Dating is such a chore. you have to find a person, chat them up, maybe exchange pictures, make sure that you haven't scared them off...and all this is even before a face-to-face meet! then, if something goes wrong at any of the previous stages, it's just rinse and repeat. and even after a first date, there's no guarantee that things will work out on the second date, or third date. sure, you might tell me to approach people in real life. for reasons that i'd rather not go into at this point of time, i'm going to just shut that route down. more than once, i've asked myself, " is it worth the hassle?"...and at this point in time, i honestly don't know. i guess when i'm in a relationship, stupid lovestruck me would most probably say yes. but now, scientist me retains a healthy dose of skepticism.

even that isn't the worst part of dating. the worst part to me is the rejection. it's all fine and well when someone goes, "sorry, you're not my type". i can swallow that in a pinch. what really sucks is when people just leave you hanging. come on, man. at least have the decency to make a clean break. still, i've said it before...rejection builds character. while i know that it'll be good for me in the long run, that doesn't mean i have to like/enjoy the process. kind of like working out. when you're half-dead going through sets of whatever exercise the crazy trainers thought of, probably the last thought to run through your head would be, 'oh wow! i'm having such a great time!' but back to the point. rejection sucks. or more accurately, the feeling of rejection sucks. sometimes it's ok, because you intuitively know that you wouldn't want to spend too long a time with that person anyway. sometimes it's a bit more difficult, because that person may be extremely attractive (yes, superficial me still exists), or you both hit it off well initially. sometimes, it's like "damn! i'm missing out on something good here!". but it's not clearance sale at the market. the something good may not want me back. i guess i just have to constantly remind myself that it's for the better that i quickly dissociate from such people, no matter how good they look or whatever else i find desirable about them. if they're not interested in me, holding on will only do me harm. i just wish i could put theory to practice that easily.

after experiencing so many rejections, the scientist part of me wants to figure out why. the answer's pretty simple - physical appearance. although i'm working on it, change doesn't happen overnight. should i wait for the amazing transformation to take place first, or should i try my luck now? although it's more difficult, i think that the potential dates who accept me for me now are the ones with whom i'd want to spend my life. something like my close friends now, though i don't feel romantically for any of them, as they don't for me (i think). will the extra heartache be worth it? once again, i don't know. do i want to find out? i don't know either.

been spending way more than expected this past week. once again, nothing i can't handle, but it's kind of...demoralizing? i don't know what adjective to use. part of the spending was to replace my faulty keyboard. still getting used to it, and i'm making a lot of typos. the biggest issue is the enter key. my previous one was shaped like a mirror-image letter L, which matched the return symbol. this one is the top-heavy version, ie a 180 degree-rotated L. i'll get used to it in time...just a minor annoyance. despite wishing for one, i didn't get a mechanical keyboard. the only ones challenger had were from razer, and i don't QUITE like/trust that brand. plus they were mad expensive. well, maybe december. if things go according to plan, i may do a pretty big computer upgrade, including a new monitor (my secondary one has a line of dead pixels 2/3 up across the screen), new mouse (scroll wheel click died), casing (about half of the USB ports are dead), SSD (running out of space) and maybe if budget allows, i'll get a mechanical keyboard from funan, which should have a wider selection. this one can become my spare. i realize that i don't have that many spare parts, resulting in having to borrow from my friends when i have to troubleshoot. but we'll see.

guess i should head off to bed. been slightly slack with my routine last week, have to tighten up and keep working at it. if anything, rejections should be motivation, right?

