Twenty Four

And so I find myself one year away from the quarter point of my life. I am now 24. As far as memory serves me, my life has been alternating between a search for stability and novelty. I was willing to commit far too young, and when the time did come for a real chance at commitment, I fled.

I've been lazy in school, banking on whatever perceived intelligence I had instead of hard work. Certain individuals came along and nudged me more or less in the right direction. Because of them, and the will of God, I find myself now in university; still indolent, and still adverse to work.

The opposite gender caught my attention at a tender age of perhaps 3, when I innocently asked my Dad whether I could wear the square cloth patch this cute chick named Rachael was wearing at her grandparent's wake. Obviously, I got yelled at. And then at the age of 5 I screamed 我爱你 over the phone to a classmate of mine. Obviously, I got yelled at; by her mother. How unforgiving.

Moving along, we find little Shaun in primary school. I was constantly in love. Or at least, I was never without a love interest. I seldom did anything about it though, apart from Jacqueline, this girl from a Chinese-speaking family with whom I was infatuated with from the age of 9 to perhaps the end of my primary school days. I remember writing her a story about "My girlfriend" and how I wanted to marry the said girlfriend when I grew up. Attached to the card with a paperclip was one of my most prized possessions; a Chun-Li trading card. I slot it in her school bag during recess time and returned after that full of apprehension. Something caught my eye as I entered the classroom, and I turned to see both the written card and the Chun-Li trading card crushed in the thrash.

It was during those fateful years when I first learned how material possessions could work in one's advantage during courtship. My mum bought me both a Gameboy and a GameGear. In the little neighbourhood school I was in, I was the only one who had such luxuries. The above-mentioned love interest became suddenly flirty, as flirty as a 9 year old could be. She would pout, tug my sleeve, and draw out the sylables of my name, just so I would lend her the handheld games. I was thrilled, naturally, and was generous in all aspects. In time though, she grew bored of the games, and with the lost of interest went also any displayed affections towards me.

In lower secondary school, my idea of having a crush involved telling anybody who would listen about it. Naturally, word would soon get around to the crush, and she would either avoid me like the plague, or become overly tender and affectionate, dependent on circumstances. Or whether she needed anything from me. On my part, I would blush whenever I had to walk pass her in school, and inevitably I would find myself slouching and shuffling my feet, afraid to even look in her direction.

The tables turned slightly at the age of 15, when my braces came off, I started puting on contact lens, and my fringe grew to a length that irritated the daylights out of disciplinary teachers. I started attracting female attention. Not exactly from the kind of girls I would find attractive, but there was a certain ego-boosting effect from receiving a love note given from a girl through my Chinese teacher, getting stopped at the train station by a pager-holding girl asking for my number, and well, just being looked at while I walked around school. Apparently I wasn't boyfriend material though, as someone remarked, "Shaun 是好看不好用。" And so it was throughout secondary school.

I've had a slew of relationships since then, and with each it seems I learn a little about myself, about how I should go about approaching relationships and about how, time and time again, how I'm not ready to protect and provide.

I've found myself pouring every inch of my soul into a relationship only to be chided by the girl for not having a distinct personality, for compromising my values to please her. Passion was lacking, and she didn't know whether I was the best she could get. I've found myself hanging dependently on every whim and fancy of a girl, to get upset when she chooses her friends over me, and for not having my numerous declarations of love satisfactorily responded to. And then there was the the girl who loved me like a white hot fire, only to find that love quenched in the still cold water of the condition of my heart then.

There was the girl with whom I thought I could have a fling, only to fall hopelessly in love and falsely believing that I was the one pure love she needed to return to shore. I was wrong, and I paid for that by losing what it seemed was the last shred of my idealism. And then came the girl who loved me despite all the shit she had been hearing about me, for by then I had worked up quite a reputation. I saw in her a chance to crawl back to the light, and for a brief and happy moment, I succeeded. Contentment though was something I had difficulty grasping, and with a shrug, I left.

What followed since then? A grasping after the wind. Exhilaration followed by emptiness. In the quest to harden both my liver and heart I've half lost my soul. I go out with girls expecting to see only the worst. Nothing matters except how aesthetically pleasing they are, how witty they are, and how they draw my attention. I came close, again, to idealism, only to have that dashed by a chance encounter.

And still I wander, looking for the untainted. One thing remains constant though - my tendency to fall head over heels prematurely. This time though, I'll take a deep breath, a step back, and not do anything .. inappropriate.

So there, I am now 24. And I am going to stop talking about girls, and start reading .. say .. Principles of Information Security :)

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