Compliment in Insult's clothing
After 8 years of friendship, after many, MANY telephone calls, mall trips, overnight trips, conversations on MSN, class periods ponteng-ed to hang out, hours spent eating together and a single sleepover (for me la at least, my first sleepover!), I have come to this realization.
Realization:
We have gotten to this stage, where the composition of every single conversation we have can be broken down to this:
40% blatant insults
40% thinly-veiled insults / backhanded insults
10% compliments with slight peppering of insults to keep you grounded
7% daily, mundane things like, "Eh Friday wanna go out?"
3% real, proper conversations about life, love and death
How did it get to this?
Okay I exaggerated a bit la (blatant insults I give too little percentage HAHA), but seriously, when I reflect on our recent conversations and online chat histories, I realize that in the process of organizing outings, discussing dreams and futures and relating problems, we have an insuppressable need/longing/DESIRE to throw in insults by the fistful.
Good or bad thing? I dunno leh.
I have friends who always, always tell me how stingy I am by bringing up that SINGLE episode that happened 5 years ago in which all that happened was I couldn't decide which RM1 packet drink to buy.
They tell me how when we first met (8 years ago!!) they hated me, 'cause I have a very hak yan zhang face. One of them somemore said that whenever I sat behind her during assemblies, she see my face and became very bad mood and got no mood to talk. What is that!
See hor, even though these things happened almost a billion years ago, they selalu bring it up wan loh. PROOF: I saw them just two days ago. They told BOTH stories again.
Every time I say I duwan eat so expensive, they will tell the packet drink story.
LOL I also have a friend who likes to remind me how useless I was in standard 6. In cards and conversations. Especially in those paper things we let each other write before high school graduation, 3 quarters of what she wrote is focused on how pathetic I was waaay back in Standard 6!
But you know what? Who needs enemies when you have friends like these?
Can you believe it's been 8 years?
We were looking through Fui's photo albums of past times when it hit me, gawd it's been a long time.
Eight years is not really that long, but when you look at those old photos that mercilessly showed our bad hair and horrible fashion sense in all their glory, you feel like it's a million years ago.
Big, pouffy mushroom/umbrella/tomato hair. Messy, ungroomed eyebrows. Shiny braces (them la, not me). Spectacles (also them la LOL). Unflattering T-shirts. The shared, immature desire to rebel and not be part of the conformed society (as documented by our mogok-styled refusal to be school prefects and open disdain for teachers like Pn. Ng LOL).
Now, straightened hair, contact lenses, removed braces, groomed brows and new clothes later, all we want is to fit in with society and responsibly carry out our roles in the work force.
In a few months, every single one of us will be found at very, very different geographic coordinates.
We have certainly come a long way from that little 1Z2 classroom.
And even though people say the friends you meet in college are the friends you'll have for life, I know it is unlikely that I'll ever find a bunch of people to whom I can so comfortably talk, and most importantly, at whom I can happily hurl insults and from whom I can sportingly receive insults.
Mostly because they are Master Insulters, very few people can contest them. Hor?
Realization:
We have gotten to this stage, where the composition of every single conversation we have can be broken down to this:
40% blatant insults
40% thinly-veiled insults / backhanded insults
10% compliments with slight peppering of insults to keep you grounded
7% daily, mundane things like, "Eh Friday wanna go out?"
3% real, proper conversations about life, love and death
How did it get to this?
Okay I exaggerated a bit la (blatant insults I give too little percentage HAHA), but seriously, when I reflect on our recent conversations and online chat histories, I realize that in the process of organizing outings, discussing dreams and futures and relating problems, we have an insuppressable need/longing/DESIRE to throw in insults by the fistful.
Good or bad thing? I dunno leh.
I have friends who always, always tell me how stingy I am by bringing up that SINGLE episode that happened 5 years ago in which all that happened was I couldn't decide which RM1 packet drink to buy.
They tell me how when we first met (8 years ago!!) they hated me, 'cause I have a very hak yan zhang face. One of them somemore said that whenever I sat behind her during assemblies, she see my face and became very bad mood and got no mood to talk. What is that!
See hor, even though these things happened almost a billion years ago, they selalu bring it up wan loh. PROOF: I saw them just two days ago. They told BOTH stories again.
Every time I say I duwan eat so expensive, they will tell the packet drink story.
LOL I also have a friend who likes to remind me how useless I was in standard 6. In cards and conversations. Especially in those paper things we let each other write before high school graduation, 3 quarters of what she wrote is focused on how pathetic I was waaay back in Standard 6!
But you know what? Who needs enemies when you have friends like these?
Can you believe it's been 8 years?
We were looking through Fui's photo albums of past times when it hit me, gawd it's been a long time.
Eight years is not really that long, but when you look at those old photos that mercilessly showed our bad hair and horrible fashion sense in all their glory, you feel like it's a million years ago.
Big, pouffy mushroom/umbrella/tomato hair. Messy, ungroomed eyebrows. Shiny braces (them la, not me). Spectacles (also them la LOL). Unflattering T-shirts. The shared, immature desire to rebel and not be part of the conformed society (as documented by our mogok-styled refusal to be school prefects and open disdain for teachers like Pn. Ng LOL).
Now, straightened hair, contact lenses, removed braces, groomed brows and new clothes later, all we want is to fit in with society and responsibly carry out our roles in the work force.
In a few months, every single one of us will be found at very, very different geographic coordinates.
We have certainly come a long way from that little 1Z2 classroom.
And even though people say the friends you meet in college are the friends you'll have for life, I know it is unlikely that I'll ever find a bunch of people to whom I can so comfortably talk, and most importantly, at whom I can happily hurl insults and from whom I can sportingly receive insults.
Mostly because they are Master Insulters, very few people can contest them. Hor?
isthisme exuded garlic breath at 4:04 PM
