Raymond

I don't want to talk about this.

Simultaneously, I do.

I have this thing, this belief. The more you talk about things, particularly things that bother you, the worse they get. It makes sense. I fully believe it. Now I don't want to make a thing out of this and I don't want to talk to anyone about it. I'm just too embarrassed to talk about it. It's the exact same feeling I get when I approach the 'Ajay' topic. That's why I've told barely anyone about him, the truth about him.

God I need to stop procrastinating about all this shit. That's the real truth. Oh well, I'm a girl, it's actually socially acceptable. So I'm gonna let myself off and procrastinate awayy.

I begin year one and I am so sociable, I am the version of me I've always wanted to be. Outgoing, friendly, don't confine myself to only certain groups of people, to small group of intimate friends. Eventually, obviously, I slipped back into my old ways, became quiet..er, and only really stuck to my close friends. And that's okay, it was so hard to maintain that other version of myself, maybe I'll perfect it someday. No regrets.

The point is I was awesome, outgoing, awesome. I met so many people, naturally. Amongst them was Ray.




I really don't want to tell this story. I don't know what's wrong with me, why I'm so scared to tell this story. I've always been afraid of him. Of getting too close, of all the 'what ifs'.

*Deep breath*

I met him and we talked and got along. The few times we talked face to face, it was just like with any other guy. I didn't think much of it. Then we started talking on Facebook.












Can’t get onto the blog to see where I left off but basically I was being sociable..I met Ray..we talked in real life, then we started talking on Facebook. And so it begins.

We hit it off. I reread all our conversations the other day. There weren’t many of them but each individual one was very long. And wonderful. Really wonderful. The kind of wonderful I really miss from my life. There is nothing like that feeling, those emotions, just that experience of when you first talk to someone, someone special. Someone you get along with so well with instantly. There are certain types of people out there who you simply match with. I’ve met a few people like that. I wish there was a word for it. It’s an in-between. Not soulmates, nowhere near that strong. A calmer less forceful, definite, freer nice version.

Any-who we started talking and we clicked and it freaked the shit out of me. I’ve felt this before, alarm bells were going off. I knew this feeling, I recognised it only too well. Ajay. Even if I had never experienced anything like it before I would have known what was happening. Or maybe I would have been more naïve and went ahead. Wouldn’t have run away. I got so scared. Scared to start liking him. Scared to let myself. I didn’t want to let it happen. I’d been through this with Ajay before and I’ve regretted it all this time. There isn’t really any reason for me to regret it so bad. Nothing really happened. But as stupid as it sounds it feels like I have a tarnished record now. Tarnished record as in I don't have a clean slate when it comes to relationships.

It doesn’t really matter, that’s only half the reason I regret the whole thing. Point is I was a coward and..to be honest I can’t remember if I ran, I probably did, or if we just faded, got busy. Flashforward to now and it didn’t occur to me that he could have possibly..been thinking along the same lines. I didn’t think about what he could have been feeling at all. For some reason I’m always so blind when it comes to these things. Sometimes I get along so well with certain guys, it’s actually not that common an occurrence, but it never crosses my mind that I enjoy their company and they feel the same way. It’s very obvious but it just completely-I just completely miss it.

A couple of weeks ago I find out Ray liked me. He actually liked me. Missed it completely. Now I can’t say I liked him, I didn’t dare let myself! This always happens. Okay not always but it’s a bit stupid that this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I’m so oblivious. The signs the signs the signs. He went as far as telling his friend. My god. That’s a big deal. You don’t just tell people unless you mean it. Especially guys!

I kinda feel bad? No. I don’t know.

Well never mind..

I don’t regret anything. It was nice. I enjoyed it. It was so nice. And you know what, it’s untarnished, not ruined by anything, and let it stay that way! I’m okay with that.

I also think I’m cool with remaining oblivious to these things. It’s so much better to be caught by surprise-by pleasant surprises.

NOTHING PERSONAL

Over our routine breakfast I asked Sarah what the talk I was kicked out of was about. She told me one of the questions asked was whether he, the talker, believed people should know each other before marriage. He said no. I cannot express how much this, I don’t even know what the word is. Upsets? Shocks? It just shook me. There was this girl, Mary-Nana and she got an arranged marriage, to her cousin. Let’s just breeze past that fact, yes in this time, age and especially here in the UK you’d think all this marrying your cousin business wouldn’t really go down, but well. There you go. And he’s a freshie.

