Will my friends ever stop amazing me? going by the recent trend, the answer is "not for a very long time". i just met up with another secondary school friend today, and despite meeting up less than 5 times in the past 10 years since graduating secondary school (not including the times when we bumped into each other with no prior planning), we managed to have a pretty nice, deep conversation. i told him the whole relationship issue, and right off the bat, he guessed that "person" was a player. was i blind, blind, or just ridiculously BLIND!!?? although it sounds like i'm beating myself up over it, i'm really not. it's just to reinforce the message and kind of make light of the situation. i totally don't blame myself any more. anyways, this friend also shared some of his relationship experience with me, and my take-home messages were: (1) i'm still young, plenty of fish in the sea etc etc, (2) looks aren't everything, though they do matter somewhat, (3) find someone more mature/emotionally stable, (4) better that i start the whole dating business now than never start at all. stuff i'd heard before, but it's always good to know that people agree with your overall assessment.
i mentioned that i was due to meet "person" and "advisor" in the last post. that meeting was yesterday, and there was no violence, so that's a small victory. i kind of called "person" out on being a player, but it was denied on grounds of ignorance. whatever. "person" did admit that more could have been done sooner to clear things up with "competition", so that was nice. after the hour-long talk, our current agreement is that we are "just friends", and the potential for more-than-friends is all but gone. no major loss to me. as i mentioned during our talk, we're not that good friends to the extent that we'd miss each other if we cut off all contact. in fact, cutting off all contact would have barely any impact on our respective lives. so there's that. by right, just friends. by left, we'll probably never cross paths beyond a simple hi-bye thing, and even that is doubtful.
as for "advisor", things are a little trickier. although i see the 义气 violation as something serious, "advisor" does not, because apparently, there is nothing going on with "person"...yet. the thing i kind of really felt irritated with was that "advisor" kept using words like "yet", "for now", "at the moment" etc to leave space for a possible relationship with "person". i don't exactly have the right to be angry, but i thought it was a bit too soon. then again, maybe being played by "person" will be the best way for "advisor" to learn. or if "person" grows up in record time and they end up happily together, power to them. i can't bring myself to care too much any more. after all, i'm supposed to remove myself from dramatic situations.
by some weird coincidence, my chemical engineer cousin blogged about how a health scare involving her husband made her think about her priorities and put them in perspective. that was one thing i wanted to discuss in this post, as well...though my thing is on a much less serious level. so today, while reversing down (up?) the road to park in my secret spot, i accidentally went too close to the kerb and scratched the side of the car's rear passenger-side mudguard. at least that's what i think it's called. of course, there was the reflex heart pain, and i was quite annoyed with myself. but, my philosophy has always been function over form. since it's more of a cosmetic thing than anything performance-related, i think i'll get over it soon. then, after meeting the aforementioned friend, i went back to the car to find that i had received a summons for parking along a continuous white line. at the time when i parked, the secret spot was crowded, so i didn't have a choice. the summons was timed an hour before i went back, so i probably wouldn't have caught it in time either way. neither did i think about going up to move the car, so i can't really say that i wished that i'd listened to myself...although i do wish that i'd at least thought of it. a quick google search says that that offence is worth a $70 fine and no demerits, which i can swallow with the tiniest bit of difficulty. the difficulty exists because it's unnecessary expenditure, which sucks either way.
so what's the link to perspective? well, as i was driving home, i saw that 2 cars were involved in an accident at the junction of upper thomson road and marymount lane. wasn't serious enough to be life-threatening, but was serious enough that at least one car's bumper totally came off, and a couple of police cars were activated. based on what i saw as i drove by, i think that either one or both of the drivers will not have access to their car(s) for about a week. that loss of convenience, plus the financial burden on the poor person whose insurance is about to be claimed, combine to make a $70 fine and a scratched mudguard seem like nothing at all. so perhaps worse things could have happened.
