This will be long. Might be long. I don’t know for certain yet. If you happen to be reading this, I hope you read it to the end. I can’t guarantee you will find any moral lesson in my writing. It will probably contain a ton of anecdotes from my (mis)adventures this year, mostly concerning men or my travels or just the mundaneness of daily living. It will likely be incoherent but I hope you read anyway.
(1)
On a freezing Saturday evening in January uncharacteristic of Hong Kong weather, I will find myself with ample free time and a wandering mind. Always a lethal combination these two. It would have been just over a month since I arrived and like always, the first few months of moving into a new place always hit me hard. I will be sitting idly contemplating whether or not to text the boy I had met a few weeks back, first of several learning experiences (mistakes in other words) I would be making during the year. I will eventually relent and send him a text. He had promised me a couple days prior that we will do something together that weekend. He will respond to cancel and say he is sick. I should have known it was just another fuckboy’s empty promise and ended it right there. But I will not end it and will remain hopeful.
A month later, he will invite me to have dinner in a fine dining restaurant. I would have a dress already laid out and a crash make-up tutorial from my former roommate. All is set. But on the day of the supposed dinner, he will send me a text cancelling the plan because *surprise surprise* he is sick. The proverbial fuckboy excuse. I will utter some mean curses and wish upon the stars that his illness is so serious he dies of it! I would eventually find out through my stalking abilities that he lived. Lucky bastard.
I would have headed out that night wandering aimlessly in the streets of Hong Kong, finding myself in a church, sobbing like an idiot over getting stood up by a fuckboy. I will pay 400 HKD for two glasses of white wine and would talk to my best friend on the phone trying to figure out where it went wrong. When I come to think of it later on, there were a lot of red flags pointing to him being a lying jerk but I chose to ignore them because I was high on the idea that it could potentially be my first real relationship. He didn’t exactly break my heart, I was not in love with him to begin with. What hurt was the way he got my hopes up only to have them crushed. I will have bought myself a cork screw later that night in anticipation of more nights resembling this one. At least one right decision was made.
(2)
Meeting people online and having real connections with them offline still fascinates me. One of my now closest friends in Hong Kong, Christine, I met through Internations, a social networking site for expats. She posted a message on the wall of a tennis group looking for one more player to play doubles with one Saturday morning. Since then, I have been constantly playing tennis with her and several of her friends. She’s been inviting me to almost every social gathering she goes to and through her, I have met many interesting people from different cultural backgrounds. There is nothing that excites me more than meeting new people and learning about where they are from. It allows me to have a broader knowledge of the world we live in. In retrospect, ever since living abroad, I had kept a fairly diverse group of close friends. Regardless of race or age, I naturally gravitate to like-minded people, the ones who are outspoken but not boastful, smart but not condescending.
David, a Spanish guy, is another friend I met online. Although we initially set out to meet on a date, we eventually decided we were better off as friends. He has been like an older brother, always looking out for me and warning me to be careful with the men I go out on dates with. He introduced me to Starry, a Filipina whom he’s met online. He thought we would get along. He was not wrong. Starry would eventually become one of my closest friends and best LKF/Wanchai all-nighter buddy in HK. If people ask how Starry and I met, we’d say we met through a common friend but I’m always tempted to tell people we dated the same guy just to unsettle them a little. Unfortunately, Starry has left Hong Kong in the beginning of October and is taking a job in the Netherlands come January. The good thing about it, I now have someone to show me around for when I come visit!
Coincidentally, David also went out with Christine several years ago at a time when she was broken up with her now partner Max. I told David to date more often, his next date might just become my next best friend I quipped.
(3)
After a tumultuous journey amid a squally weather, you will tell me that the only positive thing that happened on the entire tour was meeting me. You will invite me for lunch the following day. I thought there was no harm in going, we were both flying out the next evening anyway, you to go home to Naples and I to go back to HK. I woke up at noon after being completely spent from the previous day’s tour. I thought long and hard whether to come see you. You were staying in another town in Phuket, about thirty minutes by cab from where I am staying. In the end I decided not to, I suppose at this point I have already grown tired of chasing after men. You could have come over to my side of town if you really wanted to see me. I suppose you didn’t.
Weeks later we will still be talking on messenger, your messages will be lengthy and emoticon-filled, plenty of hearts and kisses. You will persuade me to come to Napoli since I am already in London. Unfortunately, my visa doesn’t work that way I would try to explain. Besides, I had no intention of deserting my best friend whom I hadn’t seen in five years just to pursue an uncertainty. But we will still talk candidly and occasionally exchange photos, perhaps in an attempt to build the momentum for our upcoming reunion.
In mid-September, we will find ourselves walking side by side along the coasts of New South Wales, reminiscing fondly our godawful Krabi island tour, how it led to our fateful meeting and how it eventually brought us there to that very moment. It was surreal, we both think. I would wistfully stare out to the ocean and, with lines borrowed straight from a Stephen Chbosky novel, in that moment I am infinite. We head towards your house where you would prepare a three-course meal. While I watch you skilfully toss knives and pans around, careful not to disrupt your artful routine, you would from time to time glance my way smiling, your eyes perhaps the most expressive pair I’ve seen. You will grab me by my waist, in a hushed tone you will tell me how happy you are that I am there, and you will kiss me passionately for what will seem like eternity. Later on you will teasingly ask me to choose between dessert and you. I would choose dessert first. Then you.
