infinitely late at night

someone asked me a question tonight: have i made any friends beyond secondary school that i can honestly say that i'm close to?

i've been posting too much, but suddenly these few days i have had so much on my mind. i thought army gave you plenty of time to think about random stuff, but now that even army has been taken away, my mind's working overtime to make sure i either work things out or go insane.

so back to the question. the answer, as the person who asked already knew, is probably no. i answered that the 2 years of secondary 3 and 4 were so important in shaping who i am today that it was naturally for the friends i made at that time to remain my closest friends now. but i guess that was a convenient excuse to basically cover the fact that i've been a total shit for the past 2 and a half years and have made near zero effort to become close to anyone. in fact, i've probably never consciously tried to be friends with anyone before. it's just that sometimes, people gravitate together and even a sour cynic like me can hardly work against it.

friend. i have no idea what that word means. i use it sparingly, preferring the word acquaintance. someone a couple years back at the start of j1 once said that because i didn't use the word "love" as often as she did, then i didn't value it as much. i managed to convince her that the sparity of my use of the word meant precisely that i valued it more. it's probably the same with my use of the word friend. because truly, how many people can you consider a friend, with all the loaded implications?

a friend shouldn't just be someone you'd go out with for a bit of fun. definitely not someone whose interaction with you is limited to saying hi when you meet. it's much more than that. and honestly, i don't know how much it has to be before someone qualifies.

i proceeded, on the bus back home with said someone, to tell him a story. my sad story of circumstances standing in the way of what i foolishly hoped was meant to be. maybe i'll tell the story to everyone one day, but i guess i'm not really that interested in sharing it just yet.

meanwhile, if you are reading, it would be polite to drop a line on the right. just so i know.