Interlocking Squares: Ching Juan (10)
Thursday 26 January 2006
I know I really shouldn't be eating as I type, especially food with a liquid component. Hm, I like 'liquid component' – it sounds so impressively scientific up until the moment you realise I'm only talking about instant noodles. Serve me right if I spill soup on the keyboard and short-circuit the whole thing.
But I'm hungry. And I need to get this sorted out. And Selina isn't helping – she keeps wandering in and out of the room, angling to find out why I'm not on my so-called Regular Thursday Dinner Date with Vincent. If she looks at me with that grin on her face again, I swear I'm going to throw this bowl at her. Well, once I'm done with the noodles, that is. After all, I am hungry.
Normally I'd just have told her what happened: Vincent and I ran into his roommate and somehow or other they got into an argument over the choice of radio stations that escalated rapidly into a full-blown fight, so I made a run for it before I got caught in the crossfire. And we'd have laughed about it and I'd have described that indignant worked-up look of Vincent's to Beng Yee and got her to do an imitation.
But I didn't, and what's more, I don't want to. I don't know why. Wait, I do know why. It's just not the sort of why I'm comfortable expressing.
All right, this is going to sound a bit much, I know. But hey, who else is going to look at this journal besides me anyway, right? So I'll be prepared for it being a bit much because I've already heard it in my head and I know it's a bit much. So it won't matter that it's a bit much because I –
Ye gods, Lim, give it a rest already! I never heard of anyone else waffling about and evading the question and generally wasting precious kilobytes in their own journal.
Okay, so deep breath time. Time to 'fess up.
Because, just now, sitting in Vincent's car and listening to the two of them, I got the feeling that they weren't fighting over radio stations at all.
They were fighting over... me.
And that is weird. Because that's one of the things that's just not supposed to happen. Guys don't like me. Well, obviously there's Tee Siew and Ming Jien and the rest who are my friends and presumably like me (at least, I hope so. If they don't, there's either something terribly wrong with me, or with them, or both), but that's because to them I'm a fellow geek. The statement still stands: guys don't like me, at least not that way. And if you start interrogating me about the exact meanings of like and that, I really will throw soup at the monitor, circuitry be damned. You know perfectly well how it goes. Or then again you might not, being a bunch of silicon chips and circuit boards. Whoops, did I hurt your feelings? Sorry, sorry. No, you're right, I shouldn't make personal remarks like that. You can't help the way you're made. Right. Sorry, won't happen again.
Anyway, whether's it's on target or not, that's the vibe I got. And I didn't want to tell Selina because... well... sigh, more 'fessing up again. I wouldn't have minded so much if it were just Vincent. Not that it's very likely for Vincent to get into a fight with himself, but you get what I mean. I even tell Selina about our so-called Thursday Night Dinner Dates and she ribs me about it and I get only mildly irritated when she carries it too far. It's just fun, most of the time.
What I really mind about is David.
I haven't told Selina that he even exists, bar the odd mention of 'Vincent's roommate'. I definitely haven't told her that we've been corresponding more or less regularly through email. Mostly about Collector, of course, and the occasional random thing like his car breaking down, but still.
I haven't told Selina because I don't think I could stand her going on and on about it. And I don't think I could stand that because... I sort of like him. I sort of like him quite a bit. All right, quite a lot. I mean, with Vincent it's straightforward – he's a friend. I don't speculate any further about what else he could be. But with David... I don't know. I keep wondering why he sends me email. Why he sent me that first email in the first place. Why he's so all-fired interested about Collector. I even remember at least a couple of emails where it got kind of personal. He was asking me stuff about where I'm from and what's my family like and what my plans for the future were and stuff. Well, obviously not in that direct, hit-you-in-the-face-with-a-question sort of way. More subtle, like he was just taking an interest. But why would he take such a specialised kind of interest in the first place?
And, having seen him in person for the first time today, I must say it doesn't hurt that he's fairly good-looking.
Wait. Did I just say it doesn't hurt? I meant it doesn't help. Help. Yes, help. Of course I got mixed up. It's perfectly understandable. Both of them small words beginning with H, four letters, one syllable...
Sigh. Okay, okay, enough. I shouldn't need to justify myself to my own private journal. Damn Freudian slips.
