It’s tough to say goodbye to something that has been such a staple in one’s life for such a long time. Nevertheless, all things must come to an end, and for the quiet cynic, the end is now.

It started simply enough: My friends called me up and asked me out for a drink. We left my place at  around 9:30 and were chilling at a local park’s picnic area shortly thereafter. Not more than an hour or so had gone by when our new acquaintance (and our driver for the evening) informed us that we would be leaving to have some beers with a friend. Not one to turn down free anything, I compliantly alighted the park bench and boarded the express train to crazy town.

As soon as I lay eyes on our destination, I knew I was in for a real treat. The place was not some trendy bar packed full of young socialites, but what appeared to be a kopi tiam where sad, old bachelors came to erase the memories of their lonely lives with Guinness and Tiger. As the place came more clearly into view, I saw our driver (let’s call him “S”) quickly walk up to a man seated at a corner table and shake his hand in a very serious manner, not dissimilar to how you would shake the hand of the Godfather.

I would not have been startled by this action if not for the absurdity of its context. Here I was, staring at a guy shaking the hand of man as though he controlled all of the guns and drugs in Selangor, except that he was in fact a Chinese David Carradine lookalike sitting on plastic furniture in some place I wouldn’t eat at unless my life depended on it.

Note: on the off chance that the gentleman I am describing is in fact someone very powerful and scary,  I implore that he please not stab me or anyone I know as retribution. I will gladly edit this post to his liking if it means not bleeding everywhere and dying.

Danny then quickly followed with a handshake of his own. I suddenly realized that not shaking low-rent Carradine’s hand could result in unpleasantness, so I too followed suit with what became an uncomfortably long handshake. The next two hours or so of my life were spent being very quiet and sitting very still, breaking only to drink as instructed and to answer the questions of another old man which were being posed in English so broken it was close to just noises.

In that time, I witnessed what was either an illicit deal or a sordid love affair (a la Brokeback Mountain alley scene). An old man seated at another table rapped an entire Tamil song.  The owner of the place came by and wiped down the table himself. A man with a hunchback came and shook hands with everyone. A man in his 30’s, missing a third of his teeth, had a very loud conversation with S and eyed me for its entire duration.

I wasn’t sure if I should be amused that I was in such a ridiculous place, paying ridiculous respects to a ridiculous man, or scared that I’m so sheltered and naive that I wasn’t even alarmed. Even now I’m still not sure that I should be so flippant about low-rent Carradine. Even though logic dictates that anyone with a decent amount of illicit business could at least afford to lounge around in a real bar, there’s a part of my brain that wonders if he is somebody.

In short, I still have no idea what the eff just happened, but as far as things to do on a Friday night go, I’ve done worse.

Dear Hater,

I recognize that my timing was poor and I probably could have handled the situation better. I get that you’re hurt, and I understand that bitching about me while looking surly and pretending to smoke is about all you can bring yourself to do these days. I know that it’s fun to shoot me down when I try to take the first step toward reconciliation. These are all part of the healing process, and I assure you that I don’t hold your actions against you. I do, however, have some friendly advice for you:

1. Gossiping about me only makes you look bad.
You may revel in trying to poison my relationship with my friends. You may even believe you have won in your own way by lying about me behind my back and attempting to get my friends to resent me. The fact is, though, that my friends are smart enough not to simply take your word for it and if they aren’t, well, I don’t really care that they buy into your spin. I have not attempted to argue back over this matter purely out of respect for you and your situation. Do not mistake my courtesy for guilty silence.

2. Get over her.
I told you this before, and I’ll tell you this again: Choosing to wallow in your self-pity is neither healthy (for you) nor productive. Accept that she is not with you any more. I know it’s easier said than done, but in order to heal, you need to actually make an effort to come to terms with things. You choose your happiness, and choosing to be heartbroken over a girl for the long haul does not make you brooding and mysterious; it makes you pathetic and petulant. Real men feel pain, but they deal with it in a way that is not juvenile. Grow up and face the facts: She is gone, but you’ll find someone else.

3. Accept responsibility.
This is probably your biggest problem. It’s easy to blame others for failed relationships; we’ve all been there. However, the truth of the matter is that except in rare exceptions, the fault lies with both parties. What I’m getting at, of course, is that you’re not innocent in all of this. She is not a bitch who left you for nothing. You were not the perfect boyfriend who was simply under-appreciated, and, sadly, unless you change your attitude you never will be. Grow up, stop blaming other people for everything, and take an honest look at what you could have done so you don’t make the same mistakes again.

Furthermore, I am not the reason you didn’t get back together with her. I also said this to you before: You didn’t work out for a reason, and unless you make changes to your attitude and behavior before attempting to reconcile with her, you have no hope of things working out a second time. You were unwilling to make the effort, and so you didn’t get the girl. My presence in the situation did nothing to undermine you. The fact is that your attitude needed (and needs) rectifying, and, to my understanding, you still do not get this.

I don’t hate you, hater. On the contrary, I wish we could get past this and be friends. I offer you this advice not to put you down; no, I genuinely care about your emotional health, and I know (from experience, no less) that you’re not going down a path to recovery. I hope you do choose to at least consider my advice, and I want you to know if you ever need to talk, I’m here for you. I’m sorry things had to be this way, and I hope we can eventually get past all this.

