World Cup Year

This is a world cup year. I have grown to realize that the story of my love life can almost be compressed into what happens during world cup years.

World cup in Italy
That was when I had my first crush. It had been a very tough year for me, because there were some things that didn’t go well for me. But there was this camp that they organized for all the schools of the gifted program. Later on, both codfish (who was also from the gifted program) and I agreed that this was a nefarious way to get gifted students to breed with each other.

Codfish was in my group, but I hardly took note of her. I had a crush on somebody else instead, and for the next couple of months, especially on the foreign language classes that we had in common, I just sat back and tried to get a glimpse of her. Yeah, I know, it’s pathetic. Worst thing was that when my mutual friend (let’s call him CEO) heard about it two years later and told her, she was apparently shocked speechless. I didn’t really understand what “shocked speechless” meant, and just assumed that it was a huge blow to my fragile ego. I had a grand total of less than three conversations with her ever. I suppose this ineptitude coloured the rest of my adventures down the road.

World cup in the US
This was the year that most of these three conversations took place. I suppose I gave up ever having proper conversations with her. Most likely she wasn’t interested at all, and I had absolutely no idea how to make myself attractive to women. This was also the year that I got acquainted properly with codfish. And this was around the time that she started flowering from totally boring geek to become the sex goddess that she would be for most of her youth.

We were doing a temp job at the civil service when we met, and we used to play card games in the lobby after work. We had to pick a place to sit that was out of sight of the security cameras. I didn’t fully understand why I was in such a good mood during those times. I still remember them fondly.

I probably paint my teenage years as a disaster romance wise. But they were still pretty OK because on balance if you were to leave out the social awkwardness I had quite a happy teenage life in many other respects.

World cup in France
The intervening four years were the high watermarks of my teenage anxiety – more like they were low points. But it was just as well that I never had a girlfriend to worry about when I did my national service. During that time, though, I had bumped into codfish once every year, so I thought that it was fate or something.

Just before I left for Snowy Hill, some people held a gathering to introduce all the Singapore Snowy Hill gang to each other, and codfish turned up. I would later on realize that she had gone there under fairly dodgy circumstances – she was tagging along a guy who went to Snowy Hill, and who she was about to dump. I was pretty happy to see her there, and also a little bit sad that she wouldn’t be going to Snowy Hill with me. But I got her email address, and I’m not going to reveal the whole thing (it’s defunct anyway) but the username was “bravenewworld”. It was obviously a reference to a book that we had both studied in school, but to me it was an omen that she represented a promise, and a ticket out of my old, wretched existence.

The next year was not a World Cup year, but that was when we had a love affair in cyberspace. You can read about it there but it was the most emotionally intense part of my life, and will be for some time until I have a proper love affair of my own.

World Cup in Japan and Korea
Most of my issues with codfish were over by this time. I had moved into a house with a lot of architects, and spent the winter in the house, instead of either travelling or going back home as I would normally do during winters. My social life in Snowy Hill was nothing to shout about and I was perfectly happy to just lie in the bathtub and read books and have the whole house to myself. But then the new tenants for the spring semester started arriving one by one and I would have to share the house with the Americans once again. (although most of them were Asian Americans).

The last person to turn up at my house was a redhead American. I called her fire girl, because I imagined that she was a fire sign. Wrong, she was a water sign, but then again, so much the better because water goes well with earth.

I wasn’t that good with Caucasians. But she was one of the first Caucasians to make me feel totally at ease. And I loved red heads and freckles. We didn’t get along like a house on fire because we were almost completely aliens with each other, and she never suspected that I had a crush on her. In fact there was a Korean in the house who thought that I had a crush on her. Wrong. But if you think that a person acts like a moron in front of a member of the opposite sex because he has a crush, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that I have a crush on every girl that I meet.

