Night with Tannessa

So it seems March didn’t happened at all and it’s now April.

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Straight after I landed on Hong Kong, I called Tannessa to ask when she would be free for a drink and turned out she was about to call me and ask if I wanted to come join her in LKF. I was famished and desperate for a shower, so she kindly swung by my place with food before we headed out together.

Before we head to this pub she wanted to go, we met up with Adrian and had a drink with him and his friends first. Two things came to mind – One was how different we both were from our company, which I found oddly comforting. The other was a couple of déjà vu moments of how it was like back in school when we could use few words, or even simply glance at each other, to communicate. Because we no longer shared a common environment, it doesn’t happen as often as it used to.

As we settled down in this discreet pub where the art circle hangs out, I told Tannessa about my sudden trip to Singapore, to which she appeared both shocked yet not too surprised all at once (considering my history of doing uncharacteristic things from time to time, her conflicting reaction was completely understandable). As the night continued, I felt such a close bond with her that I hadn’t experienced in a long time – funnily enough it had never occurred to me that the two of us were in fact very similar people. For someone who doesn’t blindly support anyone, I counted on her to help reflect on the things I saw, thought and the choices I’ve made -  and I got her support to such entirety that I knew I was indeed, right.

One of the things I covered was how I have come to realize I tend to seek out people who I subconsciously sense loneliness / abandonedness / <insert as appropiate>; try to make things easier for them as I never want anyone to experience all that if I could help it by giving them what they want emotionally (I empathizes too much for my own good, it does seem)… but I was led to question if I was just hindering others from coping by themselves, that I should mind my own business and stop. Hah to be honest I forgot what she said exactly, but I had the impression that I need not fret about it.

“Do you remember if I was one of the people you’ve seek out; was I alone?” Tannessa asked as we were down with our third drink and the pub was slowly emptied out by the minute. I was suddenly brought back to almost nine years ago; we were on a school bus for some trip and she was there, sitting alone. It was early in the school term and she has yet to let people see her charming self as she kept to herself most of the time. My first impression of her was being this bad but bright student who got caught for wearing mismatch earrings (in my defense I was young, and she didn’t look too friendly back then), slept through class but still did brilliantly (yikes how many friends of mine does that? @@). For some inexplicable reason I decided to leave my own friends, sat with her and that was how it all began. Then I slowly recalled having similar experiences with a couple of people, a lot with me “approaching” them, making initial contact, and that was where I knew if I were any different, I would have missed out so much.

All in all, it was a good week and believe it or not, I’ve got so much out of it that words cannot express.

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Apparently if I were to test my drinking limits, I should drink on an empty stomach… because that way it’s cheaper and more efficient.