Dear
all,
This
is Kun Ge. While I’m obviously not a
member of your ‘group’, I have met some of you, and am good friends with OL, which
is how I came to know you in the first place.
As such, I am posting here on behalf of OL, who has been sharing with me
some of his thoughts and feelings about his deteriorated and distanced relationship
with all of you, and why he feels he doesn’t ‘fit in’ well any more. Despite the time and effort he previously put
in to help address issues related to your common interests and concerns, he
finds it difficult this time to speak about such things directly to you. So I hope you can read the following in the
right spirit and perhaps reflect on it in relation to yourselves, as it
represents his thoughts and feelings (some of my own feelings, as a relative
outsider, are also included).
Before
I begin proper, it should be said that I find it rather sad that such things
need to be ‘discussed’ over a blog of all places, and not for the first time. For all the talk about friendship, is this really
a good reflection of how honest, willing and confident you are in communicating
with each other (most of you are or have been in relationships, so I’m sure you
can relate)? For all the benefits of
social media, more ‘serious’ and profound issues are surely still best
discussed in other ways, especially where old friends are concerned.
I feel really strange saying all this, given my
own difficulties with direct social interaction (more on that later). And the fact that even someone like me feels
this way is surely a poor reflection of the current situation, as is the very
existence of this post and Ang Heng’s. But
given the state of affairs from OL’s (and Ang Heng’s) perspective, I guess a
blog does become a suitable platform for sharing. Note, however, that there are limits to what
can or should be said in cyberspace, so do bear in mind that what is said here
cannot be the ‘full version’.
Essentially,
OL feels he has ‘grown apart’ from many of you and thus lost his sense of
belonging. Of course, most people change
over time, but friends often ‘grow together’.
OL, however, feels that there are now fundamental differences between
his worldview and many of yours, which have often been to his own detriment. For instance, as Ang Heng previously
mentioned, some of you seem to focus too much on money and material gain, and have
become self-centred and self-absorbed.
As a result, almost everything you do or talk about inevitably leads
back to money/materialism/career/5Cs etc., often at the expense of intangibles
like ideals, values, principles, and the things in life you cannot put a price
on.
Of course, there is nothing wrong
with wanting a good job, nice home, memorable wedding, beautiful family
etc. However, there should be some
balance between these things and your friends – your friends should not simply
be a ‘fall back’ option for you when things are not going well, when you have
nothing else to do, or when you need a resource to tap. Friendships are long-term or even lifetime
investments with intrinsic value you cannot get anywhere else, much like
family. Family and friends are precisely
what give meaning to material pursuits in life.
Many of you may think this is obvious, but do your attitudes and
behaviour really reflect this? OL
mentioned to me quite a few times that if everyone in this ‘group’ had
acted/acts the way some of you did/do, there would be no ‘group’ to speak of. Though I am not in a position to verify this,
he feels he put in his fair share, and at times more than his fair share, of
effort to ensure this collective investment grew. Unfortunately, it came to a point where he
derived no satisfaction or pleasure whatsoever from doing the things he used to
find meaningful. In fact, it sometimes became
a burden having to do his part while at times struggling to manage challenges
in his own life.
OL
also feels that some of you are lacking in empathy and sensitivity, and so do
not or prefer not to ‘pick up’ on certain things that you should know without
having to be told directly. For example,
when he wasn’t working for over a year, trying to process the experience of his
previous job and figure out what to do next, all he remembers from some of you
are weekly routine questions of ‘Find job already or not?’, or ‘Got a lot of money
no need to work so long oh’ (which harks back to the material fixations
previously mentioned).
Therefore, although there
were some cursory enquiries and practical assistance from a few of you when
asked, OL did not feel like he was part of a good support system. He only recalls Kaizhen being thoughtful
enough to once look him in the eye and ask ‘How are you doing?’, which he was
grateful for. It seems like Kaizhen is
one of the few willing to take the initiative (as also demonstrated by Mendi’s
conversation with her during a bus ride), and more of the same from the rest of
you would definitely have gone a long way psychologically and emotionally. I thought it was basic human nature to show
that you care by asking such questions (and meaning it, of course). Or do you just assume that everything is
alright, simply because that would be the easier scenario for you?
Incidentally,
as someone with Asperger Syndrome (AS – look it up if you’re not aware, though
in this day and age, you really should be), I find this quite ironic, as it is
people like me who are supposed to lack empathy and awareness of others;
‘neurotypicals’ like yourselves, in general, should find it easier to empathize
and ‘read’ the feelings and needs of others.
