I was busy with my life as usual but I was also curious about iLight Marina 2017 since I had visited the past two years’. As lazy as I could get, I didn’t really try asking around. Since social media would draw reactions from weird people, I couldn’t be direct about asking who wanted to go with me. So, I posted a status asking who hadn’t visited it to observe the responses. I did receive quite a number of reactions.
I could see that one of the girls was obviously interested. She was just a net friend whom I had not met before but she was quite interested in modelling. She had quite ordinary looks and was rather flat chested, but I was sure my HMUA friends could do a good makeover for her. Obviously, she wasn’t that bad since she was petite and would be easier to be captured. Looks aside, she had mentioned about doing sexy shoot and that was a bait, although she did show me a few examples and I thought she was rather immature. She also suggested to shoot in a hotel room and I thought she was rich.
I wasn’t desperate for a girlfriend and I knew she wasn’t my type simply by judging through the online interaction – it wasn’t about looks but her weird character. Anyway, I would usually try to maximise the action I do, such as going out with her. Firstly, I hated going out alone feeling like a loner and secondly, I wanted to know more about her simply for photography purpose.
Of course, I regretted my decision.
Princess-wannabe
During the discussion to visit the art festival, she had already instructed me to carry her laptop for her. She was upfront and serious about it, without showing any shyness, like as if every girl deserved the good treatment. I wasn’t very used to it since most of my female friends were independent and would not want to take advantage of their male friends. Usually, I would be the gentleman to insist to help them (regardless of their looks) carry their stuffs and they would be rejecting me genuinely.
Lack of surviving skill and not funny humour
Since it was a raining day and I remembered SIM would be cold as the lecture rooms were all air-conditioned, I showed her some concern by asking if she had brought along a jacket or cardigan. She said no and she wasn’t afraid of cold. After we met up, she did admit she was a little cold. It wasn’t her first day in school and she should have known. Besides, I didn’t find her joke/lie funny, but she thought it was. Was it fun to make me mistake that she was very strong?
Lack of update, no sense of urgency
We didn’t set a time since I didn’t know if her class would end earlier or later. However, she didn’t update me right after her class ended. Instead, she only texted me when she was at the bus-stop. A normal person would have contacted me right after she was ready and not acted as if we had already decided on the exact time and location to meet.
“Sotong”
She had stayed in Singapore for about 10 years and I was sure she could do simple research about travelling around. I gave her the easiest method to travel down from her school – direct bus – 75. I also listed out the landmarks the bus would be passing by to assure her that I knew the way. Besides, she used to stay near my place and I didn’t expect her to know nothing about the transportation. At the bus-stop, she couldn’t find the bus number. I told her it was operated by SMRT and double confirmed the other bus numbers with her to make sure she was at the correct bus-stop. It took quite some time for her to figure out I didn’t made a mistake. If you had been waiting for buses in a particular bus-stop (less than 10 bus numbers) for many months, you would probably have observed most of the numbers. It was beyond ways to describe someone like her. Of course, I wouldn’t take this flaw into consideration for friendship.
Her hunger
My plan was to hop onto the same bus she was taking even though I had other better buses (more direct) to the venue. It was about helping her since she didn’t even know where to alight even though I had told her to alight at the final stop. Anyway, she told me she was having gastric problem. After attending the school for long and knowing the routine, she should have better prepared herself! If she knew that her class would end late (in fact, 7pm seemed fine), she should have prepared some snacks. Besides, there were food stalls in SIM and she could grab a quick bite, not as if she was late since we didn’t confirm the time to meet.
Her instruction
After getting into the bus, she instructed me to get food and drinks for her even though I had told her the place was very near my house, which meant that we would be having dinner very soon after I boarded it. The bus journey to reach my place could be between 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the traffic, and it wasn’t a long time to do shopping for her. I grabbed some snacks from my house. Then she asked me for milk and she named 7-11. It was crazy to take any cold drink when someone was having gastric pain and thus I decided it was better to get packet Milo from NTUC, which was also much more economic as well. She then suggested buying hot Milo and I thought it was a bad idea for I could foresee her spilling it inside the bus. So, I walked very fast down to the NTUC but realised they hadn’t replenished their stock. I got some chocolate milk instead and ran home to pick up my bag and kept the extra packets, before running to the bus-stop.
The elixir
After having a few slips of the chocolate milk I passed to her, she claimed that she had felt very comfortable. It was simply weird to me because even medicine wouldn’t have such immediate healing effect. Nevertheless, if she thought she felt good, that was good.