-random thought of the day: Hold on.-

You may recall this from a few previous posts...i usually have the car's help in ascertaining a person's character. like, if the person treats the car badly, or if the car behaves oddly while a person is in it, it's a sign to me. the car seemed ok with the ex-date, but something else happened which made me a little annoyed. remember how i said we met at the botanic gardens? well, i had trouble locating them that night, so i stopped by the roadside to call and arrange a location. we eventually found each other, of course. the thing i didn't realize at that time was that i had stopped at a no stopping zone. worse still, it was caught on CCTV. i received a bomb in the mail, amounting to a $120 fine and 3 demerits. nothing i can't handle on my own. as my friend told me before, any problem that can be solved with money isn't really a problem. the demerits are a little more annoying, though. there goes the perfect record. but well...i suppose they'll resolve themselves in time. demerits are erased after a one-year clean streak. that should be manageable for me.

last update was almost a week ago. things have gotten better in the past week, as in it hurts less. been finding ways to occupy myself, with lab and meeting with friends, mainly. there's been a tiny bit of progress with synthesis, so i'm grateful. i'm also settling into a daily routine. wake up by 6:30am, head to ritual for the 8:30am session (have to go early to beat the ERP and warm up), then shower and go to school, reaching by 10:00am to start lab work. i could really get used to this.

ritual has also been another source of positive distraction. i mean, other people don't really come to mind when you're sweating like a dog and trying to keep up with the routine. it's probably a bit too early to say this, but i feel that there's been some improvement. not sure how much of it is actual vs psychological, actually. i suppose there's some evidence, like i'm moving to heavier weights for some exercises, and more advanced versions of other exercises. so that's good. i'm also making better food choices, so that's another plus. unfortunately, results don't come overnight. have to judge based on long-term progress. guess my first check-in will be at the end of the year.

also, in the spirit of finding a tree in the forest, i'm putting myself out there again. it's not exactly easy...in fact, it reminds me a lot of cold-calling. but well...like one of the cat high old boys said, it's good to experience rejection now and then, so we don't become afraid of it. so far it's been a bit intimidating, but i guess i have the sense to screen the people i plan to approach, which makes it a little better.

right...i guess that's it for now? looks like i got to watch my spending a bit to accommodate the fine. and somehow, might be because of the traffic offence thing, or some other reason, but this person isn't looking so shiny any more. i wonder.

-random thought of the day: This too, will pass.-

Loss is bound to affect us in a negative way. the only difference is the magnitude of the negativity, i guess. what did i lose, you ask? my date. they didn't die or anything...just that we're not dating any more. i have pretty mixed feelings about this whole thing, and as you may be guessing, they're mostly negative. i suppose that i should recap events leading to the bomb.

i think the last you heard was that we had a date on national day, to watch the fireworks. that date ended on a rather unromantic note, with them telling me that they were having doubts, and maybe shouldn't have agreed to start dating. on monday, which was a holiday as well, i went to scary's house to play mahjong. of course, i told them about it. they didn't seem too happy, which made me think that there might be some deep-seated issues relating to gambling. didn't think too much of it at that time, but as the week progressed, they became so much more distant. they'd earlier mentioned that work was hectic, so i chalked it up to fatigue. at the back of my mind, though, the following thought persisted. no matter how tired you are, i'm sure you can spare like 2 minutes here and there in the day to check in with the person you care about, right? i know i would. but still, it messed with my head quite severely, to the point where i gave up any idea of serious lab work on friday.

sunday rolled along, and we were scheduled for a date. or i was, at least. i met them at citylink mall, and we walked to marina square. the first sign that something was off was that they were reluctant to maintain physical contact. we ate at this burger place in the basement. pretty good, though i felt that it was a tiny bit pricey. after that, we went to the open rooftop-type thing, which was finally accessible now that most of the renovations have been finished. i think i was more or less expecting something bad by then. so, in an unusually tactful move, i eased into things by bringing up mahjong. they said they were ok with me gambling, though it would probably result in net loss. then came the actual question..."so what is it that's been bugging you?". and that's when the bomb dropped. they said that they didn't think i was the one for them, because they were more fixated on the fireworks than on me that night. also, the feeling was wrong to them, and i felt more like a friend. they then followed up with an offer - let's take things slow, start off as friends first, and see if feelings develop along the way.

