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I'm not talking about family members or friends, I'm talking about that hot, yet gooey stuff, the passionate lovin' and the holding hands, the heated arguments and the great amount of compromise that covers each and every decision you make, the public displays of affection and the private talks on the telephone late at night, the girlfriendness and the bitchness, the boyfriendness and the jerkness, the good and the bad, the phenomenon known as a relationship.
I'm not sure a lot of people will admit this with me, but in my lifetime, I have had mild to wild crushes on hundreds of people, ranging from celebrities to classmates at school, people I see on the streets and in line queuing for the bus, cartoon characters, friends, friends of friends, friends of family, people at work, people in restaurants and supermarkets, people who I sit next to on the train, people I meet on forums, even a blogger or two...
Now, that doesn't make me sound too good, but I mean, I'm willing to bet good money on the fact that all of you have or have had these crushes on people, and I'm counting the mildest, smallest forms of attraction here. It's in our human nature to bond together, so what's so shameful about admitting it, really? The difference that affects your life unlike other people's is how willing you are to take the extra step to pursue these attractions. I know people who prefer to be alone, people who don't like being alone but are too shy, people who are fine being in a monogamous relationship, people in couples who don't wish to be, some who even venture to have two or more partners at the same time...
Recently, I've come to the conclusion that I may have found somebody I want to take that extra step with. For five or six years now, I've been pushing that idea away, and I haven't really wanted to be with anyone deep in my heart for that long. It's very rare for me. I guess I have trust issues, and issues with not judging people - but I've come to really trust and appreciate this person in particular... I think she's perfect for me. So, here's my opportunity to take that extra step, that chance.
Why not?
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
A few people I've asked this question to told me that the whole dating scene is a quest for stability. They want the undivided attention and commitment, and they want to feel the longevity of a mutual loyalty towards one another. But I still find myself asking why? Why not be loyal to a friend, instead? What is it about a wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend that is different from, say, your best and oldest friends? Are they not as loyal?
To which the people I asked replied by stating that with your friends, they come and go. Whereas with a partner, you will never feel alone and you always know that they're there for you. You're not meant to be that codependent with friends, who have their own lives to lead. I mean, we imagine ourselves spending the later parts of our life with a wife and kids - not a group of five same-sex chums, right? So, I ask them, what about your relatives? Aren't your parents and siblings just as 'constant' as a partner is? Your family are also always there for you. So what makes a wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend any different from, say, your sister, your uncle, or your mother?
Someone answered me by saying that they want to feel be proud of 'working on a relationship'. Establishing a relationship with someone means that you both make suggestions, criticisms, sacrifices, and changes in personality and lifestyle, so as to create something impressive to others, and impressive to ourselves - confirmation of the fact that you can do something in this world, live in a house together and have children, contribute to the national consumerism in your purchases, to the real estate and education industries - while continually helping someone in particular better their life and, in turn, have your own life changed for the better by them. A very good argument, I must say, but I must ask, is that not what we do at school and at work? When we work on individual projects, we make suggestions and criticisms to steer a project in the right direction, we work just as hard, to improve business, and to give back to society. A lot of people can say they love their job. A lot of people can say they feel important in the line of work they do. Just like in a relationship. So what makes a wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend different from your co-worker or your company then?
One of my friends responded by saying that they want erraticity. They want to feel that thrill of a roller-coaster-like experience when dating another person. They want to fall for someone, and they want to 'feel', mutually, 'in love', to feel that rush, that sense of having no boundaries. Sometimes it's not about commitment and stability, it's about surprises, a pair of earrings on the pillow, an unexpected candlelight dinner at home, a new car parked outside with a bow tied on top of it.
I'll admit it - my best friend and my mother would never surprise me with a car, but a future wife might. I cannot think of a logical explanation for why this 'rush' is not really why we go into relationships, other than pointing out the reality that predictability often trumps unpredictability in this world. Those tacky surprises are only seen in romantic comedies and sitcoms and unrealistic. A majority of couples that exist around us are definitely not that exciting - teenage couples just go to the movies and fuck, middle-aged couples just have dinner dates and then they might fuck afterward, and the elderly, well, they just... read the newspaper.
