sociability

it seems that social skills have nothing to do with sociability. You can be interesting, witty and eloquent and hit it off with anybody, stranger or acquaintance.

But when it comes to the next step, friends to best friends, that can be the hardest step of all. Its not down to you anymore; your ability to defuse any awkward moments or your ability to make anyone burst into laughter. Its down to you and your prospective best friend's personalities. As well as a certain amount of luck; there may be times where you aren't yourself for a long stretch of time due to emotional upheavals, and unfortunately for you, nobody is going to have a chance to get close to you at that time, personality mismatch or not.

I always had a space in my heart for someone i classified as my best friend at any point in time. My memory is hazy, but i do remember hints of my primary school days; glenn was my best friend then, but i was childish (since i was like 9 years old) and denied it fervently (and might have hurt his feelings), thinking it was "uncool" or something. tsk. (thats an example of the luck factor there, since the timing wasn't right due to my lack of maturity at that time).

William used to be my best friend, no question, UNTIL he started changing his personality and morphing into something extremely similar to me, but at the same time with gaping flaws. My personality is something i honed over 22 years of life, not with purpose but something that just occurs throughout your lifespan. You can't be someone for 16 years and suddenly start changing yourself; its going to be really wierd. And the worst part? He adopted nearly all my hard traits; zeal/semi-aggressive stance on opinions;dominance. (perhaps these traits allowed him to gain many more friends than he had previously, but he lost his two best friends of all; for i know i was as much to him as he was to him. his other best friend? thats coming up immediately)The only way you are going to be best friends with anyone is if you both share all your soft traits, which leads me to my current best friend (and william's previous other bestie): Woonseng.

This man definitely has the qualities to be my best friend till we're old and grey. His single only personality difference from me is my penchant for sporting activites. Anyone who knows me will know that i'm fanatical about games like basketball and soccer. I can get so addicted to these sports that very often i feel so uncomfortable without the touch of a ball and start bouncing the ball/ dribbling in my house, which is a hdb apartment. My poor neighbours... But other than that, our interests match in every way. Both of us are studious, hardworking, intelligent, witty and quirky, with a similar taste in music, variety, anime, games and of course women. Our traits also fit almost perfectly; we both share nearly all our soft traits; understanding, patience, loyalty, and he has escaped having any of my hard traits, which i do consider my weaknesses. His only changes thru the ages has been positive ones; flexibility and generosity; both of which i'm trying to implement myself. Considering we have reached a point that i never reached with william; it should be difficult for us to be anything less than the best of friends barring (touch wood) a huge amount of bad luck. The point? A friendship where we both know without a doubt that neither of us will talk in ill about the other (be it in front or behind the other's back); in fact i feel reasonably assured that we are reaching/have reached the point where we will actually actively support the other regardless of the situation or company. This leads to an extremely strong bond as there is literally nobody that can sow discord between us with lies and deceit. I can safely say that apart from my family, this is a level of trust i have never reached with anyone. The ironical part? William was the reason we met in the first place. In fact, both woonseng and i do have much to be thankful to william for; and we will always strive to remember the 16 year old william who doesn't exist anymore; perhaps this will help us keep a fond memory always.

The moment william left my life, i actively tried to search for replacements. Woonseng is the perfect friend without a doubt, and in fact i believe there are two others who have a high possibility too; Lucas and Cheecheen. It is a pity about Tianzhi; i feel that he and i definitely have a perfect fit personality and trait wise; but there has always been a certain level of awkwardness between us that strangely doesn't ever fade. (That is another mystery in my life btw, alongside the selene saga at the end of the post) Gary was another perfect match; but strangely in a completely different way from all my other best friends. Knowing my volatility, every single one of my besties has sort of treated me with a wary respect. The aggressive  and dominant ones cut off any close ties with me completely, and the tolerant ones stay my friends. However, what they don't realise is that i'm actually one of the most tolerant people out there, simply because due to my excessive levels of self-confidence (i'm one of the people who honestly believe that im good at everything) that not much ruffles my feathers. But the few things that do get to me, piss me off really easy and quick. The only person who dares to push my boundaries is naturally woonseng, but that is because he knows nearly as well as me how far my boundaries stretch. Nobody has mocked me since gerrard in sec school & terence in jc, and i kinda missed that. Until i met Gary, who mocks everyone around him with his own particular brand of wit and confidence. Gary is a genius alright, but a genius in terms of EQ. He's not one of those people who will go out of his way to try and get into your good books, in fact he does the exact opposite. I doubt anyone in my life has insulted me with such embarrassing regularity as Gary. But the thing is that his close friends will know he does it in jest, without malice, which makes it all good and fun. And the only way he can accomplish that is due to his underlying good nature. Gary is one of the best people in the world, one of those people who u know for sure will go to heaven next time. He doesn't try to do good things, he is good. AKA exactly what i'm trying to achieve. But the fact that i'm even trying to achieve this already puts me at a level below him. Yea i'm gonna have to earn my ticket to heaven fair and square alright. And all these awesome people (including junda (who is actually aggressive-dominant as well, but we both have strong enough wit and social awareness to tread the line carefully), henri, vishwa, as well as my ns besties) will definitely be there when i'm old and grey; that i'm sure of. And same for lucas and cc.

