any paranoia he had of the Koran and me when I headed off to party and him home to his domestics). At some stage, I excused myself to the bathroom and when I got back, the Old Boy pulled me to him and french kissed me before my friends. I was taken aback by his boldness (since he always had issues being THE married man) and the first thing that came to my mind was that he had deliberately done it to assert his territory over me before the guys, especially before the Koran.
“Baby, did u do that on purpose?” I looked him in the eyes when my tongue and lips parted his as I spoke in hushed tones. I was careful not to get happy too quickly much as my heart was yielding.
The Old Boy attempted to look vague and mumbled something non-committal.
I was getting hurt and felt my suspicions for my worst fear was fconfirmed with this reply. It has been further culminated by his growing lacklustre behaviour towards me (and his growing lack of affection in bed) and his weaning enthusiasm to meet up with me prior to his departure for work in the Middle East, of which I would have been gone by the time he returned back to Singapore. His squash practise was to take precedence, he told me firmly once no matter how gently I persuaded (or rather my way of begging) him.
Then there was also our last night together where he made a comment and I retorted whineyly that yeah, that was because he had now got me so he wasn't putting so much effort. And he laughed and replied yeah. My heart squeezed for that moment. Didn't think that felt like a favourable parting shot.
I wasn't going to let the Old Boy toy with me as he pleased.
***
So there, I thought it was double standards on his part when he finally tried to jump the brakes to cut off my display of affection in the care.
I thought the night before, he had given me the cue to continue my old affectionate ways that I have been used to with guys when he proffered his publicly to me.
***
“So you did him to spite me?”
“No, I didn't. I didn't think you care.”
“Yeah right.”
“ Yes, so I didn't think my actions was accountable to anyone or of any consequence with you so I could allow it to happen. If I screw up then, I didn't think the harm was done on anyone but me. It was that simple.”
“Whatever.”
We have had this conversation many a time before shortly after this incident erupted and he would flagrantly decribed how much I have hurt him and broke his heart during those times.
The Old Boy would later confessed he didn't see anyone whilst I was back home. He was true to me.
*****
I don't know anymore.
Faithless.
Pre-emptive worst-case-scenario coping mechanism.
That's what I must have grow accustomed to.
Somewhere along the way, I have lost the plot.
I thought I was the victim. Or am I the victimiser now?
In my life experience, harbouring hopes and expectations have almost certainly been crushed by disappointments and heartaches. If you readers have followed the stories of P's life long enough, you would have noticed that recurring theme- a vicious cycle of errors which have compounded my pain. Somewhere along the way, I have gradually devised a subverted coping mechanism that instills my phobia to commit in a relationship which in turn transformed me into a cynic who pre-empts and becomes ahead of myself in a situation which later allows myself to justify why a situation has become fucked up. Smart alec, I am.
*****
I remember the night Dope and I first got hooked up where that began our more than a year long sporadic grey arrangement.
It was a cool October Friday night in Spring. Earlier, we had bumped into each other in Sydney. It has been years since we left university in Sad Town.
In our semi tipsy state post dinner at a bar, he asked me to guess what he always remembered me by. He had two incidents in mind-one was the first day we met (actually his first but not mine for I have noticed him way before he did with me) when we were twenty and the other was his witness of my unreal flexibility. Then he asked to kiss me and the rest was history. I spent the night at his apartment.
The next morning, we woke up. Dope asked me excitedly, “What are we now? Maybe we could do this again and go out on the weekends when I don't get too busy with work.”
I gave a non-committal reply about being what we currently were, at status quo. I had my DL (and wasn't about to leave him suddenly for anyone since I am one who is skeptical of falling “in love” too quickly) and I assumed he would continue with his girlfriend whom he dated a couple of months before I dated DL at university. At that stage, we were both dating our respective partners for a good five years or so. So sure, why not, as and when we didn't have our domestic commitments.
**
About two weeks ago, Dope and I had lunch. Finally. We had taken so many rainchecks that we passed 2007 not having met up with each other.
I learnt that the girl I bumped into him with in March hadn't been so new after all. They have been dating for a year.
So what happen to the old girl? They broke up, he said. One day, he broke up with her. He had grown tired of her weekly break up threats and tantrums.
Then he quietly mentioned that whilst we first got together, he was actually single.
Oh, I said. I didn't know-thought he was still dating her.
No, he said.
Why didn't you tell me, I asked.
Because you didn't ask me, came his reply.
So there, his next morning excitement made sense now. I have always hoarded the memory of that morning since I could never quite put a finger to that mismatched enthusiasm (which I was quick to reason within myself that it was a case of tipsiness or a state of hang over and nothing to take too seriously) with his later standoff-ishness sporadically peppered with restrained affection.
I thought we were both willing parties of polygamy. He would never have left the girl, let alone for me. I remember my role as a victim all too well. All my ex-boyfriends left me for another girl or worst still, back to the ex-girlfriend. Only DL left me for his six-year long relationship. As for myself, DL has always been the one constant in my life, plus my Fluffball and my entire bitter-sweet domestic bliss awaiting me in Sad Town whilst I struggled to do good in my career in Sydney. So best stick to the script I know so lucidly.
Best way to cope-affection and companionship since I didn't want to demand exclusivity. Maybe I was buying time to commit and along the way, I lost insight that polygamy wasn't the norm for people to live.
Once I lamented about us in a fit of frustration and tantrum as I wrote him. I remembered him firing back that those talk and ideas were “thriftily conceived” on my part.
