Say ‘Good night!’ and Go

First off, happy birthday to my dearest brother. =) Don’t see why he should feel depressed with the addition of a year to his age. He’s got plenty to be happy about. He’s got a sweet wife who loves him and tolerates appreciates his idiosyncrasies, he’s got a job, and he’s not staying with Mum and Dad. XD

Okay, to continue from my last post. Hmmm, I can hardly recall what happened now. XD These are the bits that are still stuck in my head. They might not entirely accurate.

After I replied to his message, he called me. I was reluctant to take the call, but I convinced myself that this was all to find out if he was full of crap. He sounded like a typical Chinese-educated, didn’t pay attention in school and had a bad upbringing type of guy. Yeah, you can tell that much about a person as soon as he opens his mouth. I spoke in English and he insisted in replying in Malay. So in the end I compromised with Manglish.

He asked me for my photo. He INSISTED on having me send a photo of myself. I humoured him by taking down his address, but I did tell him that I looked hideous and I wasn’t going to send a photo to a stranger. I asked if he had e-mail or could get online and he replied in the negative. Hmmm…even more reason not to give a photo. When one doesn’t have web presence, it’s very unlikely that there will be ‘google-able’ information about them.

The line was bad and we got disconnected. So he called again. I told him that I was Chinese-Indian but could only understand the most basic of phrases. As soon as I said, “I can’t speak [Chinese]” in Mandarin, his Chinese language cells activated and he started rattling off in some dialect. Probably Hokkien, as that is one of the most common dialects spoken in those parts.

He asked me what religion I was and I said that I didn’t have one (it’s so difficult to say ‘free-thinker’ in Malay). And the sound of absolute shock came through the line. It translates to, “WHAT?!?!? Then who do you pray to?!?!?!” That was an absolute gem! I couldn’t help but laugh.

He said earlier that he was 22…and then he said he lied when I told him I was 32. This time, he said that he was 30. He kept asking me when I was going to Penang. I told him never anytime soon. I explained that I was still studying (again, he sounded incredulous) and that I wasn’t going to go anywhere. I told him I had paid off my loan and was virtually penniless. When I told him I still lived with my parents, I think he was convinced that I was pulling his leg.

So anyway, I asked him what could I do if I went to Penang and he said, “Buat cinta” (direct translation of “make love”) and it sounded so idiotic, I laughed! Who is he trying to kid?

Well, I told him I wasn’t interested in being his friend. I said goodbye and turned off my phone. This was already about 11pm. As my battery was dying, I left it off the whole night through (easy to do when you tell your friends not to call you). The next morning (okay, almost noon), I turned on my phone and discovered NINE missed calls from him. A Penang fixed line number and one of his cellphone numbers. All starting from 2:21am.

Now, any sane person would think twice about calling someone after midnight, ESPECIALLY when they’ve just known the person. This guy had ‘loser’ written all over his forehead. I’m not answering any of his calls if he does call. No Penang numbers accepted, unless they are already in my Phonebook. Most new numbers to my phone are wrong numbers anyway. XD

Trackback URI | Comments RSS