Basically she was telling us, her friends, about her engagement and she casually said,
“Yeh we text, but it’s only ‘How are you?’ ‘Okay. You.’ ‘Okay.’ Because you know, our teacher said
nothing personal.”

….nothing personal. Let me explain. Her religious teacher has taught her that she is not to talk





Ok this is an incomplete post but it was talking about something very important..maybe someday I'll find the motivation to continue it.

Sam Kang, If I Don't Know

If I don’t know if I can… recognize your face anymore,
or say your name- for what it’s worth…
maybe we’re better off alone…

Didn’t think of you this morning…but I thought of you right now…
And if we lose it all for nothing…for a name I can’t pronounce…

I’m all out of words to say-
no trace of your name or face
Cause we live in a world of change
So tell me who you are
Cause it’s just too damn hard…

If I don’t know if I can… recognize my face anymore,
or say my name- for what it’s worth…
maybe we’re better off alone…

If I don’t know if I can… recognize your face anymore,
or say your name- for what it’s worth…
maybe we’re better off alone…




I spent ages trying to figure out this song. What it meant. I knew the writer didn't mean what I was thinking, he was saying one thing and I was hearing another.

I finally deciphered it, there's this person, this girl who the writer broke up with and he doesn't recognise her anymore. It's obviously not about her appearance, it's her personality. Who she is. Things have gone down and she's changed..they've changed. Maybe she scarred him, maybe it was the things they went through, the things she did to him, put him through. Maybe a huge amount of time's passed..point is, he doesn't know her anymore and now here she is. He's wondering if they should try..again. But he doesn't know her. Anymore.

And he's changed too, 'I don't know if I can recognise my face anymore.' Maybe we're better off alone.

He doesn't want to risk it either, 'lose it all for nothing.'


Now back to me.

All I could hear, by the time I meet you..that person I belong with. Will it be too late, will I have exhausted myself out too much to, recognise you anymore? Maybe we're better off alone.

It's haunting.

Maybe we're better off alone, and that's ok. It's good. It's hard for to accept that I might be better off..but it fits. It makes sense. To be alone. To be without you. It fits..it makes sense. Better off alone.

Boys boys boys

Reading old posts, came across this one: http://youknowwhotwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/soulmates.html

It's the one about how I don't believe in soulmates and this one bit got me thinking. I said I think there are plenty of people near you that you are compatible with. I explained that just within your vicinity there are plenty of people you're compatible, let alone the entire world. Then I went on to talk about how this meant I didn't believe in the idea of soulmates etc.

I was reading this and it struck me. That's not true. I am not compatible with "plenty of people around me." Not at all. Far from it, I'm compatible with barely any. Isn't that why finding, falling in love is so darn hard!

I'm talking about this and two people immediately spring to mind. Wait. There you go, and now there's a third.

1) Raymond
2) Mitch
3) Ajay

Firstly let me quickly bring you up to speed on my life.







Kris. I just Whatsapped him. Out of the blue cos I was reminiscing about him (standard.) with Cutie-Pie. AKA K-Dawg. Okay that's going to be way too hard to spell, Kit.

God I can't stand it when ARGH. Basically it goes like this. There's two of them. Ajay and Kris. They're both guilty of doing this. Ajay's worse off that Kris. What I'm rambling on about is, I can't stand that I used to be so close to them, used to talk so much to them and now, nothing. It's maddening. School friendships, uni friendships, just generally with girls, it's understandable.

Having said that I'm now thinking about it. Why is it that I'm able to forgive these girls for losing contact but not these guys? Is it because they're boys? Is it because I used to have feelings for them? No. It's because I used to talk so much with them. I never talked to these girls that way and it's heartbreaking. And yes maybe it's worse because they're guys and for some inexplicable, unreasonable, stupid reason, I can't forgive them because of that.

That's just how it is.

I just keep asking myself, do they really not care about me? When I'm sitting here thinking about them, constantly wondering, how can you not care when I care so much? I just wonder, will I ever know? I pray that Ajay, at least Ajay, he at least owes me an explaination. I don't mind if it's years down the line, after I stop caring..just some reassurance that they care. Maybe I won't get it, but I hope I do. From one of them, Ajay, Kris, Hari, hell even Matt! Anyone.

Why did they have to do this. Why did this have to happen.
And I know the answer to that, it's not really their fault-but I can't help but blame them! I've tried, I've honestly tried to contact them, maintain some form of decent relationship with them, but they all reject me. I hate it.