Buff up
One of the few topics she ranked up was that I should have buffed myself up. I didn’t go to the gym and many girls already thought I was fit. I thought it was weird for a girl to ask a friend to buff up just because he had fetish for guys with big muscle; I wasn’t even her boyfriend. On the contrast, she was underweight and didn’t look very fit.
Language
At first, I thought she was from Malaysia and thus most of them prefered to converse in Mandarin, which I was more comfortable with. I tried to talk to her in Mandarin but she kept it in English. Then, I realised she was actually a Canadian. Even though it seemed to me that her English language wasn’t good as well, she had tried to correct me.
Self conscious
She asked me to compare her real person with her photographs. For people who had been through waves and tides, we knew it was trap. It was a difficult task for me since I hated lying but luckily, she resembled her photographs in her styling – long hair hiding much of the sides of her face. Of course, there was blurring effect by the phone app automatically or manually and thus she looked much paler with not-so-good complexion in real person. I didn’t tell her that her nose looked bigger in her photographs.
Lectured on joke
Somehow, the conversation led to the topic of joking. She was in a serious tone, telling me not to joke using physical looks. She was right to an extent but her tone was really bad like as if she was lecturing her student – not that I had offended her. I tried to reason with her that if a friend make obvious jokes, it was very okay. For instance, if a girl was very pretty and her friend (yes, FRIEND) told her she was ugly, obviously it was just a joke. Another more obvious example I gave was that if her hair was long and her friend called it short, it was obvious a joke as well. Eventually, she was insistence and didn’t buy my explanation. It wasn’t as if people would joke about their friend’s disfigured face or any physical inability. To me, all my friends trusted that I meant well to them and I needed not hang out with anyone who had any slight doubt in me. She was obviously not an easygoing girl because she set her own rules and everyone had to follow her instructions.
Extreme thick
Apart from some rough skin, it was “thick”. As we entered the shopping mall, she told me she didn’t have cash when the ATM machine was around five metres right in front of us. She didn’t bother to withdraw money. She borrowed money from me instead and the only good thing was that she didn’t demand to dine at a restaurant. She was quick enough to ask to share table with a couple in the foodcourt and then got the money from me before she left to get her own food.
Find her church friend
She regretted going to the foodcourt because she saw many of her ex churchmates who probably came over from Suntec City. she had stopped joining them and she didn’t like many of them for they didn’t like her. Then she made one abrupt and stupid demand (yes, she was really serious about it) for me to look for one of them in green bottom. I didn’t see the need to do it since she was not going over to say hi to that girl even if we could find her again. Logically, the foodcourt wasn’t small and there were some stalls blocking the tables on other sides, and that we were seated down while that lady could be seated as well. She was really weird and demanding.
More fluent in Mandarin
Her male friend passed by with a tray of food and I assumed he was from the church as well. She invited him to join us immediately. The first thing I noticed was that she was speaking to him in Mandarin and she was more fluent in it compared to English – I didn’t see why she could accommodate to him and not me, by using the language.
Embarrassment
She was complimenting her friend for he seemed to be popular in instagram for he was working with Jack Neo in designing clothes. I was totally freaked out when she asked him directly if he was earning a lot and I could sense that he wasn’t very comfortable. I knew it was tough working with “big brands” or “celebrities” because you would either earn little or nothing at all, but of course, I kept quiet. Then, she started asking him for jobs in marketing and I was a bit taken aback when he realised she was talking about part-time job instead of full-time job – I had no idea what she was up to. Then, she even sought help from him to become an actress in Jack Neo’s movies. As a third party who was listening to the conversation, I felt she was trying hard to sell herself like as if she was going to swallow him up. I actually felt embarrassed and if I had the chance, I would want to explain to this guy that I wasn’t dating her. Obviously, I was treated as invisible. He didn’t get a chance to chew on his food and after some time, he had to excuse himself for he was in a rush and it was weird that he left the table and seemed like he was looking for another empty seat – obviously, he just wanted to excuse himself from her.
Excuse me
After the dinner, I was glad I was finally able to get straight the goal of the night – see the iLight installations. We crossed over to the Esplanade’s side and had to cut through Makansutra but it was very crowded. I led the way by the side and we had to cut through a bar’s outdoor area. An ang moh waitress was probably having a bad day and used a high pitch tone at me, “Excuse me!” like as if I was trying to block her way. My heroine friend decided to play a prank by using a higher pitch tone to repeat it. The waitress was at the door when she turned back, “Like, seriously?!”. I was at a total lost because I was already exhausted (running around before catching the bus) and feeling unwell (usual indigestion), and I was just trying to get over to the river side as quickly as possible. She explained to me that she was trying to tease me by repeating after the waitress. Later, she suddenly blamed me for not reacting so that the waitress wouldn’t mistake, in a speed second, that she wasn’t trying to anger the waitress.