Sincerely,
Andrew

It’s been a lot easier to be happy recently, and while I’m sure the exercise at the gym, spending more quality time with my friends, and spending less time in the presence of smokers have probably helped, there are certain things that do make me just that little bit happier.

I don’t want to jinx anything by saying too much, but I have the uncontrollable urge to tell someone about it. I suppose the blog will do. Will update more as things carefully progress.

When I was in primary school, probably only around 10 or so years old, the teacher would have us write in our journals at various times during class. It was a time where we could enter our own private worlds, taking a break from our oh-so-stressful classroom duties. These journals were uncensored brain dumps, supposedly an outlet for our young, creative minds.

I will bet anything that these journals were actually just used by the teachers to find out what the kids were really thinking. This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that my journal, and the journals of my closer friends, were laced with profanities and explicit drawings of, among many other disturbing topics, me murdering my teacher. I wonder what it must feel like to look into the mind of a pre-pubescent boy and see him burning you into ash with an imaginary laser.

I’m actually a little surprised that I wasn’t placed in some sort of anger management or psychiatric evaluation program. Nevertheless, the thought of my innermost thoughts being violated by my teacher still unsettles me despite its complete inconsequence; so much so that I had to sit down and type this all out the moment I realized it.

I’d almost forgotten what real human interaction is supposed to be like. Talking and joking and wasting time were lost for what essentially amounts to moving a piece of plastic over a flat surface. I can understand why Tim now hates playing certain nerdy games; it’s a terrible way to spend time with people you call your friends. After all, if you’re going out, you should do something memorable, not pass hours staring at numbers on a screen.

So now I’m a bit addicted to being busy. Thursday, I finally got around to visiting Euphoria. It was the first time I went clubbing where I didn’t just sit down at our table and see who I could make eye contact with from across the room. I actually went out and started moving — rhythmically, one could say — on the dance floor. Sure, I probably looked like Supreme Commander of all the douche bags ever born™, but I had a lot of fun. In all my flailing about, I may have even danced with a few girls. I’m actually not sure.

Nevertheless, I hope this new busyness addiction will find itself applied to more useful areas once classes start. I’m quite looking forward to not having so much free time to burn on my own. And thanks to all my friends who have been looking out for me. You guys are high class.

Since vague posts like this probably annoy the hell out of the meager handful of readers, I will try to explain without further losing face. Let’s just say there is this girl. Let’s say that this girl and I were once in love, and that since then, things have changed — drastically. Despite knowing what I should do, I let my emotions get the better of me, and I ended up ruining what could have been a perfectly good day by being a whiny little bitch around my friends and her. I suppose as much as I want to believe that I’m over it and that I’ve made the right choice, my human imperfections cloud my previous decisions to simply forget her and move on.

That is, in fact, what I know I should do: Move on. It’s just difficult when so many things remind me of her and I feel like I have lost my best friend. I mean, who do you talk to about these things? Your guy friends who are going to think you’re a complete pussy? It sucks not having a shoulder to cry (metaphorically) on.

This blog is turning out to be more of a confession than an account of my personal experiences. I’m still not sure what direction I want to head in with this. At the very least, this will serve as a reminder to myself to be logical.

Is it bad that 100% on my sage advice here has been gleaned from pop culture?

What is a Britney Spears moment, though? I refer to the point of Britney’s life at which her insanity and emotional instability peaked. In a storm of personal and public pressures driving her to all forms of deranged behavior, she marched into a hair salon and proceeded to shave her head. The event was a point of inflection for her rapidly declining life, and while it did stay rough for a while, she managed to fight and claw her way back to some semblance of emotional stability.

It embarrasses me slightly to say that I respect Britney for not giving up when things got tough. I respect her for not resigning herself to the role of burned-out starlet when it seemed that was all she had left. The truth is, life is not a film. It does not provide moments of poignant revelation after which a sudden and drastic change is enacted in a subject’s behavior and attitude. Life is ugly and imperfect and boring. In real life, when a person hits rock bottom, which, in the case of Ms. Spears, means having to look a bald head in the mirror for months, the change that follows is slow but steady. The Britney Spears moment is a cynic’s epiphany.

My Britney Spears moment occurred recently. Now I have to reconsider my priorities. I have to rekindle my friendships and repair the bonds of trust I broke. I have to pull myself out of the emotional gutter and see past the pain that exists now, because as bad as things are, I have yet to flash my bare crotch to the paparazzi and lose custody of my children to a rapping redneck with the IQ of half a postage stamp. If Britney Spears can manage a comeback having done those things, then shouldn’t I able to do the same?

You probably didn’t think someone like Britney could provide a serious role model, but then again, what use is a shiny, perfect individual for helping us, the unwashed masses, cope with hardship? The flawless hero is an unattainable goal. We need someone who was an even bigger train wreck than ourselves, someone who didn’t just snap out of a downward spiral like waking from a bad dream. As unintelligent as it sounds, we need people like Britney Spears.

So I’m sorry if my actions and/or words have hurt or angered you in any way. Please be patient as I ride out the last of my insanity; I promise I’ll come around soon.