i've never considered how little close friends i really have. most of the new ones i made the year before have gone on their own ways to find their new castes once we were rudely thrust into this new jungle. all the exploits of the past year, the shared laughs, the fright nights, and it is only now that i realise that i don't actually know any of them. instead i only associated with the veneer that they put up around them in public. i wonder if the relationship was always superficial this way, or is it just me who detaches myself from others and doesn't make the effort to know them. am i that intrinsically lazy?

i am in all senses of the word a potato. i don't think, i'm not proactive. once i transversed to the other side with all its bustle and its life, only then did i reflect upon my past four years. which i've utterly, completely wasted away. everyone knows where they belong. trackers have trackers, swimmers have swimmers. the brightness and the deftest of minds have congregated into their personal system. but what about me? i don't have any national colors, nor am i an olympiad champion. my thinking can barely reach the level of the people who are citing buffet or writing their own brilliant poems at this age. i'm nobody. but i wish i wasn't. i wish i bothered to be part of the team. everytime i look back i cringe at how stupid, how ignorant i was when i first began this journey, and how every choice i've made since then has gone the wrong way. a month ago i was lying on my bed at night, closing my eyes and i was wishing that time could just turn back to the way it was, however little. i could have never quit the things i now love. i could have done more to engage my sorry self. but then i open my eyes and everything's still the same. i'm still the nobody quoting radiohead. i want to be a somebody so badly.

am i fake? because all signs are pointing to the fact that i'm one of those who try so hard to be something they are not. everyday i force myself to be outgoing and smile and to crack jokes when i know that deep inside i'm not that guy. or at least, not that extreme. maybe the reason why i don't have close friends is that people who get within a certain range can see through my facade and they are repulsed what they see inside. i wish i could see what they saw, and try to change it. but wouldn't that make me more fake than i already am. i am forever seeking affirmation of my self-worth from others.

a recent event stirred me from my stagnancy. i found a hidden diamond amongst the gems. the person will never know how he/she affected me and may never even know me. but i thank him/her profusely, for the encounter opened a reprieve, a release from my thoughts. even if the meeting is forever tangential i will remember the moment when the curves of our lives touched, however briefly.