Needs no explanation
It was one of the unluckiest nights ever when iLight met Earth Hour and we rammed into the start of that one hour. Most of the installations on the Esplanade side was shut down, apart from the Art Zoo at the floating platform that required purchasing of tickets to go in. Even the street lamps were off and I explained to her that the street wasn’t so dark usually but she didn’t seem to buy it. I didn’t see a need to explain. Anyway, that was the start of her using her phone intensively.
Stare at her boobs
There were some stalls under the audience seats in front of the floating platform. She was excited and went in. As clumsy as she could, she dropped the sample food, blaming the food for being too soft to be secured by the toothpick. She started cleaning her footwear with a piece of tissue and I didn’t really realise she had actually made quite a big mess of herself. After getting out of the crowd, she asked me to check her out for any stain and I finally looked at her from her head to toes and realised the cake had caught her top on her boob. She sounded very frustrated and blamed me for not noticing it like as if it was polite for a guy to stare at a girl’s boobs. I would avoid staring at sensitive places even during my photoshoot with models!
Glued to phone
Although she was holding onto her phone, updating her Instagram Story and texting her friends or friend, she did entertain me by telling me about her crush. However, she repeated her stories a few times to seek assurance from me that he was interested in her. The entire conversation was almost meaningless to me for she already knew the answer long ago. It was also very nasty for her to do that to a male friend and I counted myself lucky that I wasn’t interested in her at all.
Food and queue
Even though we just had our dinner, she was eyeing for food. Given her size, I was certain that she couldn’t finish up two meals in such a short span of time. Moreover, she didn’t even have cash with her. Luckily, all the queues were long, or otherwise, I would be treated as her ATM again.
Ridiculous blaming game again
By the time we had reached the Gastrobeats compound, she was already badly glued to her phone that she had almost stopped talking to me. As she looked very engrossed, it was difficult for me to engage her. Suddenly, she lectured me for not leading the way as she claimed she would be able to follow me even though she was busy with her phone. She was actually doing something I hated most – gluing to her phone instead of talking to me – and yet she could sound so arrogant. We actually missed some of the installations, not just because they weren’t very interesting, but mainly because her mind wasn’t at the festival. I was glad when she decided to call it a day.
Finding way home
The underground pathways around the place was messy to me but I was certain they would be linked to Raffles Place MRT station. We entered one of the entrances and took the escalator down. There was a label “to shops” and she didn’t believe me that it could somehow be linked to Raffles Place MRT station. Of course, I was not 100% sure but was more than willing to take the risk. We exited and somehow made our way to the nearest Downtown Line instead.
Same old selfie
She started doing selfie inside the train, it was all the same closed-up shots with hair covering quite a lot of the face. She then asked me to try a shot using her phone and exclaimed I was holding it very near her even though her selfie was closer; besides, there was no good background.
Gentleman
Despite having all the shit throughout the night, I still tried to be nice and asked if she preferred to be alone for the rest of the journey. I knew the answer since she was still busy on her phone with her crush. So, I counted myself lucky and alighted at my station. Of course, I was the one who remembered about her laptop and returned it to her.
iLight without photography
The main reason that I didn’t even bother to take my camera out from my bag was obvious – the person didn’t deserve any professional shot from me.
Intention to return money
She did contact me to ask me for my bank account number. According to my analysis of her, she was kind of “testing market”. It was another trap for guy. If a guy were to get back the 10 bucks, he would be considered as ungentleman to some girls for not treating a “cheap” dinner. My real friends knew I was stingy to myself but I was generous to friends. However, for this girl, I was very reluctant but to tell her that I would have the 10 bucks parked at her side to accumulate interest. I was also trying to test her reaction and she didn’t insist to return. I didn’t help to continue the conversation.
Petty and cheapo
A week after the meet-up, she commented on one of my Instagram photographs and stated that I looked like Steven Lim. Since Steven Lim was a comedian who was often being related to “disgusting”, I assumed she was trying to play teasing game with me when she suddenly texted me in Whatsapp, repeating it. She hated people joking about physical looks and yet she was doing it on me. So, I played along to tease her that she was weak for her whatever hiking trip and linked it to sleeping at home. She exclaimed I was rude and proclaimed that I was not going to have my 10 bucks back. Then, she removed me from her social media. To be exact, she unfriended me in Facebook and unfollowed me in Instagram, instead of blocking me.