Well this is depressing! Lol.

Shall I go back to catching you up on my life? Okay!

I cannot be asked to go through everything. I remember as soon as every little thing happened I would be desperate to recount it, to write it down to tell someone, Kit, about it. And now. Meh. So Priya has been teasing me about two very good looking guys. I now have a semi-(major/not major..it's complicated)crush  on the less good looking guy. He is AMAZING. That's all I need to say.

Okay that was not very relevant to my post at all. The deal with those two guys, especially..Umar is that..I just got really frustrated because guys like that would never notice me in a million years. And it was so frustrating for me that my friends and even the boys themselves were teasing me..it grew feelings in my heart (yes yes corny) and made me feel so..ugly. Unworthy.

I guess I needed a reality check anyway,

But good things happened too. I found out Juan liked me..hm. So Juan is the guy who, I don't know. He's..I don't even know how to describe him. He's ok. I like him. As in not like-like but yeh like. :)
I doubt he that seriously likes me, I don't know. I wonder if he has a much a crush on me as I do some random guy..I have a crush on. Maybe.

I really shouldn't revel in some guy liking me, especially because I know what it's like. I SO know what it's like, only too well. When you like someone soo much and they sort of just like having you round. Like have you as a friend. Eurgh. Of course I'm talking about Kris.

But I couldn't help but feel like, "Oh. Someone does like me. I'm likeable afterall!" Especially after how shit I was feeling after the two hotties. And..I can't really do anything about Juan. New thought that just occured to me: I could be nice to him. Just make him happy, and I could see if it comes back to me in the form of Umar. Always a ulterior motive. No. I cannot lead him on. I can't. Plus can't stand my friends teasing. Plus..Umar et. co. don't actually know I'm "semi" crushing on them..ANYWAY!

Then I found out Ray liked me. Wow. It's so strange...

Let me tell you the story of Ray. First year we meet....


I need to stop, cannot spend my entire life blogging
Saying that I'll probably be back in two minutes after having read what I've said.

Barriers

I have so much more to say.

There is this strong idea that there are barriers in Islam. Then I gained a close Muslim friend who invited me to explore her religion. It was less about her taking me to events and more to do with what we discussed. She, without even realising it, encouraged me to be more open-minded, and her religion was not the religion that I'd heard so much about before.

And so I let my guards down. Until the metal door came crashing down. Then I realised why all the non-Muslims had expressed such opposing views on this religion, the ideas that I had previously presumed before my exploration into Islam with my friend.

It makes sense.
I feel left out.

Seclusion and Islam

I was just thinking about how secluding Islam can be today, in fact it crosses my mind a lot. It's not cos I'm a racist..religist? I swear. It's because one of my best friend's Muslim and we've had innumerable, polite, civilised debates on religion, philosophy, everything. And it's difficult not to question something you are so heavily exposed to.

So in the most respectful way possible I was pondering the seclusion of Islam, especially between men and women. As it so happened there was a lecture on "Love and Relationships in Islam" held by the Islamic Soc today and I had decided to go. I'd been to a lecture last week and was just very interested in Islam and all these areas.

I arrived at today's lecture, got settled. Then I was asked to leave. It's not as dramatic as it sounds, Aaron pulled Sarah to the side and explained the situation, that it was Islamic Soc members only.

There's the first question. Islamic Soc members..what does that even mean? Does that mean Muslims only? Or does that mean people have contributed to "ISOC" significantly. Either way I have supported ISOC on various accounts. The number of events I've attended, but that's not the point. I don't feel like I deserve to have been left alone but..I don't know. It was embarassing. No matter what I told Sarah.

And so returning to the whole seclusion of it all. I have pondered the seclusion of Islam. Scolded myself for thinking such thoughts, told myself it's wrong to judge, it's not my place, they have their reasons. But this, this is really pushing me to no longer feel guilty for feeling Islam is secluded. After having been kicked out of a lecture for not being Muslim, I feel the seclusion and I'm sitting here wondering if Muslims themselves feel it too.

I doubt it, they are so dedicated and absorbed (as negative as this sounds, I definitely do not mean this in a negative way) in their religion, I doubt they feel it is wrong. Now here I sit, telling myself, just don't go again, don't go to another talk no matter what they say, no matter if they say it's open to everyone. It's not worth the risk and humiliation and the fact of the matter is, you do not belong.