So there, I got the full story a year and a half on. Again, our arrangement wasn't a situation he was inclined to adapt smoothly to but he did try alright and trudged on for fourteen months.
I just deceived myself myself there and cut any real shot at trying. I reasoned we were never meant to be- it was less fearful and perhaps more merciful to create romantically tragic endings to capture a hauntingly beautiful joint memory.
*****
“Hey, do yourself a favour. Find yourself a nice guy and commit into proper relationship when you get back to Australia. Even just for the time being before you return in July,” the Koran said as he left my room after our unfruitful and aborted attempt at shagging satisfactorily which ended us lying in bed chatting.
It was the wee hours of the morning on the night where I flew back to Australia in January. Shit was about to hit the fan with the Old Boy with irreversible consequences for what was to come (and has come).
“No way!”
“Why?”
“Because I just got out of a seven-year relationship and don't think I want to commit. I like the certainty of no future. Make merry and enjoy my life. That's precisely why I chose to be single.”
“You sound like a man.”
**
The Koran also once said something along the lines that that was the reason why I led the life I led (read messy) and certain men treated me a certain way (he probably meant my dynamics with the Old Boy and possibly taken granted by men. Me still viewed as somewhat a damsel in his closet Muslim eyes as women being the weaker sex. But I cannot be too sure now- my selective memory is truimphing over my alert photographic memory). He sounded serious and emphatically sad. Or was it frustrated?
*****
Today, the Old Boy and I had our usual msn chat.
Every so often, our conversation would lead us back to the past of our break-up. Read my initial infidelity with the Koran.
It started with us talking about my his huge uneasiness with my public display of affection for him. He is a married man and I haven't been sensitive to him.
The Old Boy culled up the day where I got upset with him in the car when I put my hand around his shoulder and I recalled messaging his neck. He had to put a stop to it and told me he was uncomfortable and please don't do it in public.
I was hurt and upset there and then, not because of his remark about my actions in the car.
He has been attributing my silent treatment for him that day to this incident. But he has been so wrong.
**
I had been mindful for awhile now and have tried practising restraint. But his call for affectionate restraint in the car triggered my memory of the night before where the Koran and the rest of my male friends congregated at the whiskey bar where the Old Boy and I frequented. My entourage and I were heading off to boogie the night away. At this stage, the Old Boy has already learnt that Koran and I have kissed one tipsy night. Naturally, the Old Boy was not pleased.
But then again, you may call me naïve. Again, the Old Boy has drummed in me that we were never exclusive; he was more polygamous than I was. I reckon a single and independent girl like me should be able to handle it and take it like a man(?). I did love him enough and thought we would stick to the script of non-exclusivity. I wasn't about to go man hunting but if the opportunity arises, so be it. Even then, I was mindful of incurring the pain and wrath of the Old Boy.
My friends gathered at the table in the bar where the Old Boy and I were seated. The Old Boy was not pleased to see the Koran (given that OB knew about the pashings). I made every attempt to assure the Old Boy that he was still my man (noting his insecurities) and me his girl and hung on close to him and held his hand or wrapped my arms around him (making one big exception to OB's no-PDA rule more to dispel any paranoia he had of the Koran and me when I headed off to party and him home to his domestics). At some stage, I excused myself to the bathroom and when I got back, the Old Boy pulled me to him and french kissed me before my friends. I was taken aback by his boldness (since he always had issues being THE married man) and the first thing that came to my mind was that he had deliberately done it to assert his territory over me before the guys, especially before the Koran.
“Baby, did u do that on purpose?” I looked him in the eyes when my tongue and lips parted his as I spoke in hushed tones. I was careful not to get happy too quickly much as my heart was yielding.
The Old Boy attempted to look vague and mumbled something non-committal.
I was getting hurt and felt my suspicions for my worst fear was fconfirmed with this reply. It has been further culminated by his growing lacklustre behaviour towards me (and his growing lack of affection in bed) and his weaning enthusiasm to meet up with me prior to his departure for work in the Middle East, of which I would have been gone by the time he returned back to Singapore. His squash practise was to take precedence, he told me firmly once no matter how gently I persuaded (or rather my way of begging) him.
Then there was also our last night together where he made a comment and I retorted whineyly that yeah, that was because he had now got me so he wasn't putting so much effort. And he laughed and replied yeah. My heart squeezed for that moment. Didn't think that felt like a favourable parting shot.
I wasn't going to let the Old Boy toy with me as he pleased.
***
So there, I thought it was double standards on his part when he finally tried to jump the brakes to cut off my display of affection in the care.
I thought the night before, he had given me the cue to continue my old affectionate ways that I have been used to with guys when he proffered his publicly to me.
***
“So you did him to spite me?”
“No, I didn't. I didn't think you care.”
“Yeah right.”
“ Yes, so I didn't think my actions was accountable to anyone or of any consequence with you so I could allow it to happen. If I screw up then, I didn't think the harm was done on anyone but me. It was that simple.”
“Whatever.”
We have had this conversation many a time before shortly after this incident erupted and he would flagrantly decribed how much I have hurt him and broke his heart during those times.
The Old Boy would later confessed he didn't see anyone whilst I was back home. He was true to me.
*****
I don't know anymore.
Faithless.
Pre-emptive worst-case-scenario coping mechanism.
That's what I must have grow accustomed to.
Somewhere along the way, I have lost the plot.
I thought I was the victim. Or am I the victimiser now?
Labels: THE P-oignant Moments
