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Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 8:13 pm
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 9:37 pm
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Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 9:20 pm
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 3:52 am
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Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 3:46 pm
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Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 2:49 am
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Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:17 pm
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Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:26 pm
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 12:30 am
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domokun **WARNING, UBER RANT IN PROGRESS** domokun
I had a very long talk with one of my housemates today, after seeing 28 Weeks Later (not as good as the original but still worth seeing). It made me realise just how much my relationship with one of my other friends, called Ryco, has deteriorated since xmas. Kinda sad really, as before xmas I really saw Ryco as my best friend at uni. We had such a bond and were very close for some strange reason, spending many nights over in each other's rooms. Yeh sounds a bit gay but rest assured, we're both straight. It seems since those great days my view of ryco as a person has been lowered, and vice versa. And thus begins my rant:
- I realised a lot of this stuff when I invited Ryco back home to Reading to stay for a while during the easter holidays. He'd been round many times before and there were never any problems. However, this time was different. From the offset there was tension and a negative aura in the air, perhaps due to exam stress and having to search for student accomodation for the next year. During the last week leading up to the holidays we'd managed to find a perfect house for 4 people and everything seemed fine. Then Ryco phoned me and starts moaning about how he never really wanted to live with 2 other english guys (he doesn't really like english people), making it seem as though I'd forced it on him. In reality there was no other choice. We'd begun house-hunting extremely late and all the good 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom houses were taken, leaving only houses with 4 or more bedrooms. Now you have to understand that I gave Ryco the choice of inviting one of his chinese coursemates to join us, but he didn't know of anyone suitable so it was up to me (his pharmacy course has lots of chinese people but apparently they'd all found houses already, and there's only one other chinese on my course who I'm not really friends with). I found 2 english guys, one of my current housemates and a coursemate, who are both great guys... but I don't think any english person is good enough for Ryco. stare So basically he was saying, "You know I'm not really comfortable about living with those guys, I never wanted to in the first place and you pressured me into it." My response was, "Well what other choice did I have? We needed 2 more housemates and you didn't know any chinese people and nor did I. Plus you never even said anything about it before, and now that we've found a house you start complaining? Wtf do you want me to do about it?" *sighs* So you sorta get the idea. There was general unease due to this that didn't go away during the holidays and really spoiled the relaxing atmosphere I was used to at home.
- During the stay at my house, we began arguing. Now, I've never really been in many serious, heated arguments with my friends before, because we just don't do it. If I argued with someone like I did with Ryco, we wouldn't even be friends in the first place. These arguments were probably the most intense I'd ever had with a friend and there were many of them that cropped up over the course of the week. They'd start abruptly and end with either silence or with Ryco leaving the room. Usually they'd be over nothing. I can remember one such argument started just because Ryco noticed I was holding my chopsticks incorrectly. xd I asked him where exactly did this universal method of holding chopsticks come from, to which he just became defensive and cocky. It's as if he can't take having his authority questioned. Tbh, we're both very stubborn guys which probably has something to do with it, but I think cos in the 1st semester I took a more recessive role in the relationship (agreeing with him on most things to be friendly), now he thinks that he's always right. I'm also very curious so ask a lot of questions, which he may see as a challenge or something. Now obviously it's not just him in the wrong, I brought up something very stupid which I regret that caused us to drift apart even more. Ryco doesn't drink tap water unless he boils it, so I said, "If you're boiling 2-3 litres of water every single day next year, won't that use up a lot of electricity? If you do that then myself, Jon and Joe (other housemates) will have to pay more for the electric bill, when it's only you who drinks the boiled water." You see how stupid my argument was? Over the smallest, dumbest thing. After a while my mind became rational once again and I realised that the cost would be insignificant. How selfish was I, eh? To say something like that... Looking back I know I did it out of spite, just to piss him off. The tense living conditions, exam stress and other factors had made me bitter. You could say at that time I was starting to feel a bit depressed. But I realise I was wrong and I'm sorry. Sorry.