I will see you a few more times during my weeklong stay in Sydney. On my last night, you will come by my Airbnb inebriated from a wedding party you just went to. We will walk around Oxford Street to find a coffee shop that’s still open at that time of night. All we will find is a street filled with rowdy partygoers, passed out partygoers, policemen breaking out fights between said rowdy partygoers, and so on. In the end, we will simply walk back to my Airbnb, sit by the living room and talk. You said you could not let me leave without saying goodbye. Those words sounded like they were spoken with finality. Perhaps they were.
I received a “Merry Christmas” text from you on Sunday. I guess it’s enough for me to know that I still cross your mind once in a while.
(4)
“You were gone when I woke up, did I just dream it?”
Twenty hours earlier, I would be tiptoeing around your hotel room, picking up pieces of my clothing scattered all over the place, careful not to make any noise lest you wake up. I opted to run off before sunrise, with barely any sleep, to try and escape the inevitability of a walk of shame.
I knew from the onset you were not going to mean anything. You walked into the office with your steady, confident gait and I thought to myself how gorgeous you looked and I just have a particular weakness for tall men. But you are young, and arrogant and frankly just immature. It was predestined the events of the previous night. We both knew one way or another it was bound to happen.
At dinner that night we would pretend like nothing happened. But after too many Kamikaze shots at Joe Banana’s, we’d begin to cozy up a little. The next morning I won’t be sneaking out anymore. Guess I’ll see you in Singapore, you said. Sure you will. 😉
(5)
A mere two weeks after I came to Hong Kong, he joined our team of expats straight from our Dublin office. Our group started a little Friday evening drinking club and we had been out together so many different nights they are now a blur in my head. Like me, he’s the only other person in the office who flies out almost every month either to go home to his parents in Penang, or to go back to Dublin, maybe some business trips in between. We would find out a few months later in one of our drinking sessions that he has two young children, a six year old little girl and an 18 month old little boy. He has a partner but is not married and I vaguely remember him saying that it’s a stable relationship. We will become close, all of us in the office in fact. A small, tight knit group like that, it’s just natural.
There is nothing particularly striking about him. He is smart, sensible, extremely patient, and very easy to talk to but sometimes a bit sentimental. He and I, along with Rachel, share the same interests and amongst everyone in the group, it is with them I’m closest with. One Thursday evening in November, Rachel and I would watch some Hong Kong badminton open games. She would nonchalantly ask me if he ever plans on marrying his partner, she’s proper Irish Rachel noted. I said I don’t know. We thought it strange that we know she exists, we’ve met her even, but he doesn’t seem to talk about her at all. Sometimes we even forget he has kids, albeit we know how much he misses and worries about them.
The following Sunday, he and I will be watching the games alone together. We would proceed to have dinner and share a bottle a wine. We have always been open with each other but I was caught off guard when he told me that if he was younger and didn’t have kids he will ask me out on a date. I shrugged it off and didn’t think too much of it. He insisted on paying for dinner saying he had the most enjoyable time. We would have a couple more drinks afterwards and he will repeat what he said earlier. I would motion for him to stop because I did not want him to cross that line. He worried it was late and offered to take me home, an offer I vehemently refused.
The following week, with just the two of us working late, he would come by my desk and ask me if I wanted to go to the cinema with him. I said yes in an attempt to keep things normal between us but somehow it felt wrong. In the next two weeks, I will try to come up with an excuse not to go but I ran out. The night before he was to go back to Dublin for the holidays, we’d go for a movie. I would pick a Japanese family drama over a Thai RomCom.
As he was walking me home that night, with enough courage from a few glasses of wine, I would tell him how much I look up to him as a colleague and a friend. That I like him like a big brother and that I would very much like for us to remain friends and nothing more. I would tell him to spend the next two weeks to think things through, to reconnect with his family and devote his time to the kids and not work.
I’m not sure how I missed all the signs. All the little things he did I simply passed off as him being friendly. Maybe because as soon as I knew he was committed, I knew he was off limits. What I did not realize was that I wasn’t off limits to him. If circumstances were different, if there were no kids and partner involved, this would have been a different story altogether.
(6)
The past year has allowed me to re-evaluate my relationships with a lot people. It is true, at least for me, that as you grow older, you count your friends based on quality not quantity. I am truly pleased with all the relationships I have established, both in my personal and professional life. I have been very fortunate this year to have been able to reconnect with friends that I hadn’t seen in so long. My dear friend Oskie, who came to visit in July, reminded me of how humble our beginnings were. He now has his own growing start-up and a very fulfilling career as a financial advisor. Tina and Khaye, my college best friends and personal sounding boards, were also here a weekend in July. Although I talk to them pretty much every day, it was still different having them around. Ella and Pat, who were here a few weeks ago, were so refreshingly fun. I forgot how much I always enjoyed Ella’s wit! Julio, possibly the smartest person I know, whom I have not seen since university but has been part of my inner circle for so long, transited for several hours in Hong Kong last Friday. I took him to a very local and authentic dim sum place in Central for some real cultural immersion and then to Lamma Island for a nice stroll by the beach on a perfect weather.
As usual, I also have my life’s constants. Those who, despite our geographical distance, made sure I was never really alone. Dann, Vane and Chiara – my lifeline. Kristine – my kindred spirit. Sam – my soulmate. Ramz – my favorite pseudo-little brother. The friends I left in Hali – Carla, Sabrina, Rean, Rodel and Monet – whom I miss all the time. Tita Lucille and Tita Wen – my ultimate role models. My grandparents whom I owe everything to and love the most in this world. My entire immediate family whose unconditional love and support throughout the years made it possible for me to be where I am right now.
Going to into the New Year, building healthy and sustainable relationships are still at the forefront of my priorities.
So I guess that’s a wrap. I am now signing off. Thank you for sticking. 2016 has been everything but easy, and to me personally it was a revelation.