to be quite honest, it was better than my worst-case scenario, which involved an ugly scene, me in tears, and no hope of ever contacting them again. even then, it hurt, and still hurts. i thought that we had something good going on, but it turns out that it wasn't so. well...you can't force feelings. i guess all i can do is continue interacting with them, improving myself, and hoping that it'll feel right soon enough. at the same time, i should probably also not give up the entire forest for a single tree. problem is, i have to find the damned forest first.

before the date that wasn't really a date, i was feeling sufficiently screwed up, to the point where scary noticed something was wrong when she whatsapped me. how that woman deduced something was wrong from like 2 messages still baffles me. anyway, i met her on friday night, where she basically told me to give up on this person. she asked me 2 major questions: first, am i looking for someone, or anyone? second, how close is this person to my ideal person? for the first question, there is a difference, actually. i would really like to settle down with someone. but will anyone do? or am i waiting for the one? finding my soulmate/THE one would be nice, for something more intimate, both physically and emotionally. that's something that my friends, no matter how good they are, cannot provide. the second question made me compare this person to the image of the ideal person in my mind. not sure if my standards are low, or if that person's really that good, but i think there was a like...80% match. so i guess the next question is, do i settle for 80%, or keep searching for my 100%? granted, nobody's perfect, so i guess 95% will suffice. even that is some distance from 80%.

even more interestingly, both scary and another friend in the financial industry warned me of the same thing - that that person might be leading me on in hopes of "digging" me. no, it's nothing M-18. "digging" is used here as in "gold-digging". i can see why they're worried. person has told me that their current income is less than mine, and at the risk of sounding boastful, there's a good chance that my income will go up even more after i get my degree. plus i already have a car, so free rides at all odd hours are a possibility. i'm 50-50 on this. i mean, i'd send my friends home, so even if person and i are officially considered "just friends", it's something that i would still do. in the short span of time that we dated, our expenditure averaged out to about us going dutch, so that's fine and well. while i don't want to think too badly of this person, it COULD be that they're holding out in hopes that i'll become desperate, and that's when they know they've landed a big fish. it's like a 5% chance to me, so i'm not too worried there. but at the same time, i guess it's a good warning to keep at the back of my mind.

in retrospect, i guess we really did progress too fast. who the hell agrees to start dating on the first meet-up? us, that's who. seems to me now that the initial enthusiasm was built on attraction and just finding someone else who wouldn't mind to be with you. i guess we really have to get to know each other, since we share very few common topics. for instance, they like gaming on their phone, which i find to be too troublesome due to the small screen and weird controls. they don't do sports of any sort, so that's a no-no too. perhaps i should invite them to watch a judo competition? aside from that, our jobs are vastly different, and we kind of have different priorities. while all that doesn't exactly sound like a recipe for relationship success, if both of us are willing to give it a try, i suppose we might be able to make things work, or at least come to some sort of compromise. that's IF we agree to give it a try. at this point, i'm still willing, but them...not so much. well, all i can do is treat them like a normal friend, only perhaps message/call them a bit more than with my regular friends. i hope that over the days/weeks/months (hopefully not years), they'll see me for who i am, and like it. likewise for me to them.

analyzing the situation from a scientific/statistical point of view, let's say there are 500 potential soulmates in my life. that is to say, there are 500 "perfect" people with whom i'll be able to work out a lifelong relationship. given the number of people in the world (or just in singapore) today, how much filtering do i have to do to hit the jackpot? and what's worse - what are the odds that the very first person i date will turn out to be one of the 500? i'll tell you...close to zero. not impossible, but really really ridiculously difficult. does i mean that this person can't be the one? no, just that the odds aren't in favour of that possibility.

right now, i'm still feeling rather down. it's expected, but being expected doesn't make it any easier. i've been feeling tears in my eyes for most of the day, but i don't think i'm upset enough to cry. or i hope i'm not, at any rate. i'm also insanely thankful for my friends, who have once again been there for me when i needed them. it's amazing, you know? i really should be more appreciative of them.

well, i guess it just leaves me to end this post and head home, after i filter a product. most things are out of my control now. all i can do is be a friend to that person and pray that it's reciprocated in kind. perhaps, a good way to end this post would be to quote the blue lantern oath. "look to the skies, for hope burns bright!".

