Creepy Crawly.
written: 1:06 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009

WHAT A CHORE.

Here goes:

I went to the Supreme Court auditorium at 3.30 p.m. sharp because my timetable told me that there was an exam briefing at that time. For the first time ever, I wasn't egregiously late; but guess what? When I saw the empty auditorium it finally made sense to me why I didn't see any students walking to the court when I was walking there myself.

I have no idea what happened to the briefing. A quick chat with Navin, whom I ran into at the Adelphi (I was hunting for an umbrella. Yes, I went for a non-existent class, then it poured as I tried to leave), revealed nothing much: he said the earlier lecture had been moved to the Sub Courts, but there was no briefing.

Maybe the announcement changing the briefing date was made in the same announcement moving the Conveyancing tutorial to Wednesday - also known as the announcement which I failed to pay attention to when I went to the BLE website to download lecture notes (speaking of which - I missed SO MANY lecture notes because I log in once every two weeks. Fucks). My fault then.

Anyway, moving on to what I really want to talk about: I wanted to go to town to shop for bras and panties 'cause it'd been ten million years since I last bought new underwear 'cause it's a nuisance in general, so I headed towards the overhead bridge linking Adelphi to Funan. Wanted to buy an umbrella from Guardian so that I could get to the MRT station. While walking up the stairs, I saw some random guy looking at me from the corner of my eye, but I paid him no attention and continued walking.

Next thing I knew, someone came up from behind me, touched me on the arm, and said, "Excuse me."

It was the random guy I spotted from the corner of my eye. He said, "You look familiar."

At this point I'm reminded of this incident - same pick up line, same lame attempt to "get to know me". Fuck that nonsense. But of course, at the time the current incident about which I'm writing was unfolding, I genuinely thought he was without evil, slimy intentions. I genuinely thought maybe he was some older PLC student that I didn't know existed, which wasn't that much of a stretch considering I go for classes 25% of the time at most. It's easy to miss a person because the class is quite big.

So I stopped and said, "Um...where do I know you from?"

When he said he graduated three years ago, once again I thought maybe he was a senior that remembered me when I was in Year 1. I thought he was a lawyer. Once again, it wasn't that much of a stretch because I was just outside the Supreme Court.

He asked me what I did. I said I was a student, doing law, blah blah. He asked if I was doing pupillage; I said, No, I'm doing PLC.

I should've known something was up when his face drew a blank at "PLC", but I was a bit slow on the uptake. It was only until he said he did Business at NUS that I knew, once and for all, that he was hitting on me.

He finally asked for my number. I said, "Um, I have a boyfriend."

I should have said, "My boyfriend was in Commandos and he'd totally kick your slimy ass so hard that you'd never be able to walk again."

His face expressed dismay. He went, "Oh...I'd just like to get to know you."

I was quite stunned. I genuinely didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to react to the thickness of his skin and his obvious deluded belief that, just because he mustered up the guts to approach a random girl, she'd actually entertain him. Forget about the fact that I'm in love with Wei Chuen; even if I were single, he'd still be pesky at best, and gross max at worst. But his appalling audacity was even more unforgivable because I said, clearly, "I have a boyfriend."

So I stood there, stunned, and before I could say anything, he pressed on. "So - I'm ____." He stuck out his hand.

I looked at it. I didn't say anything. He continued, "And you are...?"

Flustered, I told him my name. I don't remember if I shook his hand; probably not. Then he was all, "So can I get to know you?"

I said, again, "Um, that's really weird. My boyfriend, he's - "

He cut me off here, said, "You're not comfortable? You're not open-minded?"

Um. What? HUH? Open-minded? As in was I open to the idea of cheating on my boyfriend with some random person whom I didn't know, and had absolutely zero interest in knowing? Are you fucking mad?

I said, "No. I'm not open-minded."

Actually, I'm very open-minded. I'm anti-racist, I'm tolerant of all religions, I'm pro-choice, I'm in favour of gay marriage. The only group of people that I have a bias against is the PRC Chinese. So yeah, I'm very open-minded - just not by his stupid, weird definition.

He still refused to fuck off. He said, "It's just - I'm attracted to you."

I said, "Um. No, I don't think so. This is weird."

I should've said, "Half the world's attracted to me. So? Does it mean I have to get to know all of them?"

He said, "So you're not going to acknowledge my - " He held up his hands, palms-up - almost as if he wanted me to hug him.

I said, "Uh, no."

He finally gave up - but not without committing the cardinal sin of TOUCHING ME FOR NO FUCKING REASON ON THE ARM.