Sure, she may be cute, but why not just get a dog?
He certainly is very, very smart, but why aren't you making a move on your professor?
She 'gets' you, you say? Get a shrink, who can psychoanalyze and understand you better than any girl will.
Yeah, yeah, he's really funny indeed - but, are you saying I'm not funny?
These reasons are superficial, all of the ones I've listed so far. Love is something felt, and not thought about. It's hard to explain why people bother with relationships.
One of my friends suggested that it was animal instinct, an uncontrollable compulsion that ultimately is meant to provide you with a mate with whom you can reproduce and propagate your genes with. Can you imagine using that as your answer when people ask you what makes your partner so great?
"Because I want my genetic material to be passed down to the next generation."
By the way, I've decided to change all the titles of my blog posts here to begin with "On ________". Oftentimes, I'm not quite sure what to call my entries, and I feel that with this new style of appellation, this new idiosyncrasy, it will help me in the art of naming my blog posts.
Today, I want to talk about couples, and not being in a couple, but being around them. Recently, I've become friends with a couple, and I really like how I can just mosey into the girl's room and watch a movie with the two of them. I like having breakfast with them every morning, and just hanging out with them if I don't want to stay in my room by myself.
I like being friends with both individuals of a couple, and over the years, this has often happened. It's nice to hang out with them as friends, to see their sweetness that they probably wouldn't display in front of others, to see how they feed off of each other's humor, their compatibility that you wouldn't have known had you not seen it working in front of your eyes, their synchronicity, their unity, is admirable, and pleasant to observe.
Obviously, I'm not allowed to hang around when they're gettin' busy, or when they're sharing intimate, personal information with one another. But to their command, I walk out of that room without feeling expelled, without feeling banished - it's okay, because I know it's between them. Just like I would expect them to feel if I was with someone.
University is a whole mess of food, drugs, music, sex, relationships, friends and strangers, laughter and tears, kissing and drinking, dancing and groping, randomness, and a little four-letter word, namely Love. It happens rapidly, it happens to just about anyone, it happens everywhere we go, especially in university where all of us have left our homes and our respective high schools, to have a great time, to take hold of the responsibility of taking care of ourselves, and to find what makes us happy - whether it's in terms of our academic interests, the clubs and activities we have a desire to participate in, the careers we have dreamed of all our lives and finally are able to pursue, and of course, the chance to discover like-minded people in an environment that's specifically designed and used for an integrated timetable of education, employment and entertainment, together amongst a diverse deluge of young, passionate, and fun-loving people, from around the world.
Finding like-minded people can be an intricate process for a lot of people. Some people have no problem falling into the arms of another upon meeting them, the fantasy story of love at first sight compels them to simply let loose, float about, and allow the tide of love and life to wash them away wherever the current may bring them.
But for me, it is something of difficulty. It takes a lot of time for me to learn to trust someone. It takes some time for me to get used to people before I can begin to like them. I haven't found someone here after two weeks, but it seems like almost everybody else has paired up already, leaving me the sole soldier on the peripheries of the social circles. I know this is because I am simply not daring enough to take the initiative, to ask people for their names, numbers and perhaps a bit of background.
I wonder all the time, why this has always been the case - why I am not interested in others at first, and I've realized that it is because I like getting the attention first. It makes me self-centered, an attention-seeking kind of guy, and it sort of sucks because I'll never find anyone to be with as long as I retain this problematic attitude.
But I want to be given a chance to be in a relationship with somebody. It has been so long since I have been, and I wonder if it has changed. I love the feeling of devotion, and the pride in being somebody's #1, in being loyal, in being one of a pair, in being ______ and Michael together.
I hate seeing everybody getting Facebook-married, I hate seeing them hold hands, I hate hearing them have sex at night, I hate feeling intrusive and out of place when I'm in the company of a couple.
It's going to take some time for me to readjust my position in social interactions, but I've got to make myself a more approachable and gutsy man before I can be deemed dateable. I've got to stop being so self-involved, if I ever am going to get that chance of experiencing falling in love with someone successfully again.
