It has been years since my last post and so many things have happened since then. I believe I am now officially considered an adult even though I still feel like a kid inside. Haha.
And once again, I find myself realising that the people around me are moving past me. The feeling is a little too familiar to me and it makes me a little uncomfortable. It felt just like when I retained in JC.
The only difference is retaining in school was not a choice I could make. I did not do well for my exams although I did my best, so I had to retain and work for one more year before I am ready to take 'A' levels. As simple as that. While it was something that I am sad that I had to go through, I do not regret it one bit because I believe that it happened for a reason and I am a better person/made better choices because of what I experienced then.
Unlike the last time, some may say that what I am experiencing now is by choice. Okay, as I am writing this, I am trying to think of a way to explain it in such a cryptic manner that readers who see this would not be able to figure out what I am saying. At the same time, the information should be enough to trigger memories for me in the future. This is a tough one.
So basically, in my mind, what I did was this. I think that I am a person who kind of live under a rock (I do not actively put myself in positions where I meet new people). However, seeing that my friends have moved on with new stages in their life, I decided to inch out from under my rock to give fate a little push by putting myself out there to meet new people. Partly because I was kind of bored, and partly because I was curious and I thought it would be a good experience. I did not expect anything big to come out of this, because frankly speaking, this mode of meeting new people is quite...dubious? Maybe not dubious, I basically did not have any expectations. Except to get to know people who are outside my social circle. I don't think it is a reliable method for anything else. Unless a miracle happened.
"Well, it's always nice to make new friends." - Giselle from Enchanted
My attitude was really like Giselle in the movie. Go in and enjoy the experience, have some fun and maybe if by some miracle some magic happens, you might end up with a happy something you didn't expect.
Maybe you can already tell, things did not go the way I expected, not even in the unexpected way that I thought I could potentially expect. Anyway, it started off well enough and I thought that it was all going well. I was enjoying the process of getting to know a new person and it was a fun experience! I might be a hermit, but I really like getting to know people in general. You can consider me a relatively sociable hermit.
However, the thing about not meeting people face-to-face is that you don't have the non-verbal cues that you could use to gauge the emotions or reactions of a person. Everything is dependent on text. Unfortunately for me, I don't think I am super experienced in this area. Half the time, I think I text like I am writing an essay T.T
People do not usually do that, but because I do, I think I missed out on all the subtle signals and cues that would give me more information on how I should appropriately react or say. In this case, I did not have the information I needed to gauge that I had to manage expectations. I feel like this was completely my fault. I did try to manage expectations, but maybe I did not put it across clear enough?
So, I was happy to meet the person that I have been talking to for about 3 weeks. The feeling was quite interesting. Half the time, I was thinking if the person was going to fly my kite or end up really creepy. I should have been more apprehensive, but I have met people whom I talked to online before (my penpal) and I thought we had a good time. I would take the risk to find a kindred spirit.
Anyway, the thing about talking to someone face-to-face is that you get all the non-verbal and verbal cues, the tone, the expressions and body language and so on. All these really helps with the functioning of my gut feeling. I really enjoyed the experience of meeting a new person and after the meet-up was over, I went home and did what I always did after meeting people. I reflected upon what had been said and what I did and the overall experience.
That was when I panicked. Big time. I always trust my feelings and this time round, something told me that I did something wrong somewhere. I was terrified. I realised that our expectations and how we perceived our experience differed! Maybe I am a slow person, or I am so used to being slow to everything in life that I do not expect things to move so quickly in general. But I was like, oh dear.
So now that I put myself into a fix, I had to get myself out of it. Cues Operation Recovery.
Needless to say, Operation Recovery did not go too well and I did not manage to keep a new friend. Otherwise, this post would not exist.
I have reflected and decided that the mode that I was using is for people who live on expressways and is not suited for dinosaurs like me. To prevent such heart attacks from happening again, I told myself that I either have to manage expectations very very well on the onset, or just stop pushing fate and que sera sera. Life will happen when it happens.
I am still very sad that I did not manage to get a friend out of this experience, but I would consider it a lesson learnt. I genuinely did not mean any harm.
Oh well. I guess I have to live with everyone moving past me while I fumble my way through life like a noob. Unless I become an expert in managing expectations.
That's all I wanted to say :/
P.S. I realise that I really enjoy reading my own posts, even if the occasional (I hope) typos and spelling errors make me cringe inside. From the way and things that I post on this blog, one can imagine that I have grown as a person (I hope). May this blog be a proof of my own development and give me a lot of food for thought as I slowly tread on in my journey to be a better person. Hope I do not sound too narcissistic here. Hahahaha.