I know I really shouldn't be eating as I type, especially food with a liquid component. Hm, I like 'liquid component' – it sounds so impressively scientific up until the moment you realise I'm only talking about instant noodles. Serve me right if I spill soup on the keyboard and short-circuit the whole thing.
But I'm hungry. And I need to get this sorted out. And Selina isn't helping – she keeps wandering in and out of the room, angling to find out why I'm not on my so-called Regular Thursday Dinner Date with Vincent. If she looks at me with that grin on her face again, I swear I'm going to throw this bowl at her. Well, once I'm done with the noodles, that is. After all, I am hungry.
Normally I'd just have told her what happened: Vincent and I ran into his roommate and somehow or other they got into an argument over the choice of radio stations that escalated rapidly into a full-blown fight, so I made a run for it before I got caught in the crossfire. And we'd have laughed about it and I'd have described that indignant worked-up look of Vincent's to Beng Yee and got her to do an imitation.
But I didn't, and what's more, I don't want to. I don't know why. Wait, I do know why. It's just not the sort of why I'm comfortable expressing.
All right, this is going to sound a bit much, I know. But hey, who else is going to look at this journal besides me anyway, right? So I'll be prepared for it being a bit much because I've already heard it in my head and I know it's a bit much. So it won't matter that it's a bit much because I –
Ye gods, Lim, give it a rest already! I never heard of anyone else waffling about and evading the question and generally wasting precious kilobytes in their own journal.
Okay, so deep breath time. Time to 'fess up.
Because, just now, sitting in Vincent's car and listening to the two of them, I got the feeling that they weren't fighting over radio stations at all.
They were fighting over... me.
And that is weird. Because that's one of the things that's just not supposed to happen. Guys don't like me. Well, obviously there's Tee Siew and Ming Jien and the rest who are my friends and presumably like me (at least, I hope so. If they don't, there's either something terribly wrong with me, or with them, or both), but that's because to them I'm a fellow geek. The statement still stands: guys don't like me, at least not that way. And if you start interrogating me about the exact meanings of like and that, I really will throw soup at the monitor, circuitry be damned. You know perfectly well how it goes. Or then again you might not, being a bunch of silicon chips and circuit boards. Whoops, did I hurt your feelings? Sorry, sorry. No, you're right, I shouldn't make personal remarks like that. You can't help the way you're made. Right. Sorry, won't happen again.
Anyway, whether's it's on target or not, that's the vibe I got. And I didn't want to tell Selina because... well... sigh, more 'fessing up again. I wouldn't have minded so much if it were just Vincent. Not that it's very likely for Vincent to get into a fight with himself, but you get what I mean. I even tell Selina about our so-called Thursday Night Dinner Dates and she ribs me about it and I get only mildly irritated when she carries it too far. It's just fun, most of the time.
What I really mind about is David.
I haven't told Selina that he even exists, bar the odd mention of 'Vincent's roommate'. I definitely haven't told her that we've been corresponding more or less regularly through email. Mostly about Collector, of course, and the occasional random thing like his car breaking down, but still.
I haven't told Selina because I don't think I could stand her going on and on about it. And I don't think I could stand that because... I sort of like him. I sort of like him quite a bit. All right, quite a lot. I mean, with Vincent it's straightforward – he's a friend. I don't speculate any further about what else he could be. But with David... I don't know. I keep wondering why he sends me email. Why he sent me that first email in the first place. Why he's so all-fired interested about Collector. I even remember at least a couple of emails where it got kind of personal. He was asking me stuff about where I'm from and what's my family like and what my plans for the future were and stuff. Well, obviously not in that direct, hit-you-in-the-face-with-a-question sort of way. More subtle, like he was just taking an interest. But why would he take such a specialised kind of interest in the first place?
And, having seen him in person for the first time today, I must say it doesn't hurt that he's fairly good-looking.
Wait. Did I just say it doesn't hurt? I meant it doesn't help. Help. Yes, help. Of course I got mixed up. It's perfectly understandable. Both of them small words beginning with H, four letters, one syllable...
Sigh. Okay, okay, enough. I shouldn't need to justify myself to my own private journal. Damn Freudian slips.