Exams are coming up and I need to study hard, with as few distractions as possible. Of course, these diversions aren't limited to blogging, but by taking a break from blogger, I know it'll contribute a little to my focusing on my revision.
I feel quite confident about what I will do in the next month. I'm never one that worries too much about that sort of thing.
The only thing that will really distract me is thinking about my relationships with people. All I've got to do is keep that to a minimum, push those thoughts aside until high school really is over.
I can't wait to leave Hong Kong, but to be honest, I want these last few months to drag out for as long as possible. I am really going to miss the food, and the beaches here, but most important of all, the people.
This is exactly the kind of thing that will distract me for hours.
So, I'm going to end this post here, shut down my computer, take out my maths book, and revise.
I'll be back for a little while everyday, but only for a little while. See you on May 19th or 20th and pray that I get what I deserve. (Don't wish me luck. When the examination paper asks me to explain Faraday's law of induction, I don't want to rely on luck, because I'm not that lucky.)
Bye, friends. Talk to you next time.
Here's a poem I wrote three years ago. Now that I've grown up a bit and have studied a fair bit of poetry at school and in my own time, I now know that the masterpieces I thought I had written were, in actual fact, crap. This is because I always had this problem of thinking everything had to rhyme. But anyway, I wrote this one after I got rejected by someone I had unrealistic feelings for. Oh, stupid teenage angst...
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You're the one I saw.
You're the one I met.
You're the one I laughed at.
You're the one I kept.
You're the one I talked to.
You're the one I laughed with.
You're the one I sat next to.
You're the one I ate with.
You're the one I walked beside.
You're the one I played with.
You're the one I really liked. You're the one I studied with.
You're the one I read to. You're the one I wrote to.
You're the one I trusted.
You're the one I listened to.
You're the one I texted.
You're the one I cared about.
You're the one I needed.
You're the one I wanted
You're the one I fell for.
And you're the one I loved.
You're the one that made me happy.
You're the one that made me believe. You're the one that made me excited.
You're the one that made me leap.
You're the one that made me take a risk. You're the one that made me confess.
You're the one that made me regretful. You're the one that left me clueless.
You're the one that made me sorry.
You're the one that made me sad.
You're the one that made me lonely.
You're the one that made me mad.
You're the one that made me vengeful.
You're the one that made me lonely.
You're the one that gave me doubts in my mind
if you were the one and only.
You're the one that saw right through me.
You're the one that just noticed. You're the one that heard about me.
You're the one that just got pissed.
You're the one that no longer talked to me.
You're the one that blocked me out.
You're the one that pretended to laugh
while I cried my sorry heart out.
You're the one that walked away.
And you're the one that stopped calling.
You're the one that stopped talking.
You're the one that stopped trying.
Now, you're the one that I see right through.
Now, you're the one that I'm going to leave.
Now, you're the one that I don't care for.
and you're the one that I don't believe.
Now, you're the one that I don't want.
Now, you're the one that I won't laugh with.
Now, you're the one that I won't listen to.
Now, you're the one that I won't put up with.
Now, you're the one that I won't care about. Now, you're the one that I don't care for.
Now, you're the one that I'm so sick of.
Now, you're the one that I must ignore.
I'm tired of stressing out every night
after each silence and every fight.
I'm sick of you being The One in all of the above.
It's over, I give up, you've lost my love.
Argentum Vulgaris gave me an award (here), and I proudly present it to you on the right sidebar. I actually like the, uh, rules of this award because I can already feel, at this stage of the post, that I will be able to finally blog properly again. What I mean by the word 'properly' is complicated, but I think I'm implying that I will be able to display some honesty again, like back in the day when I used to do that more often, instead of going out to get drunk before every post, before posting pictures and videos.
Oh, but whatever. I must first accept the honor, so thank you, AV. Then I must list five people who I believe deserve to receive this award, share ten facts about myself and then provide a meaningful quotation. So here it goes:
If you receive the award, please copy and paste the image and incorporate it somewhere in your blog.