Yet, for some reason, some of you seem to have developed ‘selective AS’
– you can plan your futures and careers, manage finances, socialize, network, meet
up for group activities, and engage in romantic relationships (all of which
I’ve always had great difficulty doing) like regular people, but when it comes
to understanding an old friend, you suddenly become socially impaired. To his credit, Teh recognizes that he ‘lacks
the crucial social skills that are important in maintaining long lasting
friendships’, but is he the only one lacking in that respect? And even recognition is useless without
corrective action.
On
a personal level, I find such double standards particularly aggravating, since
I have suffered no end under the ignorance, neglect and apathy of others in the
‘social realm’ (peers, classmates, teachers, relatives etc.) who could and
should have known better and taken more initiative, instead of just expecting
me to adapt to their social norms –
people not too different from you, perhaps.
Far too many neurotypicals myopically, and arrogantly from my
perspective, assume that others are all like them and will just fall in with
their way of doing and seeing things, and ‘sink or swim’, when they of all
people are the ones with the capacity to broaden their minds and challenge
their own restrictive social conditioning.
Many of them seem to think they are so ‘mature’ because they can do stereotypical
‘grown-up stuff’ and have ‘come of age’ and ‘come so far’ (the Big 30 is coming
up, guys!), when to me they are as narrow-minded and infantile as AS people may
appear to them, and with far less justification. Such overarching hypocrisy and/or myopia may
be part of human nature in general, but that still does not make it right.
I
should also mention that I am grateful for the effort some of you made to
include me in your ‘group’ for some time, but even so, how much of it was,
again, because of OL’s initiative? Would
you yourselves have taken the initiative to break out of your narrow comfort
zone and get to know me better if, say, we were just regular classmates in
school, or would you just have stuck with other ‘normal’ people like
yourselves? From my many painful, lonely
and awkward years of being a ‘different’ person in a heavily neurotypical-biased
system (in fairness, the so-called ‘grown-ups’, especially the teachers and
‘officials’, are more to blame than the students or children), I’m pretty sure
I know the answer to that.
Because
of this selective lack of empathy and awareness, OL ultimately felt that you
were usually ‘around’ (i.e. physically present) but not ‘there’ (i.e. showing
real understanding) enough. Could this
be because he was an ‘old friend’ whom you didn’t connect with so well anymore? And if so, did you make any effort to remedy
this, instead of just assuming that he
would take the first step, or did you just accept things as they were and
expect him to follow suit?
In
fairness, one reason for the differences between you and him is that he is not blessed
with as good health as many. Having a condition
with no cure, and having no sure idea of how it will affect his life, is a
complicating factor, to put it mildly (incidentally, I have the same condition
as he, and can relate to all this). He puts
in significant time and effort just to maintain his current quality of life. It is also a psychological struggle, as he
knows that he has to live with this for the rest of his life, and so inevitably
suffers frustrating and demoralizing setbacks. Being able to find a girlfriend, get married,
build a life and start a family are luxuries he hesitates to dream about at
times.
Having to deal with such a
condition ultimately affects one’s priorities and perspectives of life, in both good
and bad ways, it must be said. While
this obviously isn’t anyone’s fault, again, did anyone demonstrate any empathy for
and sensitivity to his situation? Did
anyone simply ask, sincerely, how he was doing, and whether he needed any help,
even if only a listening ear? As adults in
the real world, we have developed a practised apathy towards certain things in
order to survive and excel. But should
that apathy apply to someone whom you meet or used to meet so regularly and for
so long?
Related
to this is the issue of football, which he has not played for some time. This is partly because he has lost the
motivation to do the physical conditioning he needs to do, just to play with a
team he doesn’t feel he belongs in anymore. Football is a team game and a social
experience as much as an athletic pursuit, but he feels that the first two
aspects were lacking. Regarding his
opting-out of the usual birthday gathering this year, he meant no disrespect,
but felt that he simply could not in good conscience go through with it, as it had
come to lack real meaning for him. There
is little point in indulging in a symbolically empty act just for the sake of
‘having a good time’, when people are simply going through the motions, and
have no real emotional connection with the person they are supposed to be
celebrating.
Ultimately,
while I’m obviously not so familiar with your group dynamics, it seems to me
that there is a bit too much hypocrisy and cowardice. Some of you may object to such strong words,
but if I didn’t use them I would be guilty of these exact things. What I mean is that people are not willing to
face up to more difficult or uncomfortable issues, preferring to hide their
self-centredness and apathy behind false smiles, clichéd language, ‘ti-siao’
jokes etc. They only want to ‘hear the
good stuff’, and would rather go aimlessly with the flow, partaking in
meaningless but ‘safe’ rituals, than work out these issues seriously and
carefully.
Sure, there are benefits to
being able to ‘ti-siao’ with your friends, but it should not come at the
expense of sweeping things under the rug or taking things too far – for
instance, whoever teased Ang Heng about his chosen profession probably meant no
malice, but see what happened. ‘Ti-siao’
is fine in itself, but it has to be balanced with awareness and emotional
maturity (real awareness and maturity, not the superficial ‘neurotypical’ kind
mentioned earlier).