On her last week in the house, we talked a bit, and she actually confided in me that she was going to meet her divorced father in another town, and about how she hated these meetings. Then she talked about her brother, and told me stuff that friends tell each other. But later on I made an extremely disastrous mistake. I ended up sitting on top of her and giving her a massage. Both of us were distraught over that for very different reasons, but that really hurt. I wrote her a letter of apology, and for some reason, I used the bathroom downstairs and found that letter dumped there on the floor. I was really angry, and pounded on her door, and screamed at her for disrespecting my last foolish attempt to salvage some honour from the wreckage. And she looked at me with a gaze of such contempt that I wouldn’t quickly forget it.

We never spoke to each other again, but I befriended her on Facebook and she has never unfriended me. I suppose that’s the closest I’ll ever get to forgiveness.

World Cup in Germany
I had been stalking Water Girl for a few years now, and it was finally time for our first date, and it didn’t go well. I’ve probably told the story elsewhere too.

At the same time, I had tried to stay friends with codfish. She had left for a degree around the time that I went home, so it turned out that we would never ever be in the same place together. That time when I got that “bravenewworld” email address from her would be the last time we were in the same country together, ever. Which is funny because almost the entire of our relationship took place after that point.

However codfish and I were also drifting apart, even as platonic friends. We weren’t platonic friends, actually. I wanted her to be a friend with benefits, because she had such a great body. But after this period, we learnt that we weren’t that compatible in spite of our having some common interests. And our relationship slowly went downhill until there was a period where we were talking to each other with thinly veiled contempt. The final break came when I unilaterally decided to end the friendship – easy for me to do since I had been initiating the contact all the time. When she realised what had happened she tried to get me to talk to her again, but then again she didn’t try that hard.

The main episode of this world cup year was the Joo Chiat adventures.

World Cup in South Africa
This was the year that I had a revelation about Water Girl. It was over for me with water girl for quite some time, but it was during this year that I got to read her blog and find out that she had actually been badmouthing me on her blog. It was quite a shock. But also found out that she – how shall I put this nicely – fell well short of the intellectual requirements that I was looking for in a girlfriend. I want a girl whose grasp of logic is as tight as her pussy.

This was also the year of another underwhelming sideshow of catwoman. It seems that catwoman might still be open to the possibility of a relationship. But I think that it would be better if she started again with somebody else, and I really cannot unsee what I saw in her – she has way too much baggage.

World Cup in Brazil
When the new girl came in for her interview and was shown around her office, I still remember that she was wearing purple. I thought she looked great, and inwardly I was willing the guy who was interviewing her to pick her. He did. It turns out that she is not only good to look at, but has a warm personality. Tall, brunette with a reddish tint, big chin like me. But I later on found out that she has a daughter, so I need to figure out what the situation is, if she’s still married, or if she’s a single mother. She did hint that she was really glad to finally find work, so she might be the latter.

Around this time, I was listening to this song by the Kinks: “Something Better Beginning”. It is a testament to Ray Davies’ talent that even one of his more minor songs sounds better that most of the dreck served up today. The relevant lyrics: “ The band had started to play / I held you hand and I sighed / Is this the start of another heart breaker / Or something better beginning” There is a quaint decorousness that I like about the Kinks, and this is certainly preferable to “girl meets boy, boy meets girl, they take their pants off and fuck within five minutes” scenario that we see today.

I took a trip back to Singapore and sometimes I wonder if I would have already been attached by not opting to leave that place. And the women all look so much more accessible than in the US. Then I sometimes remind myself that I have to be as adventurous like I had been adventurous with my life. Actually, I wasn’t that adventurous but you know, whatever.

Also, during this trip, a friend tried to hook me up with a girl a few years back, and abruptly asked me to try again now, five years later. The hook up was so disastrous because her friend was doing most of the talking during that meet up. I decided to pass on her. You just can’t go with somebody who can’t help herself. You just can’t jump into things that look like they’re certainly going to fail.

There were a few things that were not covered in this. The whole episode with teapot was not covered because nothing associated with it fell during a world cup year.