-random thought of the day: Not defeated yet.-

Balance is vital in all aspects of life. and being a libra, the sign of which is a giant set of scales, balance is naturally something i treasure quite a lot. it's been a bit tricky to achieve balance in my life recently, which might explain why i'm feeling a little out-of-sorts right now.

first things first, let me apologize for not blogging in something like 3 weeks. it's the longest hiatus in recent memory, and probably the second-longest one ever, only losing out to those taken during army time. somehow, blogging got neglected as i tried to reach a new equilibrium. and my desktop keyboard is misbehaving, so there's further disincentive to blog. incidentally, this blog has been around for 12 years now, since end-july 2003. that's a full chinese zodiac cycle! scale reference: there are primary school-aged kids on earth who are younger than my blog. well, I am getting old, so it's to be expected, i guess.

research has taken a bit of a hit, in the sense that i couldn't separate my reaction mixture cleanly. So now, i'm changing strategy to simplify the structure of the final compound by symmetrizing it. With luck, things will look up in a couple of weeks. there have been some occasions this past month where i've gone into lab and suddenly felt like not doing anything at all. might be due to progress not being as fast as i'd like. yet, it's kind of a trap. if slow progress makes me feel demotivated, i'll get even less work done, feel worse as a consequence, and repeat. hopefully now that summer break has ended, the back-to-school spirit will get to me and i'll find my second wind.

the biggest (in my view) piece of news in recent weeks is that i'm kind of seeing someone. we "met" online a while ago, struck up a conversation, and in what i consider a move of extreme trust, that person gave me their phone number. our chats then migrated to whatsapp, and we even had voice calls. got to love unlimited internet over wifi, especially since our record was 5 hours. there was a bit of a rough spot a couple of mondays ago (which i'll elaborate on later; it's quite important for context), but it catalyzed our first meeting/unofficial date. since then, we've been on 2 more dates, and at present, things are looking shaky, which worries me to no small extent.

perhaps i should give some background information first. this person has admitted it - they're rather superficial. and i'm the first person they're dating who doesn't conform to their ideal/preferred body type. the disagreement on that monday was kind of related to that, in the sense that i guess i never explicitly said that i wasn't built like a swimmer. so there may have been some assumptions on their part. i don't know who's to blame - them for assuming, or me for not clarifying in the first place. i honestly thought it was a passing remark. but anyway, things somehow fell (or got pushed) into place, and we met on that thursday. i treated it more like a confrontation...you know, here i am, take me for me or leave it. you see why i didn't get much work done in lab that week...i was too busy stressing over the meeting! to my utter shock (and later happiness), that person had earlier decided to give it a shot, and treated it as a date. i guess it'll be one of those things i'll always remember...walking with that person in the botanic gardens that night, and sitting down beside each other to talk. it felt nice.

since then, we've been on a couple more dates. over the long weekend, we went to buona vista and sentosa boardwalk on friday (i had to do some stuff in lab, and person stays in bukit batok - reasonably close by), followed by marina barrage on sunday to watch the fireworks. of course we've still been chatting and checking in on each other via whatsapp throughout the day as we go about our routine - them at work, me in lab, which is kind of nice. thing is...it feels like the (remarkably short-lived) honeymoon period is ending/over. like, their messages are less playful, more down-to-earth, and are starting to sound a bit more like obligatory check-ins than something they want to do to share their day with me.