Oh my god, I was so grossed out I almost died. I was so eager to get away from him as fast as possible that I had no response. I just sauntered away. I encountered an ATM machine the minute I walked into Funan, but didn't stop and draw cash because I was afraid the gross guy was behind me. Before he touched me, I thought he was sad but relatively harmless; but when he touched me, I just wanted to freaking die.

I think I've talked about this before - I absolutely hate physical contact. Even a random brush of the shoulders with a stranger while walking down the street is enough to make me bristle. I don't hug my friends regularly, and definitely don't hug my family members. I take a while to warm up to a boyfriend physically; the first time Wei Chuen and I kissed, it was two weeks after we got together - and it was an accident (I wanted to kiss him on the cheek. He turned his head to me, and my lips ended up touching his. Yup, our first kiss). And it wasn't because he didn't want to kiss me, but because I told him, before we got together, that I didn't like physical contact. He's amazing for respecting that because the ex-boyfriend pretty much kissed me immediately after I told him I'd be his girlfriend - and trust me, it scared me half to death. It was weird.

It wasn't weird when Wei Chuen and I properly kissed for the first time, because I'd eased into him quite steadily by then. We'd held hands, he was always kissing me on the cheek (took me a while to kiss him on the cheek), and he was generally affectionate without being overly so. Now we kiss anywhere and everywhere, and I feel funny if we're out and not touching; but it took me some time to get to this stage.

I guard my physical space quite jealously; any small intrusion into it is an invasion of my space. I have no idea why I'm like that, why I hate being touched - but I am, and I do. The very idea, therefore, that the gross guy had the audacity to touch me on the arm TWICE? It is SO disgusting.

The thing is, I never know what to do in such situations. These caustic thoughts don't come to my mind until way after the fact, when it's too late to spew them to the offender. The thing is, the only thing I want to say is "no", but I spend so much time trying - and failing - to think of how to say it nicely that I'm stuck in the situation for way longer than necessary.

Next time, I just wouldn't bother. I think a simple "fuck you" would suffice, don't you?

Wei Chuen should be with me all the time so that such things don't happen anymore. And if they do, he can throw his Commandos weight around and muscle up to the gross guy and defend my honour. He gets damn pissed off when other guys look at me or hit on me - the other day I texted him about how some Indian guy reeking with alcohol (no racist implication; just stating a fact) was staring at me and he replied, "I hate it when people violate my property with their eyes and intentions." I texted him about gross guy saying he was attracted to me, and Wei Chuen replied, "He said attracted? Is he retarded?"

Hee. I love him. I don't care if Gross Guy was the hottest guy in the world; the fact that he happened to be ugly and old was only raised to illustrate my contention that he was desperate (obviously). If he'd been cute and respectful, I wouldn't call him gross, but I'd still be all, "Um, I have a boyfriend, thanks bye have a nice life." And I'd still want to go running to Wei Chuen and have him hold me until I feel clean again.

Gross Guy was tragic. It boggles the mind how he could've stood there and tried to make me give him my number or whatever, despite me saying the word "boyfriend" at least five times. Maybe I should've told him how much I love my boyfriend, that my boyfriend is sex on two legs, that my boyfriend is the only person who is sexy as hell when he's all sweaty, that my Commandos boyfriend can kick his ass anytime anyday, that my boyfriend is awesome, that he's exactly what I want and need because he's atas and not snobbish, smart and not (overly) arrogant, practical and idealistic, and because he loves me.

Try to beat that. Oh wait, you can't. And hey, I have no interest in seeing you try.

Maybe try this: Fuck off. Hit on someone who cares, because I sure as hell don't, and the only person of the opposite sex from whom I want to hear that I'm pretty is Tong Wei Chuen.

*

Moving on!

I finally forced Wei Chuen to tell me his phone model so that I can buy him his charger. He lost his Nokia charger and is currently using his sister's old phone, which is apparently so tragic that he SMSes me without vowels. It's amazing I can decipher his messages: Sry = sorry, cmd0 = commandos, vry = very, js = just, dnt = don't.

I need him to text me in proper English again (that is, as proper as he's bothered to, but it's TONS better than the way he used to spell online. OMG it was ATROCIOUS MAX) because my gramar Nazi mind cannot stand it, so yay, he has a new charger. YAY.

I went shopping for new lingerie while waiting to go for Olivia's birthday party and I'm very happy with what I have. I went into Nike and saw a white skirt that was totally nice and of course I had to buy it. In any case, I was looking for a white one. For no reason. Just because I felt like it.

Okay I'm very tired. Gonna post it.

Damn screwed for Comm Prac assignment. Fuck.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010