Posted at 4:32 AM 0 comments (+) I wanted to write about Bintan, or generally catch up on some writing now that I am actually free and school isn't starting for another few days, but recently I can't really muster any effort to produce anything of quality. Writing has become quite a difficult task to me as of late and... I'm not happy about it. I'm still hoping it's just a passing author's block, though.

I think I experienced my first real goodbye when I was about 14? When someone I wished could stay with me for a much longer time had had to leave. It wasn't a great time for that to happen, in fact it's something I often mull over, how things could have turned out completely differently if it hadn't happened. From then, all forms of separation started occurring more often. I have to say I'm not a fan of that.

I'm not good at people leaving me, at goodbyes.

I've seen and heard many people say the same. That they hate goodbyes. I've never really given much thought about it, in all honesty, until after I graduated from RV and entered uni, probably. There was a point in time early this year when I suddenly felt like everyone was going away from me. That person doesn't even need to be someone close to me, and at that point all the people going away, weren't.

But slowly, slowly, friends who are closer and closer to me are taking their leap away from this town, setting foot in new and unexplored cities. Not forever, not even a very long time, but long enough for me to feel left out I suppose. Maybe that was why I was so eager to go somewhere, I just felt so left out and trapped in this same place for years on end with absolutely nothing new and exciting to make me feel like I'm still living.

At this point I already realise that what I'm writing is not really about goodbyes but once again, about why I am so strange up in the head. Haha, typical self-absorbed Sinyee.

Ever since I broke up well over 3 years ago, I've been struggling a lot to be okay with being alone. Before that, eating alone was unthinkable to me. It was just... a greatly awkward and uncomfortable idea. I was someone who couldn't sit still for even one day at home, I was constantly on the move, looking for things to do and fill my time with. I enjoyed travelling places (as in taking the public transport) with friends, sometimes even with people who are not super close. I knw what to say most of the time even with acquaintances. I was more interested, I think.

If there was one thing that I'm sure had changed about me in these 3 years, it is that I have turned much more passive, sometimes to the point of I-simply-don't-give-a-shit-about-anything. Now I do everything alone, and I'm comfortable with it. Eating alone is a regularity, I actually much prefer being alone than eating with someone I'm not too close with. I avoid awkward situations at all costs. I narrow my social circle just to the people whom I can be absolutely myself with. I hate travelling with acquaintances, and on really bad days I would find excuses to travel separately even with my closest friends.

With the last year in uni and meeting new people, I also discovered that I am simply not interested in making friends with new people. I realised that I often kill conversations with my straightforward answers, and I never ask anything back to them. I am so unwilling to make new friends that when someone sits down next to me in the LT, I reflexively turn the other way and pray that they don't try to start a conversation with me. It only works when the other person can keep the conversation going even when I obviously don't have anything to ask in return, and then slowly I would warm up and talk more (and then I wouldn't stop talking but that's another thing).

Sometimes I really hate it that I'm like that. I can't even agree to have a meal with my best friend's boyfriend without having them corner me at work and semi-forcing me to agree to it. Not to mention, it's really difficult being in UOL without any friends, even acquaintances, because I really need some in order to survive in lectures. But I am just so reluctant to gain acquaintances passing off as friends because honestly, who needs them? Outside of classes they are of no value to me. They can't provide me emotional comfort or support, strictly speaking they are only for convenience, and who needs that? I find it hard enough to keep holding on to my already-very-small group of friends, and I certainly don't feel the need to engage more people in this.

People say that I open up easily to others, that I would spill my heart out to anyone who would listen, but I think that's not quite accurate. I knw that I tend to tell things about myself easily, I really would talk about the issues I have with my family, my last heartbreak and everything else with anyone interested enough to listen, but that's not really opening up to them. Talking about it is no big deal, because like I said, people wouldn't take seriously things you're very open about. And furthermore, talking about it carries no therapeutic effect to me, it doesn't change the situation in any way. I am merely describing and illustrating.

I think I open up when I admit I'm weak. When I would reach out for help, which I have to say I am not good at doing.

The main thing I'm trying to say is, I think I became like this, cutting out everyone else and limiting myself to this specific group of friends, because I want to stop people from leaving me. Trends have it that every 4 to 6 years, someone really close to me at that time would decide they've had enough, calling me out on everything I ever did, picking my character apart saying they don't like this and that and they're leaving me and my bullshit. I am not so much afraid as I am tired of drama from happening. This group of friends I have now, I'm pretty certain they are going to stick with me for life, and for me this is enough. I don't need new friends in the mix, I don't need anyone who can't give me everything. I don't want just casual friends because honestly what good are they?? I don't even need sometimes-there friends because it is tiring for me to have them coming back after months of no contact and demand I fill them in the spaces because who the hell do you think you are lol?? I dislike these people the most, waltzing in and out of my life like they own it, demanding my attention and details of my life like I owe it to them, and then forgetting about me again for months on end. These people like to think their company is something significant to me, like they can fix me when they hear about my problems, and how laughable. They are the ones I get irritated immediately when I see their names appear on my phone screen, they are the ones I roll my eyes at with their responses of how to look for something more in life and shit. I, am not depressed. Do they think I haven't already tried everything? I don't need that kind of lame shit advice from people who think they knw me. It is just self gratification on their part.

I cannot stress how useless I think casual friendship or companionship is, how dumb I think it is when my uni friends tell me to pick up a CCA to make new friends. It is a commitment to me, a burden if you must. Pretend to like them, hang out with them and form a bond that you really don't need. I have enough friends who wouldn't answer my messages, I really don't need more.

Besides that, all these time I've been trying to be enough for myself. To truly not ever need anyone because I've slowly learnt that everyone would fail you and you only really have yourself to rely on, always. I do this so that even if this group of friends would leave me, I would still be fine alone. So I stopped getting overly bothered when they don't reply my messages, I play by my own rules: If they don't arrange the details for our meeting properly, I simply wouldn't turn up. I sometimes start to think that I don't need any friends, what for when they can't sense when I need them etc. But that is extreme. I don't knw. It just feels tiring to have to keep up with people at times.

I'm aware I sound extremely selfish, and sad to say, I am. I knw I am, but there's nothing I can do to change that. Maybe I should really try to get a boyfriend so I would stop being so clingy and expect so much of my friends, but too bad I really don't want one. I want to be enough on my own, remember? It's hard, but I still get upset at all the smallest things my friends do or don't do and sometimes I just feel so stupid and selfish.

It's just that people keep giving up on me. Abandoning me. And you stop that when you cut people out. That's how I think anyway.

I told Shixian on the trip that I sometimes think music is the only buoy I have to hold on to in life. I listen to music a lot, so much that it's a bit ridiculous. I feel so relieved when I stumble upon a song that I can relate to, no matter it is a situation of the past or now. It is just extremely comforting to knw that there are people who understand perfectly how I hurt. I look for songs that are comforting, and I pretend that it is comforting me. I pretend that it's saying that it will protect me, and I hide away in it.

You knw how some girls who are forever alone say they are going to die alone with 73 cats? Well, I think I might die alone with 73,000 songs in my iPod. That's not so bad.

I would need a new iPod though.

Bottomline: Sorry that I'm such a selfish, attention-seeking, clingy, needy asshole. I want everything but I realise I don't really like to give. So really, I deserve to stay alone.

It's 4.30am I need to sleep.