Note: Read the post before this. I'll be damned if my sudden flux of blogposts will affect the readership of my semi-interesting semi-series. Semi.
So there I was, feeling satisfied but slightly queasy, like one does after eating too much too fast, having finished a particularly long chapter on the role of militarism in the outbreak of WWI, when Afeez comes in and says (translated form the original Perlinese),
“Aiman, let us depart for the cafe and together we shall procure nourishment and thence satiate our empty bellies.”
To which I said; “Yes.”.
Walkwalkwalk to the cafe.
We’re outside the cafe. I push the door. It rattles. I am gobsmacked. I remember that it’s a pull-open door.
I pull the door. It opens. Afeez goes in first.
Lisa and Syiqin are there. Yay. Company. Homosexual connotations of having dinner alone with a guy may now be thrown out of the window.
Ordering now. Nasi Goreng Paprik. RM4.50 (it’s a steal!) Yum.
So we sit with them. Afeez, Lisa, Syiqin and I, at a table.
Syiqin’s looking like she just woke up. Which I found out was true.
Small talk ensued. I joined in, feeling fine, feeling good.
The food arrived.
Munchmunchmunch.
Dinner’s over.
I commented on the amount of coffee I drink and the growth in the flab around my waist. Syiqin gives me the evil eye. So does Lisa. Afeez laughs.
And so, the topic naturally turns to gossip.
Who’s taking who to the prom. Who’s into who. Why’s he not replying. Is she pregnant. You know. Regular stuff.
But.
I felt strangely detached from the whole thing. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but tonight i was so. Detached. Like none of what they were talking about applied to me. Which was true. But the gossip they were swapping was (dare I say it) juicy. Yes. Juicy as it comes. But I wasn’t interested. I couldn’t seem to feel he empathy, the anger, the envy or the lust that such gossip would normally induce in a teenager. Was I going nuts?
..
The whole episode reminded of Cempaka. I was a social retard then. I am not ashamed to admit it. The retardation I faced then still affects me here and now. People there would talk. I would listen. People would get in trouble, form their (more often than not grossly exaggerated) stories, tell them with pride and bravado, and I would listen. Listen. That’s what I did and still do.
Never in the action, never the one people talk about, never the one whose name appears after the immortal phrase, “Didja hear about...?”, but the one who sits back and takes notes, watching people, wishing he had the balls to do half the shit they were talking about, but at the same time dreading to hear, “That exactly what blank did last week.”.
But I didn’t feel that tonight.
No.
What could it mean?
Does it mean anything at all?
..
The detachment I felt tonight has signified that I am over it.
I am now secure enough to listen to gossip and not be jealous that I am not the object of it.
(Yes, the fact that I was at one point jealous of not being talked about is immensely pathetic, I am aware of that, thank you.)
I am now secure in my own identity.
And best of all, dear reader(s);
I no longer need to live in other people’s conversations.
..
Does that make me mature?
Hell. I’d like to hope so.
(Next week: Reanalysis of Gossip-detachment Phenomena: is he full of sh*t? Stay tuned!)
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