I feel lonely. Maybe it’s just a mood swing. After all, I don’t have any more or less friends and acquaintances as compared to yesterday. Different emotions trigger different thoughts, so I am writing down my present thoughts lest I forget them after I cheer up.

I suspect that it is a common human condition to have only a few really good friends. Do these people ever feel lonely?

I realise that I have a lot of reservations even with people whom I consider as my good friends. I worry that those whom I treat as my good friends do not treat me as such. I worry that they are not interested to hear what I say. I worry that talking about my weaknesses would be perceived as a means of garnering sympathy and attention. I worry that I would impose too much on them and become an inconvenience. I dare not reveal my fears and desires to anyone – those are the darnest of all things to talk about.

Ultimately, this means that there is nobody who understands me. I can’t blame anyone for that, because I don’t allow anyone to.

I hope that things can change. The above fears arise from my thoughts which appear reasonable, but are in fact backed by a fear or reluctance to trust people. As I have read, trust is a feeling that you get when you look at certain people in the eye. Supposedly, once you trust someone, you don’t think about how the person might harm you, which can be positively reinforcing. When you fully trust someone, you don’t think so much.

At the same time, trust is a faith not based on any reason, and I can’t just will myself to trust someone I don’t. To simulate trust, I tried to consciously think less when I interact with people. It isn’t easy doing something that isn’t justified and you don’t feel particularly passionate about, but it gets less uncomfortable with practice (perhaps because the good or bad outcomes of these irrational and dispassionate choices reinforce behaviour, making some choices less dispassionate over time). With more practice doing irrational stuff that I don’t feel for, I think it would become easier for me to talk to people. After all, so much of my daily speech consist of stuff I don’t believe and I don’t feel for.

Sometimes I’m envious of people who like to talk about soccer, cars, food and travel. It seems a lot easier for them to talk, and there seems to be so much to say. They don’t need to work hard to, y’know, just hang around with a bunch of guys and enjoy. While I didn’t need to work that hard for my studies, I wonder if that would actually make that much of a difference to my life in the long run if I can’t enjoy talking to most people.

Perhaps, finding a good friend is so important, that it is worth sacrificing a few acquaintances for.

(Looking on the bright side, I don’t need to have people around to be happy either. It’s just that being alone makes being moody that much worse.)

And why am I telling you all these? Because if I only talked to people I trust, I would have nobody to talk to.

Wow this is such an emo post. So emo that I might just delete it when I cheer up, erasing this part of my existence. Oh well. Xin yang caa 25-08 signs off now.

I was undisciplined. But things have to change.

Since I left primary school, life has only gotten better for me. Academic success was of utmost priority, and while I wouldn't say it was a breeze for me, I did enjoy studying. My grades were not something to be ashamed of, so my parents gave me a great deal of autonomy. I chose to spend time studying what I liked (and attending Judo training, which I admit I didn't like that much). For many parents, it seemed like a good thing. They often told my parents they wished that their kids would study, and my parents were proud of me for that. The education system forced everyone to go through the same thing, and I felt really fortunate that I actually enjoyed it. Left to my own devices, I would learn what is required of the syllabus and more. It required no discipline on my part.

There was little pressure to do anything I didn't really like. I didn't really like to go out and watch movies. I didn't really like to play LAN. I didn't really like to hang out at shopping malls. I didn't like to talk to new people. I suspect that people were doing many other things that I didn't like to do, and of course I didn't have to do them either. Afterall, these are the things that parents don't usually want their children to do.

But those were normal social activities. "Normal" people want to play and don't want to study. For "normal" people, social skills are not much of a problem, since they acquire it while they do what they like, which is to play. As such, nobody gave any pressure to anyone to attain social skills. Academic grades, however, need to be worked at. A combination of external pressure and self-discipline would be required to produce results, because they don't normally like to do it.

Due to lack of external pressure, I didn't notice that I lacked social skills until Sec 4, when a fellow Judoka sat with me as I was eating at S11. I recalled from previous experience that Alex Ang would usually order drinks for everyone at the table in a situation like this. It felt really unnatural ordering drinks for someone else for the first time. After I had finished my food, I wiped my mouth with tissue paper, then offered the fellow Judoka tissue paper, even though he had not finished his food yet. I felt so stupid then.

Since then, a few occasions made my lack of social skills glaringly apparent to myself. CCAL camp was the biggest shock to me. (And at that point in time when I was so emotionally vulnerable, Wang Rui gave me a donut! I don't think I'll ever forget that.) But still, after emo-ing a while, I would be back to myself.

It ought to be apparent that if I were put into a situation where social skills mattered more than academics, then I should be developed more evenly, just like what a "normal" person usually experiences in school.

Amazingly, that's exactly what happened. Just like how social skills seemed to be secondary to academics in school, it turns out to be the exact opposite in National Service. I admit that I didn't learnt that as a trainee, since I was still not disciplined enough to force myself to learn social skills. But being appointed as the secretary for Army Open House meant that I had to call up many people, and occasionally asking people for information. Only then did I realise the importance of networking: things really get done more easily if you know someone in that business, firstly because there is less apprehension in making the call, and secondly because the other guy is less hesitant about giving you useful information.

Knowing the importance of networking, rather than the usual "oh no I suck", has so far been a greater motivation for learning social skills. And the usual sense of "having fun", it seems, is a pretty good way to learn. "Having fun" is tiring, but just as one would study harder as the exams draw near, I must have more "fun" as I sense the upcoming test of social skills as enrolment looms near. It's not that near, you say? Well, I'm quite a slow learner, actually.