Friday, November 24, 2006
Nancy Boy
I don't think I'll ever find someone who truly understands me.
Not because I'm some kind of genius or even remotely hard to understand, but because no one has gone through the exact same experiences I have; my neuroses make perfect sense to me and no one else. On the flip side, I don't think I can ever understand anyone else. I can think I do, tell myself I fully grasp the full life story of any one person who appears to be as stupid and shallow as pudding. But that's an arrogant assumption. Some people just hide their pain a lot better.
For anyone keeping tabs, you can flip to the page titled "existential angst" and put a check mark there.
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I went back to the gelato shop yesterday with four other people. While everyone was giggling and digging into ice cream, I felt like I was in a dream. A couple was sitting at the table I sat at 3 months ago. They were sitting side by side. One wasn't towering over the other. Their affections were equal. And as they sat next to each other, not touching, not talking, just looking straight ahead, the flickering shadows from people walking by made their expressions unreadable. They were as apart from the crowd as I was. The only difference was that they chose this, this silent, personal world; while I sat miserably on the outside wanting to be let in.
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Jealousy is a terrible emotion. So crippling, so paralysing, so bitter. And when you have a bitter, defensive outlook on life, you convert anything sweet, (whatever precious little there is of it,) through a process of over-analysis and irrationality till it becomes a sour little addendum to your stockpile of "bitter thoughts to turn me into a mothbally old hag".
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Yesterday on the tram, I had the pleasure of telling a Edison Chen lookalike (with an adorable patch of uneaten ice cream at the corner of his mouth) that the ticketing machine on the tram wasn't working. He seemed slightly befuddled, because the machine appeared to be working, it accepted your money, only without issuing tickets. Becky and I got worried that we were mistakenly telling people not to buy tickets. Surely the next tram inspector to come along would make a huge killing and we would be the focus of everyone's rage when they find themselves slapped with $250 fines. So we decided we wouldn't inform the next person who went to the machine to buy a ticket to see if it worked when he tried; his money got swallowed up. We felt bad. But life's never fair. Someone always has to suffer for the good of everyone else.
Not because I'm some kind of genius or even remotely hard to understand, but because no one has gone through the exact same experiences I have; my neuroses make perfect sense to me and no one else. On the flip side, I don't think I can ever understand anyone else. I can think I do, tell myself I fully grasp the full life story of any one person who appears to be as stupid and shallow as pudding. But that's an arrogant assumption. Some people just hide their pain a lot better.
For anyone keeping tabs, you can flip to the page titled "existential angst" and put a check mark there.
-------------
I went back to the gelato shop yesterday with four other people. While everyone was giggling and digging into ice cream, I felt like I was in a dream. A couple was sitting at the table I sat at 3 months ago. They were sitting side by side. One wasn't towering over the other. Their affections were equal. And as they sat next to each other, not touching, not talking, just looking straight ahead, the flickering shadows from people walking by made their expressions unreadable. They were as apart from the crowd as I was. The only difference was that they chose this, this silent, personal world; while I sat miserably on the outside wanting to be let in.
------------
Jealousy is a terrible emotion. So crippling, so paralysing, so bitter. And when you have a bitter, defensive outlook on life, you convert anything sweet, (whatever precious little there is of it,) through a process of over-analysis and irrationality till it becomes a sour little addendum to your stockpile of "bitter thoughts to turn me into a mothbally old hag".
------------
Yesterday on the tram, I had the pleasure of telling a Edison Chen lookalike (with an adorable patch of uneaten ice cream at the corner of his mouth) that the ticketing machine on the tram wasn't working. He seemed slightly befuddled, because the machine appeared to be working, it accepted your money, only without issuing tickets. Becky and I got worried that we were mistakenly telling people not to buy tickets. Surely the next tram inspector to come along would make a huge killing and we would be the focus of everyone's rage when they find themselves slapped with $250 fines. So we decided we wouldn't inform the next person who went to the machine to buy a ticket to see if it worked when he tried; his money got swallowed up. We felt bad. But life's never fair. Someone always has to suffer for the good of everyone else.
Labels: Growing Pains
# posted by me lah @ 12:46 pm 
