New Year, New Me? Lonely Me?

A few days ago, I went out again with people from the club. Since we called this a “club social”, we were able to buy everything on the club’s dime. It was fun. In the afternoon, we went out to ice skating, and in the evening, we all went out for Korean barbecue. It was a group of 6 of us in the beginning, but more people showed up later for the eating portion. Ice skating always seems so graceful and classy, until I remembered I’m an elephant on some toothpick blades. The last time I ice skated was probably 5 years ago. I was never good, but back then, I could at least skate without needing to hold the wall. Since it been so long, I had lost all stability. Even before getting on the rink, I was intimidated by the ice, but with a little push and shove from the other members, there I was in those uncomfortable rental skates. One of the members had never gone ice skating before so he was equally super scared. To overcome our fears together, he suggested we hold hands as we skate to balance each other off. Now thinking about it, that seems like a terrible idea since if one of us falls, we’re going to be pulling the other down with us, but at the time, that was the best idea ever. We were both freaked and just wanted the reassurance of being able to hold onto something. We held hands for a good 30 seconds, before I felt way too unstable, and just grabbed onto some stacked buckets. I swear to god, the little 5 year olds skating in front of me were such show offs. Yeah okay good for you, you can skate by yourself. Fuck you. I hope you trip and eat shit.

After 10 minutes on the ice, I tapped out along with the guy from before. We both got off together and took off our skates. To make the time pass we tried our luck at a claw machine but to no avail. He wanted to get his moneys worth from the ice skating ticket he bought, so he went back to rent out another pair of skates, but I decided against it. I just sat on the bleachers and watched everyone have fun. Club President was doing extremely well, but everyone else was wobbling a bit. It was nice. When the Zamboni came out to smooth the ice, Club President, another girl, and I rushed to those $5 picture booths to get a photo strip to commemorate the fun day. Everyone skated around a little more until switching locations to fill our stomachs.

Since our group got relatively bigger, we had to split into 2 big tables to accommodate everyone. The guys at our table really wanted to get their moneys worth from the all you can eat KBBQ and wanted to try every single cut of meat. They ordered 8-10 rounds, with each round containing 3 orders of meat, not to forget the appetizers as well. The girls were all stuffed and kept trying to stop the men, but they were really adamant on wanting to make the restaurant regret letting us in. Either way, all in all, it was really fun. I enjoyed it and everyone had a good time. I secretly wish I wasn’t graduating so I could have an excuse to hang out with the members again after this.

The next day, I was getting a bit suspicious on Smartie, Boss Man, and Baby’s silence. It was already after Christmas, but no one in the group chat had brought up a day to hang out and exchange gifts. Other years and other occasions, I would always be the first to call or message, so for the latter half of 2023, I made a secret pact to myself to not contact them first and to see if they would ever be the ones to call/text me first (spoiler alert: nope! Eh except for just sending TikToks in the group chat). When we last saw each other at that sleepover a few months ago, I remembered we had talks of making Christmas plans to go to karaoke or eat or something, but it’s been dead silent. Also, because Smartie lives across the country now, I didn’t know when she’d be leaving the city and I might miss my opportunity to give her Christmas gift. I checked their location on the Find My app to see if the sisters were home and to check if Smartie had gone back yet. I found…the three were hanging out without me.

Maybe it was a fluke? I remember Smartie and Baby saying that their relative lived in the same neighborhood as Boss Man. Maybe they stopped by Boss Man’s place to say a quick hello? I checked up on them after an hour passed. They went out for dim sum. Maybe they wanted to grab a quick bite? Another hour passed, I saw they were all at…karaoke. WELP.

It wasn’t that I was pissed they were hanging out with me, just that Smartie was a hypocrite. She always preached that none of us should hang out without the others because we might make them feel “left out”, and although I understand her ideology, I’ve always been against that idea in the sense of, “Just because you’re busy, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hang out just to spare your feelings.” For me, it’s a situation where everyone’s availability been asked and if there are some that are busy and some are free, those that are available should be free to make plans together. If everyone wants to meet up then a plan can be scheduled according to everyone’s convenience, but until then, plans shouldn’t be restricted due to one person’s absence or so. Cause in that sense, to me, it feels like you’re restricting them of happiness they can be experiencing together.

