Making Friends

Making friends is a skill kids learn at a very young age.

So as adults, we should be really good at it since we have had years of practice.

Agreed?

After all, after only 3 years of doing my own cooking and my own baking, I am getting pretty good and more importantly, pretty confident at producing edible stuff from my
kitchen. So surely at the age of 30+ I should be a master of 'friendship building' and a specialist in 'the art of making friends'?

No, not at all.

It's not the same when it comes to making friends, is it?

Back at home, where one is surrounded by people who speak one's language, practice the same religion and tradition and when one goes to work - surrounded by perhaps, people of the same level of education and skill, one might find it easier to make friends...

...as compared to here, where one is surrounded by people who doesn't speak one's language, doesn't REALLY practice the same religion and definitely not the same tradition and when one goes to work - surrounded by perhaps, people of the same level of education and skill, but have a different way of doing things, a different way of thinking and definitely different ideals.

Thus, the reason why, over here, one looks for people from one's own country and one's own religion and culture to make friends with.

Most of the time.

Anyway, I do it so that I can cakap Melayu. Bosan la asyik kena cakap omputih je ni..Dengan anak kena cakap omputih, keluar rumah cakap omputih, TV cakap omputih. Internet cakap omputih. Bloody fed up with cakap omputih ni.

I know I can write pretty well in the language but when it comes to speaking it...I tend to be a little bit formal.....I think. And that's no good when you're trying to make friends.

Mr S and I have been trying to increase our circle of Malaysian friends lately. We have a group of people that we're good friends with but we realised a long time ago that we weren't happy to be close to just a few people. We want to have lots of friends and know a variety of people and we want to socialise a lot. What we don't want to do is to belong to a little 'clique'.

The problem is, Mr S and I are both pretty shy and reserved people. I know, Mr S can be clearly seen as a 'shy-guy' but one would never guess that I am the shy type as well. Suffice to say, we have not learnt a lot about making friends at all, all this time.

But both Mr S and I have been 'forcing' ourselves to come out of our shells and honestly, it's been a learning experience.

In the pursuit of new friendships these last few months, we have met quite a few people. We have tried to open up and be friendly - paste a smile on our faces, ask polite questions, try to make conversations - even invited them to our home. Some of the things that we had to do weren't easy for us but we tried.

And it has been good.

It's funny though, how some people just don't want to make friends.

Not many, just a few people we met. These are the types of people, when you meet them at gatherings, they don't put on a friendly face, they don't ask questions about you i.e. they don't show any interest to know you..they just want to talk to their own circle of friends and can't even be bothered to maniskan muka at you. Some people are just satisfied with their own group of friends, I guess...

But I find it funny lah...

After all kitakan sama-sama duduk di perantauan...ramah2 kan lah mulut and manis-maniskan lah muka tu....It's not such a huge community, after all.

Tak paham sungguh. Tapi..entah2 depa pun malu kot....tak tau lah...

But still, it has been good. I don't know what was the perception of people about me but what's important is that I tried and I quite enjoyed myself.

All I wanna say for now is, bring on more people! I want to improve my lousy friendship making skills...

He he he..pathetic.