i'll admit that i'm still annoyed with myself, because both those things were preventable, and indeed would have been prevented had i been more careful. but at the same time, i'm realizing that these are small things which i have to take in stride. at the end of the day, they're way closer to the best-case scenario (nothing happening) than the worst-cases of car being damaged beyond repair and license revocation for mudguard and summons respectively. i can learn to live with it. as i've told myself in hopes of self-comfort/delusion, scratches give a car character. kind of like scars on people/animals, it shows that the car has been through tough times and emerged stronger. now that i've typed it out, i'm starting to see gaping holes in the analogy (a major one being that unlike people, cars have no control over their circumstances, so they're screwed if they have a lousy driver). but well. i'll choose to continue believing it. nothing like a good dose of self-deceit to take the heart pain away. and i don't mean heart pain in the relationship sense here. seriously. just saying.
i mentioned that i was due to meet "person" and "advisor" in the last post. that meeting was yesterday, and there was no violence, so that's a small victory. i kind of called "person" out on being a player, but it was denied on grounds of ignorance. whatever. "person" did admit that more could have been done sooner to clear things up with "competition", so that was nice. after the hour-long talk, our current agreement is that we are "just friends", and the potential for more-than-friends is all but gone. no major loss to me. as i mentioned during our talk, we're not that good friends to the extent that we'd miss each other if we cut off all contact. in fact, cutting off all contact would have barely any impact on our respective lives. so there's that. by right, just friends. by left, we'll probably never cross paths beyond a simple hi-bye thing, and even that is doubtful.
as for "advisor", things are a little trickier. although i see the 义气 violation as something serious, "advisor" does not, because apparently, there is nothing going on with "person"...yet. the thing i kind of really felt irritated with was that "advisor" kept using words like "yet", "for now", "at the moment" etc to leave space for a possible relationship with "person". i don't exactly have the right to be angry, but i thought it was a bit too soon. then again, maybe being played by "person" will be the best way for "advisor" to learn. or if "person" grows up in record time and they end up happily together, power to them. i can't bring myself to care too much any more. after all, i'm supposed to remove myself from dramatic situations.
by some weird coincidence, my chemical engineer cousin blogged about how a health scare involving her husband made her think about her priorities and put them in perspective. that was one thing i wanted to discuss in this post, as well...though my thing is on a much less serious level. so today, while reversing down (up?) the road to park in my secret spot, i accidentally went too close to the kerb and scratched the side of the car's rear passenger-side mudguard. at least that's what i think it's called. of course, there was the reflex heart pain, and i was quite annoyed with myself. but, my philosophy has always been function over form. since it's more of a cosmetic thing than anything performance-related, i think i'll get over it soon. then, after meeting the aforementioned friend, i went back to the car to find that i had received a summons for parking along a continuous white line. at the time when i parked, the secret spot was crowded, so i didn't have a choice. the summons was timed an hour before i went back, so i probably wouldn't have caught it in time either way. neither did i think about going up to move the car, so i can't really say that i wished that i'd listened to myself...although i do wish that i'd at least thought of it. a quick google search says that that offence is worth a $70 fine and no demerits, which i can swallow with the tiniest bit of difficulty. the difficulty exists because it's unnecessary expenditure, which sucks either way.
so what's the link to perspective? well, as i was driving home, i saw that 2 cars were involved in an accident at the junction of upper thomson road and marymount lane. wasn't serious enough to be life-threatening, but was serious enough that at least one car's bumper totally came off, and a couple of police cars were activated. based on what i saw as i drove by, i think that either one or both of the drivers will not have access to their car(s) for about a week. that loss of convenience, plus the financial burden on the poor person whose insurance is about to be claimed, combine to make a $70 fine and a scratched mudguard seem like nothing at all. so perhaps worse things could have happened.
i'll admit that i'm still annoyed with myself, because both those things were preventable, and indeed would have been prevented had i been more careful. but at the same time, i'm realizing that these are small things which i have to take in stride. at the end of the day, they're way closer to the best-case scenario (nothing happening) than the worst-cases of car being damaged beyond repair and license revocation for mudguard and summons respectively. i can learn to live with it. as i've told myself in hopes of self-comfort/delusion, scratches give a car character. kind of like scars on people/animals, it shows that the car has been through tough times and emerged stronger. now that i've typed it out, i'm starting to see gaping holes in the analogy (a major one being that unlike people, cars have no control over their circumstances, so they're screwed if they have a lousy driver). but well. i'll choose to continue believing it. nothing like a good dose of self-deceit to take the heart pain away. and i don't mean heart pain in the relationship sense here. seriously. just saying.
-random thought of the day: Another slack week ahead!-
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