Raw

I will not lie - sometimes, I don't want to go back to Malaysia. Over the years, my motivation to return home has shifted from people to food and lifestyle. There are still a few people whom I would be excited to see, mostly relatives and a couple of friends here and there, but seriously, I've just lost contact with 90% of my friends and it now seems like an obligation to visit them when I make my annual trip back. If I don't, it just seems like I up and left, forgot and never missed them.

Were their friendships any value to me if I could so easily detach myself from them?

I hope none of them doubted how much they meant to me (truth to be told, majority of my friendships in Malaysia ran deeper than my friendships here), but if faced with the truth, I think many of them did. I guess, I'm partly ashamed to face these people because reality does appear like the gradual decomposition of our relationships hadn't faze me in the slightest, what with my lack of social interactions online and my minimal efforts to make contact.

Some may conclude that I am selfish in this aspect - that my complacency to keep in contact, while is convenient for me, is pushing people away and depriving them of a friendship that they would like to keep. But I'm tired of making up excuses for myself. So I'll let them believe what they do and I'll squash the self-pity that occasionally bubbles.

Naturally, a friend (or someone who was once a close friend, now an acquaintance) would vehemently agree that meeting up with them should not be seen as an obligation like some burdensome chore to complete. He/She would most likely take offence that I'm treating this relationship in such a manner. However, think of it in this light: My friend who left for Australia is now back, but she did not take the time to see me. I now have an expectation pinned on me despite our lack of conversation for nearly a year so that the person can feel that our relationship in the past was worth something, even though it now weighs insignificantly.

However, this does not mean I don't like or never liked the person. One of my best friends, who after pissing me off a couple of nights before, bought me a chupa chups and black forest chocolate; who was one of the few people who when texts me, I don't find ways to end the conversation as soon as possible; is now someone I can't stand to be around, only because it's now painfully awkward.

Since this happened years ago, I'll admit that one year I returned to Malaysia crushing on him only to find that our relationship with one another has changed dramatically. When once we shared secret information, now I can't even get him to answer a simple question about his life. This is how I feel with a lot of people that I visit; I know we used to be close, which I appreciatevery much, but that does not change the fact that we cannot relate to each other now as we used to 4 years ago. And to force ourselves into this situation year after year...

So to those people, I'm sorry, sincerely sorry, but it's not that I don't like you or that I don't want to see you - more like I don't know how to interact with you any more.