- Moving on. One of the things I hate about Ryco is how much of a critic he is. I never really noticed it much but at my house he really let rip. Examples include ridiculing my mum's cooking by saying it's too oily, saying my brother is too fat (which is true but still xD), and just repeatedly criticising the way I treat my brother. One instance happened like this-
[My brother is playing on his laptop and my dad tells him to go take a shower. He shouts for him 2 more times but my bro replies with, "In a minute" while transfixed on his game. I walk over to him, close the laptop screen and say if he doesn't go upstairs right now then he's not allowed to continue playing after his shower. He gets a bit stroppy but in the end does as he's told. I sit back on the couch with Ryco] Ryco: "I've seen the way you treat your brother Will, you treat him really badly. You're his brother, not his dad. You shouldn't have to make sure he goes for a shower or gets to bed on time. My older brother never told me to go to bed or anything, it's what my parents did." Me: "Well if I don't yell at him or threaten him like that then he won't do anything. You heard my dad calling him, 3 times and he didn't move an inch. A lot of the time my parents aren't even around to tell him to shower, etc, so I have to do it or else if my parents get home to find he isn't in bed then we'd both be yelled at. It's just the way it is in this house, I'm both a brother and a disciplinarian." Ryco: "But it's still wrong, you should change the way you treat him or it'll make him resent you later on." Me: "I suppose that just makes me a bad person then." [silence]
How are you supposed to respond to something like this? Just imagine if one of your friends told you that you're treating your brother badly and should treat him better. What can you say? 'Okay'? I mean why would you criticise someone at this length in the first place? Whenever I go round my mates' houses I see how they treat their siblings and it's just the same or worse than how I treat my bro. Yet I wouldn't go about criticising them because it's their life, they can live it how they want. I'm not gonna try and change them into the perfect person. I'm not a ******** life coach and neither is he. I mean his relationship with his older brother isn't very good, they don't speak very often these days from what I hear. I've never criticised his relationship before, so what gives him the right to lecture me about how I should live my life?
- I think much of this patronising behaviour stems from the fact that Ryco is 21, 2 years my senior. It's as if he looks down on me because I'm younger than him, so in his mind I'm less mature and less experienced in life than him. It doesn't help that there's this language barrier between us. As when he talks to me in canto, it's probably like talking to a child. I feel so frustrated when I have to use canto to communicate as I just don't have a large enough vocabularly to express myself the exact way I want to. Like, I wouldn't even know what the canto word for 'frustrated' is, so I'd be forced to use the canto for 'sad'. It's just not the same meaning in the end. I'd love to be able to express myself fully in english, but Ryco prefers to avoid speaking english whenever possible. Plus it would be like a role reversal, instead he'd be the one having difficulties with certain english words. I guess this part of my rant links up to the BBC post I made in the Racism thread. Different cultures, different minds. v.v
And that brings us back to the present. I suppose the whole point of this rant was to just say everything that's been on my mind for the past couple of months. Things that have gone unsaid, which really should be said but there's just no way in which I can express it for Ryco. Since easter I haven't even seen Ryco once, just spoke to him on the phone. Mostly it's me calling him to remind him to send his housing application forms to the letting agents, which I doubt he's done yet. It just feels as if the great friendship and trust we had has gone, and instead we now turn a blind eye to one another. I've tried to talk to him more, but he seems so distant as if he doesn't want to know me. He spends all his time now with his HK coursemates, and mine with my own coursemates. Sad really, seeing as it was pretty cool all the fun we had. Perhaps I'm being melodramatic, but it really feels like this split may never recover back to how it once was.
NB: All the conversations depicted in this rant were originally in cantonese. I just translated what I could remember into english, as I'm an illiterate BBC. emo
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 10:16 am
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-saves this space for sympathy later-
Loosen up, Toki dear. It'll all turn out okay.
Will be sympathetic after dinner. xD
EDITEDNESS::
Okay, it's 'later' now. Toki - ignore this comment later - it does sound a little.. unguyish? This problem of yours. I mean, it sounds really familiar to me but I go to a girls' school.. okay, stop ignoring.
I think you may be overreacting slightly. Obviously it's exam period, you're both stressed, and it's probably quite difficult around this time for everyone. Like you said, it can't totally be his fault or yours, just a combination of you provoking each other. Maybe you guys have just.. had too much of each other? I mean, it seems as if you've been like THAT close for ages, sometimes being with one person too much can get a bit overwhelming.. just keep the distance for now, and when things cool off you'll start missing each other again. (: And after that happens, the best thing is to talk through what you get annoyed about in each other and then make the compromise.. ^__^;;
Good luck lah. <3
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 6:13 pm
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:08 pm
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 4:39 pm
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