The weather hasn’t been friendly today, being mostly hot and dry and most of my time this week was spent outdoors. I kind of arranged with some friends to go out and hang out over some bottomless chips at Chili’s since it’s been a while since we last did any of that. I thought there were only four of us, but on my way there, I found out another person was joining us - an old friend of mine.

I was a bit annoyed that they’re bringing in an outsider to what was originally a guys’ night out. It’s been a while since I hung out with my buddies, catching up, bonding over the usual guy talk of tits, money and random politics [Mwaharharhar, I'm just another one of those stereotypical male chauvinist pigs].

Having women in the mix just turns it into sort of a giggly group date, instead of a session of gar-filled laughter. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I was annoyed that my expectations were somewhat betrayed, nonetheless. Knowing that nothing I say or do can change the situation, I decided to ask who else was coming. All I got was a snarky reply.

“I think she’s alone. Best of luck.”

The bastard. I thought something was up, but since she ‘is’ an old friend, and that she’s been through a fair bit of drama [which i won't indulge here]. She probably got conned into the deal too, so I figured it’d be a good way to kill time and catch up with things. So I met her and we went to Times, where we kind of share similar interests in literature. I mean, we both spend a good amount of time reading books, but I guess any other similarities just end there.

I’m all for political drama, epic thrillers and sci-fi, she’s all for slice-of-life, timeless classics and chick flicks. Yeah, gender disparity or whatever you wanna call it. I don’t care. I just made bits of small talk, pretending to sound interested in the books she was browsing, while I was eyeing some books that I wanted to get for myself.

And so, when dinner came and everyone was in full swing, I don’t really know what to talk about. It’s always talks about people I don’t know or things I’m not particularly too interested in. Then comes the occasional remarks about men, coming from my old friend, this so-called self proclaimed ‘feminist’. *snicker*

Everytime she makes a sort of stereotypical or sexist remark about men, I found myself interjecting and pointing her gun down to her own foot, daring her to pull the trigger. It was amusing for me, to say the least, to see the flabbergasted look on her face as she fumbles over her words to win her arguments. I don’t know about her, but I certainly had fun pointing out the flaws in her so-called ‘feminist’ beliefs. Of course, it was all done in civilised jest and good fun.

Then I realised - oh shit, these guys are playing cupid on me. Well, they’re definitely not the first. I do honestly appreciate their intentions, they probably arbitrarily came up with the whole ‘chemistry’ nonsense, after seeing how I passionately dealt with her accusations towards men and all. And so they tried some corny dumb trick to get us to sit together and talk about our ‘history’ - whatever tiny little bit there is of it [much to their chagrin, I must say].

She too, I think, felt slightly annoyed and insulted at their efforts, but somehow took it all in stride [which I thought was rather cool]. At one point, she gracefully explained to them why we ‘don’t fit together’. She came closer to me, and poked a finger into my shoulder a few times and said to everyone…

“He stinks.”

Yeah. Well. Sorry I didn’t spray enough of that Brut deodorant and GAP perfume. I’m stingy with the expensive stuff, you see. Of course, she didn’t say that while pinching her nose or keeping any kind distance away from me. I don’t know whether or not I really stink [behind my back, even those buddies of mine say I do, but I wouldn't really know] but it’s nice to know that she didn’t really mean what she said.

I hope.

So did the cupid’s arrows hit, you ask?

I can’t really say either way. Yeah, sure, she’s cute, smart and all that. But I can tell you we’re pretty much worlds apart. And I don’t just mean, north pole-south pole, Mars-Venus thing. I’m talking Andromeda and Ultraman’s M78 here. I don’t know what she thinks of me [not much, I believe] but I certainly don’t have that much ambitious expectations for her either.

Thing is, I don’t know if it’s my ego talking here, or just my too timid self unwilling to muster that courage and make the effort. It’s tough when you have to make a choice and sacrifice one ideal for another.

[I can hear you there, in the back. "What? Fazri? Timid? DOES NOT COMPUTE!". Yeah, whatever. Fuck you.]

See, I love my buddies. I really do, we’ve been through fire and water for at least 7 years, perhaps more in the future. Almost brothers. The kind of things they do are really cute sometimes, but it does get at me. It’s a bit irritating that they’re a bit too thick to notice these subtle things, but yeah. I don’t blame them or anything - I mean, it’s part of their charm. It’s the reason we stuck together all these years.

Deep down, I know. Change is what I need, and change is what I need to do. The issue here is, I don’t know whether or not I’ll be able to live with that change knowing that I’ll be openly lying to myself about who I am and what I believe in. The last thing I want to do is to live a lie.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see if I get hyped enough to take that step.