Mixed Feelings

Like facial age lines, silently they creep into you, causing no big commotion yet surely they leave their marks. Perhaps the comfort of routine, weekend after weekend, pass without us keeping track or making any effort to justify the relationship, allowed it. Perhaps the distractions of work and the need for life to be more exciting excused it. And we find ourselves familiar with each other yet at the same time strange to any feelings of romance.

Is it enough for us to be best friends to each other?

I can't bring myself to end it. Yet, surely this isn't a romantic relationship anymore? Do other couples allow themselves to live thus?

Then again. There isn't any real reason to end it. Except for the utterly predictable patterns and answers in our lives.

But it continues. Without direction. Where else can this go? Where is the next level?

Our Gay Agenda

Finally! You have an off day tomorrow! This is what we will do:

1. Sleep till 10 AM.
2. Drive to Tanjong Pagar where we will have brunch. I really miss the Nasi Lemak at the Tanjong Pagar hawker centre.
3. You need to buy some computer parts to repair your nephew's computer so we will need to make a trip to Sim Lim Square.
4. Come home and bathe the dogs.
   
5. Rest a bit before making our way to the gym.
6. Meet mother for dinner.
7. Send mother back home.
8. Come home.

That's our gay agenda, I guess.

Recollections Of A First Date

“乌金石，十元一串。”

The price was the same thirteen years ago during my first trip to China. Based on a crush I had on Danny, I had bought the black stone wristband for him and he had reciprocated by treating me to dinner and a movie.

He took me to a Japanese restaurant at Takashimaya where I remembered having Zarusoba. It was my first time having it and I was unsure about how it should be eaten.

“I think you are supposed to put the wasabi into the sauce and use it as a dip for the noodles,” Danny suggested.

I tried Danny’s suggestion. For a while we ate in silence. What does one say on a date anyway? I glanced at Danny who seemed nonchalant about the awkward pause. Perhaps that’s normal for a first date? I had dreamed about this date for many months but now that it was actually happening, I had no idea how a date worked.

“The wristband you gave me was really cool,” Danny said, breaking the silence.

I stopped slurping my noodles and smiled at him.

“I had the stones rethreaded using fishing line. All friends were quickly filled with envy upon seeing it and kept asking me where I got it,” Danny continued.

“It’s nothing much. It doesn’t cost a lot either,” I said, realizing for the first time that Danny wasn’t wearing the wristband.

“Then the other day when I was flagging a taxi, the fishing line suddenly broke. The stones scattered all over the road.”

So that’s why you’re not wearing it. “Oh dear, so what did you do?” I enquired.

“There was nothing I could do. Both my hands were full carrying my work and a taxi came. I couldn’t pick up all the pieces so I boarded the taxi,” Danny explained.

Like the scattered pieces of the black stone wristband, that first date with Danny never developed into anything important. Yet as I stood there in front of the souvenir shop, that memory of my first date with Danny brought back a treasured emotion. A feeling of time lost, innocence, youthful inexperience and discovery piled into a moment of reflection.

“给我一串。”

Unreachable

"Are you ok?" I thumbed the sms on my handphone. I had sent an sms this morning but did not get a response from you. Our tour agency also called me earlier to confirm the hotel we would be staying in in Penang. We had given both our contact numbers to the agency, so they must have called me because they couldn't get through to you.

There were a few occasions when you became totally unreachable during the span of our relationship. The first was when you were upset at the start of our relationship because I was unsure about committing to you. The second was when we disagreed about America's reaction to 911 and you became upset with me after our quarrel.

This time I know you just need the space. So I don't press you, leaving a line out in case you need someone to talk to.

Moments later, you replied, "Sorry, been busy. Just sent my mother home and will be going back to the hospital."

"Ok, take care," I messaged.

On The Way To The Hospital

You called on the way to the hospital. Your sister had suffered a stroke the night before.

"I was up till 2 am last night," you said.

"How is she?" I asked.

"Not too good, but doctors have not confirmed anything," you whispered.

"Should I go? Are you okay?" I asked.

"No, don't come. I'm fine."

Old Places, Old People, Old Tissues And Some Differences

We were having breakfast at Da Lian again.

Again the tissue lady came. We rejected her offer to buy her tissues by pointing to a packet of O'Darling 3-ply on your side of the table and she left.

"How did you manage to find this old brand? I haven't seen it for a while," I said, picking up the packet and studying it for a while. There was a starkness in the anime girl's face that I don't remember and the colours appeared deeper.

"I bought it off a man with one leg," you replied. "He looked really pitiful so I bought some packets from him."

"It looks different."

"Perhaps it's made in a different place now. Malaysia?"

It Is A Dog

It was your first birthday present to me. It came with its sister in a little cage. When I opened the cage door, its sister immediately jumped out to greet me. It, however, was smaller than its sister and was hesitant of leaping the 3 inches from the cage to the kitchen floor. I wrapped my hands around its little tummy and carried it out from the cage.

Once out, it was more curious than its sister. It rushed about the kitchen, exploring and sniffing away.

"Give it a name," you said.

I was stumped and couldn't come up with a name for a long while.

"Name it after the place where we met," you suggested.

Together Yet Apart Yet Together

It was 7:00 PM at McDonalds. I secured the table nearest to the toilet and sat down. The table allowed me a direct view of the queue of customers waiting to order. "Here is good," I thought. "I'll just do my marking here while keeping an eye on the queue. Then when the queue is shorter, I'll walk over and buy a drink." I took out the stack of essays and began to read intently.

It was 7:30 PM. You called telling me you would be late and would not be able to join me for dinner and that I should go ahead and eat without you. "The fish and chips from the western food stall at the coffee shop is good, why not have that?" you suggested. I couldn't stop myself from sighing after you hung up.

