''You look nice in your glasses''

I wish it was as easy to make friends as some people make it seem. It’s not like I don’t try. I do. But it’s like when I do, the receiver of my ‘’friendly wiles’’ sees it as a challenge and want to fight instead. For example, there was this one time when I just started secondary school, I actually started a conversation with a complement. Or what I thought was a complement at least and it turned ugly.

Afterwards, I went back to reflect on the complement I made, which by the way was ‘’you look nice in your glasses’’. Hmm. I honestly thought that was a real good conversation starter. In fact, I played it all out in my head where she’d reply and say ‘’ aw thanks, I think you’d look nice in glasses too if you wore any.’’ Then I’d say ‘’gosh, we’ve got so much in common,’’ then she’d say ‘’right? We should totally be best friends’’ and I’d say ‘’totally.’’ And we’d walk away arm in arm going about complementing other girls we thought were cool enough to be  in out clique and we’d live happily ever after. I just wish this was before I realised that she actually had the ugliest and thickest glasses ever that just made her look...... gosh, I still can’t find a word in the English language to describe how she looked. But in my defence, I actually didn’t notice all of that at the time. I just really wanted to be friendly. I wanted to redefine myself in secondary school because throughout my primary school years, I was always the new girl at school, who should be seen and not heard (my family moved around a lot so I never really settled down anywhere). But I’m happy to say that ordeal ended pretty nicely because she and I became really good friends before we graduated. Of course this was after she got a pair of contacts - which really looked good on her this time. But I wasn’t the first one who pointed out how nice they were on her just in case I was blinded by my ambition again.

Over the years, I’ve had my moments when I’ve thought making friends was pretty easy. Usually by some stroke of luck, I seemed to have made the right complements. But generally, it’s been hard for me so I find it easier to just be quiet, avoid eye contact and play or chat on my blackberry (or in recent times, since I lost my blackberry, play snake xenzia or bounce on my torchlight nokia phone).

Two months ago, I decided that since I’m not exactly the life of the party, I could try being pretty. Now I’m not saying that pretty people are boring and interesting people are ugly so please no offence to the pretty ones, who are not afraid to be goofy and the ugly ones, who are boring as hell. Okay, so I’m not sure that was better, but moving on. So, I decided to be pretty and decided to take part in a pageant kind of thing. Good thing about it was they were looking for other attributes as well like eloquence, articulacy, not too much height, not too skinny (my major motivation) and others so I thought I had a shot. Plus I had a shot at winning Indian hair.

So in the midst of all the girls, I really surprised myself. I made friends with every single one of them and really had fun. I may have even won Miss. Congeniality. Sadly, I didn’t finish the training and didn’t get to compete because law school resumed and I had to leave. I don’t think that sort of thing was my thing anyway. The point is at the time, relating with them seemed so easy and made me realise that I may actually be a friendly person contrary to what I think about myself. I just shouldn’t put too much thought into it and a very important factor was just being myself.

Another thing is I find it a lot easier to relate with girls than with guys. But that’s talk for another day. Ciao.