Friends

Friends… Not that popular sitcom you are familiar with but something that almost anybody has. You either got to know them during your school days, during work or through another friend. Be it you treat them like brothers / sisters, best friends, close friends, normal friends, and etc, they are bound to have certain effects on your life somehow.

As I grow older, I realized this kind of categorization of friendships (i.e. best friends, good friends, etc) isn’t as important as I used to think because everybody is special and unique in their own ways. You either like them or you don’t. It’s all about how well you know the person and how much effort you take to maintain the friendship. This may sound vague but it’s universally true. Categorization prevents us from being receptive to ideas from people since we always set a barrier in between based on the time-length we know the person. However, the people whom we know longest may not be the wisest people to offer us the correct advices. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t heed advices from our closest buddies but rather try to be more rational in judging things instead of being too easily influenced by them.

Yeah! I’m definitely one who likes to talk about issues that nobody likes to tackle upon cos’ I like to think of things in an unconventional manner.

This evening I met up with my friends whom I knew since National Service. We called ourselves the Inner Circle because of the bond that we formed during one of the worst times we endured. This clique is made up of various age groups – the ‘78, ‘79, ‘80 and of course the ’81 eras. Yeah I belong to the ‘81 era and I’m also the youngest of them all. It is actually very surprising that we can clique so well despite of our different backgrounds, lifestyles and age groups. I’ve no idea how this happens but it has been going on for like almost half a decade or so. Though not very long, a friendship definitely worth keeping. It has been some time since all of us have had a gathering as some of us are pretty busy with our jobs and studies. But luckily JS’s return from China gave us an excuse to get together again.

We had the usual chit-chatting sessions like we did in the past in Café Cartel. We talked about our jobs, relationships stuffs, life in China (for JS) and many more. Choon, being the oldest among us always have something different to offer. It seems to me that he always sees a different light or probably has gained more life experiences than any of us there due to the age factor. I am really proud to be a part of these authentic group as being the youngest (heh! even though I’m already 23), you can pick up some valuable pointers from your older peers who are far more experienced than you in certain aspects of life. I also took the opportunity to share with them the not-so-good times I’ve gone through for the past months since my last semester break. Even though I may have moved on and stopped thinking about all these stuffs, it’s kind of bothering when you try to re-tell the story to everybody again. I didn’t have good experiences saying that to my other closer friends as they could eventually ended up mocking and laughing at you behind your back. Insensitivity is sometimes the cause of all these kind of sh** especially when you know your pals for too long. I don’t really blame them but I’m just a little disappointed at times.

Well, enough of my complaints, back to where I stopped. Don’t worry I’m not going to end this blog entry by saying, “Oh… you must learn to treasure your friends, family… Blah! Blah! Blah! or other kinds of bullsh**!” It’s never me to say these kinds of words cos’ it’s too mushy. I prefer conveying my ideas in a more direct manner. What I’m trying to say here is that we shouldn’t based our trust on people whom you have known the longest but rather to the people you feel could understand you better and give you the right advices. No offence taken.

Cheers!