It was 8:30 PM. The fish and chips WERE good. Eating alone, however, was quite sad.

It was 9:30 PM. You finally came back with a box of fried bee hoon. You transferred some of the bee hoon into a bowl and handed it to me and we settled in front of the TV watching Shark's Tale. We laughed at the Robert De Niro shark with the mole. "Who's the fish?" you asked. "Will Smith."

Off Day

For months and months, you've been working 7 days a week. Finally, you decided you needed a break. So on Thursday, we woke up at ten and lazed around till noon before making our way downstairs for brunch.

"What do you want to do today?" you asked.

"We could catch a movie with my Citibank rewards movie voucher, go shopping at Sim Lim Square or we could even go over to Johore," I suggested. Then looking at your overworked and haggard face, I added, "Or we could just stay home and watch TV."

"That sounds good," you agreed. "But I have a craving for laksa now."

You joined the queue at the Sungei Road Laksa stall while I picked a table and sat down. Soon you carried a tray with two bowls of laksa to the table. I thought the gravy was rather salty that day but without a pair chopsticks, I was forced to sip down some of the gravy in order to get at the noodle. You, on the other hand, were delighted to finally quench your craving and slurped at the gravy greedily.

Out of nowhere, a hand pushed 6 packets of tissue onto the table and a finger pointed to the one dollar change you obtained paying for the laksa.

Simultaneously, we both refused, telling the tissue lady to retrieve her packet tissues. This time, however, she was quite insistent and refused to move away until you told her that her tissue was unsuitable for our use several times.

"So apparently she has to work afternoons too," I said.

"She's getting desperate," you observed.

"Well, not desperate enough to stop smoking," I replied as the tissue lady lighted up another stick of cigarette.

Speed Dating, Frozen Embryos And A New Epiphany

Sis and her colleague had just decided not to attend a speed dating event.

"I'm too shy and my colleague doesn't want to put her handphone number on the form," she explained.

"I think it's very stressful. You are given a limited time to introduce yourself and chat briefly and then you have to swap partners." I had seen it being done in one episode of Sex And The City.

"Really? Sounds robotic, like conveyor belt sushi, except you are served men instead," she laughed.

I wondered if relationships that started on such an unnatural note could really work. After all, the era when people stay committed to arranged marriages was long gone. I felt it was better to meet men through normal day-to-day interactions and told sis so.

"Women worry because their biological clock only gives them that much time. If they are too passive, by the time they meet someone, they may have to commit immediately, having no time for dating," sis explained patiently, knowing fully well how clueless gay men can be about women's issues. "The only way is to have your eggs frozen, then you can take as long as you want to find that right guy."

"Or adopt."

"But you may want your kids to have your own genetic makeup."

We were silent for a while, being both absorbed in our own thoughts.

"I have had a new epiphany since I started teaching," I said breaking the silence. "You can't choose how your child turns out to be. I have some students I really wish I were their parent," I continued, thinking of the boy. "Then, there are the other students," I sighed.

Sis chuckled, agreeingly. "Perhaps we can have cocktail children in the future, like in Gattaca."

Differences

I guess we are very different people.

I have a B.Sc. (Hon) while you stopped school after sec 2. But sometimes, I am able to help you draft letters, emails or documents when you need.

Your network of friends and contacts is amazing while I hardly keep in touch with people from my previous jobs. But sometimes, you just need to pick up the phone and call a friend when I require services like air-con maintenance, bulk photocopying, electrical installations, discounted leather products, affordable computers and assessories.

I am a teacher while you are a sales manager. But at the end of the week, we will both sit on our black leather sofa and talk about our own work. I will tell you about my naughty students and the loads of marking I need to do and you will tell me about the strategies you have employed on your customers to get that deal and the difficult sales staff you have had to work with.

I am glad we are different. How else will we have so much to talk about?

Bak Chor Mee And Breaking Routines

I suggested that we have breakfast at the Da Lian bak chor mee stall beneath the Workers' Party headquarters at Syed Alwi Road*. The noodle isn't spectacular, but it's a nice change and it's good to break routines once in a while.

Some habits are hard to break though. You had your usual kopi-si-kosong and I my teh-si.

An old woman sat down at the next table and wondered aloud what she wanted to eat. In hokkien, she complained that everything was sianz [uninteresting].

You said, "Guess life is like that sometimes."

I didn't say anything. I was too busy searching for the pieces of tur kwa in my bak chor mee.

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* As ironic as it sounds, there IS a bak chor mee stall under the Workers' Party headquarters.

For the uninitiated, check out the mr brown show.

The Typical And Atypical

The typical consists of living apart for the entire work week. On friday nights, he picks me up together with all my marking load and we go to his place where I would stay for the weekend.

His current job requires him to be at the office seven days a week. I don't have to go back to school during the weekend, but then, I bring work back so technically I'm working a seven day week too.

Marking my students' work in his empty 3-room HDB flat can be rather lonely, but I am able to stay focused, usually completing what I set out to finish for the weekend. Sometimes, I think this arrangement helps me stay sane from the hectic life of a teacher in Singapore.

The atypical can be deceptively simple like a dinner on a Wednesday evening at the cheap steamboat buffet at Marina South. He loves it for the char siew while I target the live prawns and (when the live prawns have all been eaten) the frozen prawns.

Photos

In an attempt to curb this new heart ache, I sought out the old photo albums. We haven't had many pictures taken together, but I thought they might suffice for the time being.

The ache subsided.

Mom doesn't want me displaying your photo by my bedside. I know she loves you but she's still in the closet, so I don't contradict her. The photo albums have to go back into the cupboard.