Linked a Friend

Linked Wencong, an old friend whose blog I very recently discovered


De-linked Zhenwei, whose blog had been taken down long ago. (I don't know why)


So is this how it is with friendships? New ones appear and old ones fade away - one can never have more friends than what you always have had.


I'm a none believer; always tried to keep everyone in the loop of everyone else in the cliques when there aren't crazy exams that shoo the dinner dates out of organizers. But especially when there ARE crazy exams to cram for and time is stolen to craft a "hi" that is met with quietness in sms inbox, the fear of losing people you thought would last until the end of time creeps in.


I don't know, as I grow older, this age old truth hits: that friendships ending with events are far rarer than those ending with the lack of. One hand doesn't clap, but maybe it could have coaxed the other to, and the hand that I have been has neglected.


Too busy doing other things. A joke.


And then there are people who linger on as faces on friendster or on ICQ contact lists, who are still there, but really, aren't anymore. If one digs hard enough back in time, there may even be good times when you were connecting to each other like no two other pairs of friends, laughing hard at each other's embarrassments and sharing the deepest hurts and fears.


Of course one seldom thinks about old friends who had faded away. After adding them to your friendster list, you ignore them, because you think the other has moved on, I'd better too. And it is harder to re-know someone old, especially if you had been close, than to get to know a newbie. Not knowing how not to feel awkwardness in the no-longer-comfortable silence, or listen to the "you haven't changed at all!"s and "you have changed so much!"s without a tinge of regret.


Having written so much and still know that nothing will change, I must say I feel pathetic. When I meet the cold shoulder, I don't like to waste time thinking "What did I do wrong?" - which I am inclined to, sometimes, and this leads to alot of negativity that I try hard to do without. Or desperate attempts to turn things around - shopping at Shanghai's Xiangyang taught me desperation is the worst state of mind to be in to strike a bargain. Or balance.


To quote an old song that always pops to mind when I have no way out - Que Sera Sera...


P.S. Zhenwei and Cong have nothing to do with the expression of regret, so don't read this like they do. Ha.