However, it has to be said that the chances of cc and i becoming best friends are wearing ever so thin. Ill always try my best as there is so much potential there; he has possibly the highest shared interests with me among anyone i know; soccer and basketball, as well as my current addiction, running man. However, there is one single major personality mismatch that i can't seem to get over. I always have had a penchant for having things out in the open; be it irritation or annoyance or misunderstandings and i detest beating around the bush. However, all these are in direct contradiction with his style; which involves avoiding sticky situations and ignoring clashes. A small issue is also his habit of ignoring stuff that don't interest him such as messages, but i've gotten more or less used to that over time. However sometimes when it happens too often it really makes me feel like i'm wasting my time. With these 2 differences in the way, it is rather unlikely that we will become anything more than good friends, but it won't stop me from trying, possibly.
Edit: 3/11 it seems there is hope afterall. either cc's reducing on his annoying habits/ i'm getting even more immune to it/ we're meeting each other in the middle. Possibly the influence of his girlfriend too. Either way, its all good. cc's definitely #2 behind woon now, nudging ahead of junda at #3. however willie is surging up the ranks; from 500th to single digit ranking. Wouldn't it be cool if i was aizen and my bros were espada?
Further edit: I had an amazing talk with cc which started out as a quarrel. But he had a calm and maturity i could never hope to replicate. I told him everything i felt in this post, and we moved on. We are both closer than we ever were now, and i trust him so much more because of his maturity. His temperament has become something i aspire for; you could even say i see him as an idol with regards to maturity. I'm glad i didnt stop trying to become best friends with cc, for he has proven himself as a real gem. I quarrel with other people, but now i know that cc is someone who will be able to handle my childishness with calm and maturity. And if he is willing to wait long enough for me to become just as mature, we will definitely be best friends until we are old and gray. and one of us wins too many chinese chess games in a row and annoys the other! lmao just kidding. when we are old we will be playing dota on the same team lol!

With lucas, both of us are aware of a huge difference in shared interests; we have differing opinions on life; studies and most of all women; this leads to an extremely low chance of us being anything other than good friends. However, recently i realised a hugely positive trait of this man that is extremely rare in today's day and age. The current day william had a fatal flaw in his new personality; he was blatantly a fair-weather friend (commonplace nowadays). Lucas has the rare trait of being completely opposite of that; i have confirmed that he is a man who will definitely be there during the rainy times. By actively trying to develop a greater love for his passion, soccer (yes, i've been striving hard for that ever since i discovered his awesome trait, much to the distaste of my bball bestie junda. don't worry though, kai definitely has enough energy for both sports!), perhaps there is hope for us in the end. Woonseng will definitely be the king of my best friends; but i'm surely hoping to find some princes/dukes and lords. And i already have my eye on a crown prince!

PS: it is perhaps glaring that i have no female besties in my list. While some might attribute this to the myth that guys and girls can never be best friends, i have to disagree as there were three prime candidates throughout my life that failed to materialise into anything beyond normal friends due to luck. I believe deborah and rachael were two such cases in which relationships frayed due to my volatility at times. Selene was the only one that failed because of the myth; and that blew up nicely. I have no real qualms about that fiasco though unlike with deb and rach; considering the only "crime" i committed was falling for her. Anyway, that whole situation is still something of a major mystery to me but one thing is obvious to me; naturally we weren't as close as i thought if it ended up in such a situation.
Edit: Seems i have to add yaoying to that list too! Although we mainly just talked online. Just took a read thru some of my old blogs and we really did have some wild msn conversations loll. very entertaining.

PS&PS: It is perhaps interesting that there is still a certain level of loyalty/trust between william and woon+me. To me, it is amazing that his biggest secret (and i suspect his biggest shame) was never revealed to anyone despite there being 3 members in the secret. Or perhaps cc was in the loop too; my memory is hazy. (and that is even more amazing, considering there would be 4 members in the loop then) But it is telling of how strong our ex-bond was that even when we ended up detesting/raging at him, we never allowed the secret to leak out. And despite all the history, it is also telling that woonseng and i have never wished ill on him... so far, lol. (in fact, i have a sneaking suspicion that he will be rather successful in future, if not for his tendency to overspend. His current grades should definitely be at my level or at least close to it... he definitely has teh capability to be at the top) Friendship certainly isn't something you can just throw away...