Perks of Not Caring

"Don't bother," said Weixin. She started stirring in her plastic Starbucks cup at a fantastically breakneck pace.  "Don't bother," she repeated, with unusual conviction. "Cliques are useless, trust me."

I sipped my frappuccino slowly, pondering about this. Without divulging the contents of conversation, as is expected of any decent friendship, I shall simply say that we were discussing...social interaction. Yup, that's probably the best way to sum it up. Although, admittedly, incredibly vague at the same time.

"I don't know," I said. "I mean, I mostly agree with you and all, but it means that sometimes you get left out, you know? They won't share stuff with you, secrets or..."

She raised her palm up, making me instinctively come to a halt.

"It's pointless anyway." More stirring.

I raised an eyebrow. Try as I might, it was hard to disagree.



I love my close friends. Really, I do. Not in the kind of crossing-the-line-weird kind of way, of course, don't be disgusting. But if a person treats me with sincerity and values the friendship as something more than clothes you switch out everyday, then he or she has earned my respect and my loyalty.

Like an obedient follower of Newton's Third Law - not like there's any need to - the opposite is also true. I despise people who treat their friends as some of sort of self-beneficial asset, something to be owned rather than shared; a quietly-parasitic relationship, rather than a mutually beneficial one.

What's slightly depressing is that the more I reluctantly dig and know more about the people around me, it seems like the overwhelming, and really overwhelming majority are part of the latter group. Scratch that, then: it isn't mildly depressing, it's heart-wrenchingly (word does not exist, do not quote) depressing. In the face of all that, it makes it really tough to keep up the faith and effort I put into friendships. Frankly because it's becoming harder to tell who, among the many unrevealing faces, is worth the effort in the first place. And because of all that, cliques are automatically rendered a bit useless, because they're basically groups of "close friends" anyway. But at the same time, not having a clique is no fun either. There's always a slightly "off" feeling, that you're missing out on some things, or not being in the know of certain others because you're not in one.

Then again, does it matter? That's what I've truly been asking myself. Does it matter that I don't know, that I'm being "left out" in that sense? Or is it just a general fear or being labeled a loner, because it's assumed that you're not in a clique most likely because you're unsociable?

It's one thing I miss about home. While, most definitely, not everyone back there would make a "true" friend per se, at least I was guaranteed of much less drama going on... or maybe it did exist, but I simply was blur and unaware as usual?

And so begins the slippery slope to general paranoia. I realised that if I thought this way, I wouldn't be able trust anything or anyone. Every sincere move, every smile, every "thank you"; with such a mindset, I would treat everything with suspicion, regardless if it was warranted.

The alternative? Not giving a sh*t. Realising that, in a decade's time, I wouldn't be able to remember for the life of me the little pieces of drama that went on around me. Realising that, as was so well-put, that it was "pointless anyway".

And so I didn't.



Thanks for the coffee.