But, Smartie still always thought that hanging out without everyone together would make others feel left out. I get it. When they did it to me right there, I felt it a bit, but I just felt anger more than anything for her not practicing what she preached. If they just wanted to stop being friends with me, then I could get the hint, but then what’s the point of still sending TikToks or reels in the chat? They obviously have a group chat without me if they can make those plans, so just cut off all contact with me then. Why sneak around?

Well I’m no angel either. Guilt-trip? Let’s guilt-trip. On TikTok, I saw a recipe for a mango dessert. In essence, it’s a crepe wrapped around a chunk of mango and whipped cream in the middle. It seemed easy to make and making these would be a good excuse to talk to them and see if they would come clean. For all I know, I could just be making this up in my head and the next time they see me, they’ll tell me they hung out together like it’s no big deal, which it shouldn’t be. I feel like my logic is getting confusing but I’ll explain it in a later post.

I went for a quick drive to the supermarket to buy some mangos. Sadly, none of them were ripe. Still, I had faith. I picked up 2 mangoes and 2 cups of mangos that were already in a syrup base. If the fresh mangos really were unripe on the inside, I could probably replace it with prepackaged mangos. I got home and went straight to work. The crepes were easy to make. It was my first time making them, but it went really smoothly. When I cut into the mangoes, they really were unripe. Hard and sour. Still I tried cutting them up just for the family to eat. It’s not like I can return it anyways. As I was trying to cut around the seed, my hand slipped and the knife went right on my thumb.

Damn these revenge mango desserts are a fucking pain in the ass. It was a deep cut and I wouldn’t stop bleeding. I tried running my thumb under water to wash the blood out so I could slap a bandaid on it, but it wouldn’t stop coming out. I got so tired of just leaving my thumb under the water, so I ran to the upstairs bathroom, with the blood trickling down to my elbows, filled a cup full of water, and just stuck my thumb in. Since the cup was clear, I was able to watch my blood flow out. Rather than just a tiny stream of blood, it was like my thumb was a faucet. The blood just kept going. Honestly, it was pretty oddly satisfying to watch, but I got sick of it after a minute. I yanked my thumb out, and slapped on 2 bandaids to tightly close the flesh and to barricade the blood from going out more.

Back to the desserts I went.

I took the prepackaged mangos in syrup, fished out the chunks from the liquid, blended the chunks into a nice jam with some sugar, and used that concoction in place of the sour-ass mangos. I finished the desserts smoothly. All that was left to do was to wait for the 2 sisters to start heading home. If I texted them and asked where they were when they were still out, it may raise some suspicions that I knew where everyone was, so I waited until they were close to home to ask them when I could come over to deliver the goods.

“Hello loves are you guys at home? I made some sweets this evening and wanted to share with my darlings. If not, it can be refrigerated and I can stop by tmr.”

In essence, this is what people call “being fake” and I’ll own up to it. Yes, I am a terrible person. They gave me their blessing to come on over, and over I went. I also brought along their Christmas presents, because I didn’t know when would be the next time I’d get the opportunity to unload it on them. When they greeted me, they gave no sign that they’ve been out all day. They seemed happy (maybe it was faked) to see me, since we haven’t seen each other in so long. I gave them the sweets and tried to give the presents as well, but they refused the presents on the pretense of “save that for when we all hang out, lets plan a day for all of us to meet up.” Smartie said she’d text the group chat about it and that was that.

When I got back home, Smartie really did text the chat, but it seemed that I was busy the day everyone else was free. I let them know they could go ahead and hang out without me (playing dumb as if they didn’t just hangout earlier that day), but they all rejected the idea. Seemed like no one wanted to fess up.

Well wasn’t that just a waste of my day.

TLDR: My new friends are angels, but these old ones are backstabbing devils in disguise.