worse than that, i get the feeling that they are still struggling with the physical appearance thing. actually it's not a feeling. they've said it in no uncertain terms. after fireworks, too. what rotten timing, and i'm sure you can imagine what a damper that was for the mood. now before anything, let me just place a giant disclaimer. this is not rational scientist/love expert me. this is stupid, infatuated, bordering-desperate me. so please try to understand that as you read on. currently in my mind, there are 2 sides to the argument. first: people have their preferences. some guys like girls with short hair, for example. some girls like guys with facial hair. that's all fine and well, really. but at the same time, does that mean the guy is justified in totally ignoring long-haired girls, or the girl is justified in totally ignoring clean-shaven guys? yes, it's justified, just that these superficial people tend to lose out by letting someone ideal for them in every way but appearance slip by. i'm of the opinion that physical appearance does matter...but it should not matter to the extent where people are screened solely based on it, or that it somehow subtracts from the overall person. unfortunately, most people rely on their eyes the most, and physical appearance therefore matters a lot. and rational me would say that if a person can't look past physical appearance to discover the gem underneath, that person is probably not with the time and effort. i'd rather date an average-looking person who's amazing and shiny, as opposed to a model who's rotten to the core. of course if someone is ugly in both body and spirit, then i'm sorry. can't help there.

someone said life is 10% what others do to you, 90% how you react to it. upon understanding that person felt thusly conflicted, i naturally wanted to remedy the situation. of course, i'm not doing it solely for them, because i believe that you shouldn't change just because someone told you to. you have to recognize/accept that there's a need for you to change, not just to suit the other person, either! for my case, i'd thought about healthy living even before meeting this person (hence the ritual membership), but this is an additional push, i guess. even then, there's only so much i can do. this type of thing takes time and effort. it's not like hairstyles, where a trip to the hairdresser takes minutes and the only effort you have to make is to try and stay awake/not move too much. right now, i feel like there's a time limit, like i have to look a certain way before the person loses interest. scientist me knows that that's not right, that a relationship shouldn't have this kind of condition attached. even infatuated me knows, in the back of my mind, that that's not right. and yet, i'm still accepting the challenge.

on the other hand, there have been ups as well. i feel that all physical appearance issues aside, we click reasonably well on an intellectual level, and we're comfortable around each other. spending time with them makes me feel happy and content, though the occasional stab of worry comes through. but for the most part, i enjoy our time together. they're physically affectionate too, which is a big plus. no, we haven't done anything M-18 yet. that's something we both agreed on, by the way. we figured that we should get to know each other before reaching that level of intimacy. right now, we're exclusively dating each other. scared me like hell to ask, but i was so happy when they agreed, and told me that they were happy i asked. i guess that counts for something, yes?

the thing that really scares me is that i can feel the balance of the relationship shifting. i don't mean that the other person doesn't care about us, although signs are increasingly pointing that way. rather, i mean that i'm being ridiculously careful not to upset the other person (like walking on eggshells-careful), and it seems to be a bit of a one-way street. you know it's bad when you debate whether to message a simple "hi" just to check in. not to mention that there have been several requests to take it slow. i don't think we're progressing all that quickly. like one date a week, plus daily messages. i think this weird feeling of reluctance (on their part) started after the fireworks thing, because when i called them today, there was this feeling that some things weren't being said. if it were rational me giving advice to a friend in my situation, all the signs would lead me to say, "drop this person". but since i'm on the other side of the situation now, i can understand why holding on is so natural. how often do you have interest in a person who also has interest in you? i think i can now better understand my friend, who's been bending over backwards to accommodate his girlfriend. and i can scarily foresee myself doing the same for this person...even though we're not official yet.

i don't know, i really don't. i suppose i should focus on the positives, that this person is still willing to date me, and that there has been no mention of stopping yet. in the meantime, i guess what i can do is work on whatever i can, and as long as i've tried my best, i hope the person can see it and perhaps look past the physical? whatever it is, i won't go down without a fight...both for this, and for research.

-random thought of the day: Reaction failed. Bummer.-