I want to bend the rules a bit. I want to give awards to five people who I think already have a lot of recognition and deserve to carry an extra badge on their blog. I also want to give awards to five other blogs that I just don't think get read enough, but I consider awesome, and really enjoy. So ten altogether, aren't I generous?
The Famous:
- Mike at 365 Sonnets
- Alan at Laid Back Think Tank
- hrix at moonless night
- A struggling writer at My Writers Blog
- The Short Stick at The Patsy Log
The Awesome:
- gaf85
- J.J. at The World according to J.J. in L.A.
- Randa at 365 Days
- AV at Nether Region of the Earth
- My dear friend, Sarah, at Swing Life Away
My ten facts (here is the honesty I mentioned):
- I grew up in Hong Kong, I've lived my whole life here. Even though I know it so well, even though I love this place, even though it will break my heart to leave, once I depart from Hong Kong, I've decided that I will never, ever come back.
- I actually don't have a 'happiest' memory. I have problems being happy, in that I've never experienced a happiness that didn't have a catch, that was without conditions.
- I lose my appetite and I can't sleep whenever I get majorly depressed. There was one point in my life where I went for four days without any food or rest. I got really sick, not to mention I was utterly miserable throughout.
- I've only ever fallen in love hard for one person - a boy, by the way, who was straight.
- When it comes to games, I love Pokémon and Neopets more than anyone will ever comprehend. On my Xbox, I play Burnout, Halo and FIFA. On my NDS, I play Bomberman, Mario Kart, Frogger, Harvest Moon and Final Fantasy Tactics. I play word games like Text Twist and Boggle. I also play online poker and mahjong with my family.
- In the past five months, I have watched 304 Friends episodes. Since it began airing in 1993, the count is probably in the thousands. I love the show and will continue rewatching it for many years to come.
- I lie a helluva lot.
- I don't love either of my parents, although, I care about my mother and thank her for everything she's given me.
- If I could be anywhere in the world, I would be lying on a sunny beach in the Caribbean.
- In the past six years, I have had crushes/feelings for 195 people, at various extents, in many different ways. Even though it seems like I hate the world, and cannot even find it in myself to love my parents, this tenth fact about me tells you that I, at least, want to like people. I, like many others, am in a search for love.
My quotation:
"If tequila was water, and I was a duck, I would swim to the bottom, and never come up, but tequila isn't water, and I'm not a duck, so give me the bottle, and shut the fuck up."
It's been a very, very long year, to say the least. This is the first time I'm doing one of these reflections, so I hope it helps in bringing me closure, so that the new year can be approached with another year of life experience to support me. How should I format this?... Hmm... Oh, I know! I'll just make a list of all the major events and talk a bit about each of them. (The last one is the most relevant to you guys. :D)
(Jun) Father got divorced again: He tells me my stepmother cheated on him with another man. Not just any man. A 63-year-old man. And I believe him, but I think that if Dominique and their other two girls appear to be fine, then my stepmother and the old guy are fine. Why does my father have to exaggerate everything, I don't know. I agree with him and sympathize for him to an extent, but the fact is: he was the less committed one. I'm a lot like him to be honest... especially in relationships. Over-confident when we really don't have a damn clue. I think I'm working at it. I don't see that in him. All in all, he's an ex-husband twice for good reason.
(Jul) Stopped talking to my dad: Nobody else will understand my perspective of things, that's a given. But let me just tell you: if there's anybody I hate more, it's people that are narrow-minded, unforgiving, who fail to look at things in other people's perspective, who don't even try for a second to walk in another person's shoes. That is all I ever do with my life, every, single, fucking, second, of, every, single, fucking, day. My father is radically different in this aspect and I hate the way he is so arrogant about everything. I look at him and I see the smoking, the drinking, the two divorces, the negligence toward his three other children, the prostitutes in Shenzhen, the lousy dead-end job of a private investigator, his knucklehead friends, especially her (who he's exploiting at the moment), the pervy uncle, the grandmother who always fed him what he wanted, the spoiled brat inside of him that never grew up from over thirty years ago, and at the time, before July, I didn't give a shit about any of that. And it's a testament to how much I know about him, the dreadful, honest truth about him. What does he know about me? Nothing.
