I’d imagined my thirtieth to be some kind of grand affair; after listening to weeks upon weeks of Harmontown, I thought that at some point I’d have the chutzpah to host a faux talk show.
I’d invite my friends on stage and do bits where I tease them, celebrate me, celebrate them and clap them offstage.
We’d do it in that Fort Canning event space, and I’d hire a sound team? And I could spend like 6,000 dollars for the food and location and the equipment, and that would be a fancy night, and I would group up my friends in their cliques and everyone would be beaming at me, tux and shit, onstage.
My friends would do lighting effects using flashlights, and I would make the multimedia, and at some point we could rehearse and sync up my theatrical shit with the onscreen shit and it would wow everyone.
Everyone would clap my back as they left, in gowns and tuxes, and people would say “haha, wasn’t that such a wonderful evening, Shao’s birthday?” “Yeah, what a great guy”
Perhaps I would gain some kind of renown, enough to be an NCMP, enough to be a marriage officiant guy, and people would recommend me to other couples, saying “I recommend this guy, Shao, he made us cry during our ROM, and the aunties love him”.
Maybe I’d show up at all the arts events, and whisper the same thing to every artist to not give up on their dreams.
And perhaps at my funeral, all the people I’ve crushed on would circle up around my coffin, like the seven dwarves, and they would share about their favourite parts about me and their regrets and how foolish they were to not date/continue dating me, and how that since I’m going to die, the world would be a worse place, and they’d do a North Korean wail and the audience would wail and-
Pause.
I would open one mischievous, twinklin’ eye at my actual wife (which I eloped with at 31) and wink, and she would hit a lever, and the coffin would stand up and fall apart and I’d have a hat and cane and look a lot like the monopoly-man and do a surprise jig, and the In Remembrance banner behind me would fall apart and say
“I Remember-DANCE cum Celebrating an Orgasmic 130th”
and I’d rehash my 30th with modern references, like how everyone tried to modernise “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.
We can’t modernise “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, though, because there’s not enough content since that song to make a new one, we can’t retread what Billy Joel already sang about and anything else would just feel satirical and pointless.
You can’t just repeat the line with the pope, that’s just derivative.
30 was the deadline for me to start being a mature adult. Like the talk show idea, it was a blurry, ill-defined image of what should be to make my life better from then on.
I thought I’d have my shit together naturally, as an effect of time and maturity. You know. Get a relationship without needing to try. They say relationships should happen naturally.
Han Cheng and I hung out once at some Soka event he invited me to. This was fresh off of uni. Five years later, I went to his wedding and knew only Ray Yan and Weibo, and sat at a table of HCI people.
Han Cheng was still Han Cheng, and I watched him on-stage making cutesy corny jokes with his new wife, through green-tinted stained glass (metaphorically) from the table furthest from the front (geographically). That’s the same guy, I thought, and he’s wedded now, so logically, there must be something wrong with me.
I guess I haven’t really been trying as hard as I think I have, and some aspects of being in a relationship scare me enough into self sabotage.
I haven’t especially been trying to connect with people on dating apps, I haven’t been trying to take better care of myself, I haven’t been trying very much in that regard at all.
It’s funny that in spite of everything in the past year, this relationship shit is the thing that’s making me write a post at last. I guess it’s also the fact that this flight home from Yogyakarta follows the 4D3N trip I was on with Yunus.
The 4D3N trip followed after the girl saying “I don’t want to waste your time on not being available for you, you know?”
I don’t know. Went out with this girl, thrice. Polar opposites.
Her? Cute, studious, clumsy. Methodical, family-oriented, serious. Experience-chasing. Interested. Incredible. She started the conversations.
Somehow we had an astounding amount of differences. She didn’t like being asked about her days. She didn’t like people telling her to take a break. I liked both of those things.
We had one misunderstanding a day. She loves canto pop and R&B, I don’t. She’s not a coward. She has a sparse desk, mine is filled with cat reporter figurines.
The one day on her work trip she didn’t reply, it tore me to pieces.
We met when she got back. After suggesting that we had a picnic, she didn’t reply till the morning of (not a great texter, I reassured myself),
She apologised for not preparing anything (I washed and brought grapes and hummus and crackers and made cucumber mint lime water, because she said she ate healthy).
After a game of Splendor (she won by one point), we looked that the lame Botanic Gardens pond, and I asked if she wanted to continue. She seemed conflicted and apologised and said that right now, she couldn’t work through us because she only had space in her life for her incoming tea-based startup.
“Nothing you did wrong or could’ve done different,” She reassured.
I don’t know. I felt a real good future between us between our taunts between rounds of purchasing properties using gems.
I asked if, in a few months, when her startup had settled, we could give it a shot again, and she said yes, but in that tone.
(Yunus called bullshit. He says that she’s just making an excuse because she doesn’t like me enough.
It annoys me. I tell him that I believe her. Because, if he was right, then I could’ve done something different, and that would kill me.)
Then Yunus and I went to Jakarta the next day, and I put Capricorn on loop.
Who was I supposed to send my hotel room tour to now? How much should I have cared? Did I care too much about something that barely began? Am I the only person doing this? Who can I care about now?
This feels empty, my envelopes have no addresses any more.
We had a six hour train ride this trip. The weather was disgusting, the views weren’t exceptional, but six hours without being expected to do fuck about shit?
I think that’s what I need. To shut off any expectations. I didn’t contact my family, I barely texted my friends, and I could finish Alita: Battle Angel.
I don’t know. At some point, I felt myself unfold, the crease lines disappearing. None of these problems mean anything when you are hurtling towards East Java at 113kph.
Farmers in the field at 113kph, rice paddies at 113kph,
I don’t know. I have a fuckload of notifications on my phone and I can’t care less about
– if Blastoise is ready to have a good night’s sleep
– if bdr invited me to a mushroom rally
– anything on the Straits Times, really
– what tasks I have to do for improv
– story notifications on IG
– Facebook birthdays
– shopee/laz sales
Maybe it’s my Eat Pray Love era.
We’re landing soon. Indonesia this whole time was me coming to terms with our drivers hurtling on the wrong side of the road towards tens of motorcyclists. If a rogue airplane wing sliced through my neck, I hope I can say something cool before it got to my vocal chords.
p.s. I mean, I got over most of this, it’s like 3 weeks old, 4 weeks old.
P. S. S. 6/7 weeks.
But I still gotta post it. I guess. I don’t really give myself time to write this much any more. But it’s like outdated. I hope this other date is gonna work out.
I’m doing better. Maybe drinking a bit much. Apprenticeship’s gonna end soon. I’ve gotten a recommendation to the fifth floor. Things get better.
Apprenticeship ended. I’m down with COVID. There’s a new girl I’m talking to. I’ve got a good feeling about it. As usual. But this is different. As usual!
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