OL
has told me numerous times that he often did the unpopular things – the ‘dirty
work’ of trying to address issues or interests that should not be swept under
the rug – and because of this he feels he ended up getting a ‘reputation’ as
‘that guy’, when in fact he was only trying to make things better for everyone. In fairness, OL does have a tendency to speak
his mind too bluntly at times, and to get carried away with things he feels
very strongly or passionately about. He
would probably be the first to admit that he is not whiter than white (no pun
intended), and, from what I can tell, he relishes ‘ti-siaoing’ as much as
anyone else, which may have given the false impression that he wasn’t affected by
your behaviour and attitudes. But even
so, it seems to me that he was still the ‘conscience’ of the ‘group’, albeit an
occasionally abrasive one. You should
not shoot the messenger, especially if the message he delivers, no matter how
unpleasant, is fundamentally accurate.
In
addition, such things might only have been deemed unpopular precisely because
there was a tendency among many of you to stay clear of or ignore such
matters. For instance, OL recalls being
quite upset a couple of times when he raised certain potentially uncomfortable
issues, and the instinctive reaction was that the issue was only OL’s problem
(sounds like a typically self-centred reply, if you ask me). Only after explanation, however, was it
eventually agreed that the issue was not only OL’s problem/fault.
This passive and conflict-avoiding approach
many of you often choose to take often left him upset or conflicted, to the
point where he would rather not have been around to witness such situations. Perhaps having to endure your attitudes or
behaviour towards what he did or said was the price he had to pay for trying to
be true to his conscience, but should one really have to pay a price for doing
the right thing, or trying to? If you
were one of those who did indeed think that OL was ‘that guy’, perhaps it would
have been better to just let him know instead of ‘tolerating’ him, which did
not do either yourself or OL any good.
A
more recent case in point: after reading Ang Heng’s post, a few of you
addressed his point about people mocking his profession by clarifying that you
were not the ones responsible. Fair
enough. Psycho was also brave and honest
enough to apologize for the ‘la-sap’ discourse, which was definitely a step in
the right direction. But no one besides
Alvin seemed to acknowledge Ang Heng’s main point, and the one he began with:
‘At the heart of it, I feel that many of us have grown fixated with the
materialistic aspects of life’. No one,
unless I’ve missed something, has owned up to this so far. It seems silence was your chosen response. For OL, it was this kind of selective,
conflict-averse mentality or ‘culture’ that contributed to his feeling out of
place and being compelled to take a step back from things.
To
be fair, much of society seems to be like that – people just want to stick with
what is ‘safe’ and familiar, and if they are fortunate enough to be only part
of a majority, chances are they will not face so much pressure to change their
ways. But everyone, majority or not, deserves
equal consideration, and an equal say.
As someone with AS, and hence a minority (and one that many people don’t
even know exists), I obviously feel more passionately about this than someone
who has never known what it feels like to exist outside the ‘mainstream’.
True, any minority – and I’m obviously not
just talking about an ethnic minority – does have to adapt to an extent, which
is why, over the years, OL invested so much time and energy in his friendships
with everyone, doing his best to learn the ‘lingo’ and be on the same
‘wavelength’, so he could be a worthy friend and everyone could have a good
time. Not to mention his organizing of gatherings
and activities. But there has to be some
balance – it should never be only the job of the minority to adapt to the
majority; some reciprocity is essential.
He was usually there for you – were you really there for him?
Psycho
aptly used a pillar to describe friends offering support to each other. In a similar vein, OL has told me that he sees
friends as a safety net that is there to keep everyone together and catch
someone if he is falling. Unfortunately,
he feels he fell through this safety net (they are still porous after all) one
too many times for his own good, even if this was probably not due to malice or
ill-will. Some of you may think that OL
should get out more and get more safety nets, instead of just relying on one, though
many of you do see this ‘group’ as your primary form of support. As much as OL is working to broaden his
horizons in search of new pillars or safety nets, it seems a pity that he has
to do so under such circumstances.
To
conclude, I apologize if anyone feels that I’m out of line or if I’ve
overstepped my boundaries. I realize
that I’m not as familiar with the ‘group’ as everyone else is. Everything that has been said here is also
from my perspective only – yours may well differ. However, that perspective was also informed
by my conversations with OL, and I am certain that he is disappointed and
disheartened with the way things turned out.
So I’ve written all this mostly to help a good friend; but I also hope
that knowing how he feels will help you gain some self-awareness that you can
use to benefit yourselves. Do feel free
to respond and share your thoughts (as much as a blog will allow).
Best
wishes,
Kun
Ge
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