Next year, all he will know is that I went to holiday this winter, because he needs to give my mother permission to bring me out of Hong Kong. He will also know which country I'm going to next year for university, only because my mother will tell him. When I grow up, he will know what I do for a living, but only vaguely, only a little bit, only because my mother will tell him. That is all he will know because he never cared to get to know me or the details of my personal and academic life, that as a student and a teenager, are very, very, very important to me.
I am not going to be all melodramatic and say I won't visit his deathbed, go to his funeral or visit his grave. But when those occasions come to pass, all father-and-son sentiments will be lost. There's no space available for me to forgive. My mind does not have the capacity to and my heart is not functioned to forgive a father who does not care to hear about his son's 'lifeless' day. I have been through more than any of my family really knows. This isn't a contest to see who's been through the most, but he should stop boasting and pretending to know everything that I don't. Piece of shit father.
(Jul) The last outing I had with Dad: I went to the beach I grew up on with my father, my grandmother, my uncle, my cousin, my two stepsisters (all on my dad's side, of course) and one of their friends. We had this killer mashed potatoes with tuna and raisins that serves as one of my grandmother's signature dishes. Filipinos know how to make the best comfort food in Asia... We were at the infamous Pui O beach, the word Pui (貝), meaning 'shellfish'. Buried under the sand are hundreds of clams. I had a fun time swimming with my stepsisters. I had a fun time barbecuing with my dad like we used to when I was a kid. When I was out there in the ocean, I dived down and managed to find a clam the size of my hand (around 15cm in diameter). My dad soaked it in beer to wash out the sand and placed it on the fire. I ate it and let me tell you, big doesn't necessarily mean tasty. ;)
It was a good trip, a good final trip before I vowed to ignore him and avoid him at all costs. Why he had to ruin that week is beyond me. His impatience got the better of him and will serve him well.
(Feb) Fell in love for five days: I fell so deep and so fast. I was so darn lonely, to the point where I just didn't care about anything else. They were like another family, to add on to my list containing six or seven other families. I took a leap there, and they caught me, they let me know that life was okay, is okay and will always be okay. Sisters, brothers, father and uncle. Oh, Michael, you're so pathetic.
'Cause the shame in these five days is that they came all the way from Oman. They were only here for a week but I was totally immersed into their group of friends. I will always have a special place in my heart for them but I think that's very useless now. It was there for five days, and now it's gone.
(Dec) Came to a decision: I have found a solution to the problem at school I've been having for a year now. It's time for a change and the new year will bring on a good one. It's been a long, treacherous journey with these people. They've pissed me off more times than I can count and I'm sure I have gotten on their nerve many times as well. I will never forget any of the good times, but hey, there weren't that many to begin with, and they weren't that good at all.
(May) Birthday: My birthday always happens when other things are happening. It was quite a lot of fun going out that night after the Graduation Ball, but again, I drank alone, I danced alone, I went home alone. Why is it so hard to find somebody? Why is it that the four of them stuck together? Why is it that they were a couple? Why do they go home? Where does it ever leave me?
No, that's not the right way to think about it. It's precisely about me on my birthday if I am willing to believe it to be. Besides, I have made a decision to stop caring about them. I had fun on my birthday, and it was a considerably good one when compared to my birthdays in previous years. I won't forget it and next year will be even better.
(Sep) Mid-Autumn Festival: I've never been to the beach on that night. I had no idea that loads of people actually did that. It was good, though. And I got the chance to see her, so it was nice. The moon created this mysteriousness amongst us. I wonder if we would ever find ourselves in that same spot again.
God, why do I always think I'm alone? People will always tell me, no, you're not alone, but heyheyhey. I really am by the end of the night. I think I have to make peace with the fact that I will be more alone in the next few months. Yikes.
(July) Family trip to Toronto: Now, this was a really good time. A time that I pretty much forgot about until I looked at a calender to remind myself about what I was doing in those blank two weeks in my head. I went to Toronto with my whole family (save my mother and my aunt). We went to eat crazy-good steak, and to see all the attractions that I could now look at in another, more mature, light. I love Toronto. I will live there at some point in my life. And although I can't say I love time with my family, at least they never, ever make me feel alone.
(Jun) Last week of school: I had to stage manage a concert, as well as perform in a lead role of the senior play. To be honest, I stage managed better the previous time. This time, I was breaking down, I didn't care about these people and I couldn't do my job because I let these people get to me. Not all of them were bad. I don't want to say it goes to show how tired I've gotten of them. I think it's just me again. Pathetic, emotional me.
For the school play, these people were cool. Actors are nice people. Never really bothered me much. Oh, how could I forget about him though. He was a pain up my ass. Oh, but at least the lot of them were sitting in the audience, far, far away. The show went quite well and everybody clapped for Andrew, Bea and Chas. I want to do more professional stuff, though. The stuff I had in my old school, as opposed to this mini-production. Oh, the life I could've led... It's my own fault for bringing that upon myself.
(Aug) Cheung Chau: Here in Hong Kong (I start an awful lot of my paragraphs like this, don't I?), during the holidays, a lot of young people like to rent a house on one of the outlying islands for a few days to enjoy life outside the city for a change. We can go biking, go to the beach, eat lots of junk food and even bring our laptops, our Playstations and even our electric guitars to the house to just relax and be lazy (or in my social group's case, work and study :P).
This year, five people came to my house thing that I rented. Last year, twelve people came, so I was a little let down. I was happy that the four 'right' people came to accompany me. Especially the couple. Both of them lightened up my time there... It wasn't all smiles, but I was content. However...
(Aug) Loneliest I've ever felt: It was a strange night that night. They were asleep in the room and I didn't want to wake them (well, I did. And I texted them). I stepped outside, went biking for a while, bought a drink at the store at two in the morning, but gosh, the emptiness inside of me felt so strong, it was unbelievable. I sat on the beach, frantically, desperately trying to call everyone I could. Nobody would pick up their phones. I had no computer to go online. I was overwhelmingly sad and it was cold and it was dark and the beach was empty.
The beach is a place I usually go to sit and think about life. Beaches have always been comfortable for me. I find it nice when there is sand in my shoe, caught between my toes. I like the feel of my jeans drenched in seawater. I can have a good night's sleep on the sand, falling asleep and waking up to the sound of the waves. For some reason, that night just did not work for me. I was restless, lonely and miserable. I cried that night very, very hard. It brought back thoughts of my suicidal incident four years ago. It brought back memories of all the pain I ever experienced with either parent, with my friends, with my heart that's fallen in love so many times, so deeply and so wrongly. I just wished that someone was there so badly.
But I was considerate enough not to bother the couple. They had enough on their minds at the time. It came at the cost. How big of a cost am I, really?
(Oct) Started blogging: I didn't believe that blogging was therapeutic. I didn't think that I could entertain people, or that I could touch people's hearts with my writing. I just thought it was a leisure activity, where angry, depressed and/or talkative people would bail their hearts out and talk about the most insignificant things. I don't know why I felt this way, because normally, I'm usually a person that's very open to new experiences. But, in a rush of emotion one night, just because I was bored, I created Do you hate it too? and wow, I had no idea that people from the States, from Brazil, from the UK, from everywhere, could be so welcoming, and could give a damn about what I had to say.
I used to be mightily unhappy around my friends and family. They would piss me off to no ends. But if there's something I must thank them for, it's for doing exactly that. Driving the living Hell out of me with their annoyances so that I could start my blog and enter a whole new realm of socialization. I cannot express how grateful I am to all my followers and all the people who have such fantastic, inspirational, equally and differently opinionated blogs for me to read. Blogging is still not therapeutic (in fact, it gets stressful at times trying to come up with topics), but I think I can be confident in saying that it has brightened up my mood and cheered me up after a year that has been so eventful, stressful, troublesome, miserable and lonely. You are all like family, and I cannot wait to grow up, travel the world and meet all of you in person perhaps, visit the places you mention in your blogs, meet the people you talk about in your entries. Blogging is the biggest and the best part of my 2008.
*update: I forgot about the Presidential Elections,the Olympics and other big news. Goes to show how self-centred Iam...*
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