Since moving from QC to LP, my main concern was I’m going to be so far from my friends.
I’ve been a QC boy all my life. And as someone whose survival relies on my equity to make friends, I had to reopen my making-friends toolkit.
Growing up, I’d read books like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Making Friends by Andrew Matthews, and many, many more about making friends. I’ll gobble up that advice I got, however pathetic as it might sound. was my way of honoring the idea that the only thing we get to keep in this world are our friends and the relationships we’ve built.
So a couple of nights ago, I invited some people within our new village and had a cookout with them!
I remember back in Elementary, already with a deep desire to make friends, I told some of my classmates to hang out in our classroom after we’re done cleaning it. I had saved up the very little of my allowance and bought soft drinks at our canteen. I said Wait for me, I’ll be back! Rushed downstairs straight to the canteen, got some beverages, and with a tray carrying several cups, I made my way back slowly, in fear I’d splash it all over, and we’d have nothing to drink. It probably didn’t take me more than 10 minutes. But when I finally reached the classroom, to my surprise, it was empty. I was devastated, but you don’t cry in school, right? I sat in my armchair quietly asking myself why. Did they misunderstand me? A little while after, the school janitor came, and I just ended up giving the soft drinks to him. I quietly packed my bag, went down the school grounds, looked for them, and played basketball with them as if nothing happened.
Also, growing up, I wasn’t proud of our house.
It made me very uncomfortable inviting friends over, especially since most of my friends had helpers and everything was neat. All the rooms had air conditioning. I kept all those to heart, not hurt, but with an ambition that once I finally got my space, I’ll invite my friends over! Hence my desire to keep on inviting despite the fact that I have to be the one to tidy up, clean up after, and prepare. My wife told me it’s the job that comes with my desire to host. I’m not sure how deeply I believed that, but I just silently did the work needed.
Back to the dinner, I knew I’d wanted to say something about why I invited them in the first place. So a few hours before that, I wrote a small speech. In my speech I said,
Maybe most of you are wondering why I seemingly randomly invited you to come here. 2 things: business and pleasure. However, being honest with myself, pleasure usually comes first, then business for me, if there’s hardly any. So,
#1 I genuinely enjoy making friends. It’s one of those things I know deeply that makes me happy. My friends are my treasures.
#2 With friends come opportunities. Not to be opportunistic, but I’m just trying to imagine how it was in the pre-internet days; how did they refer anyone? I’m pretty sure they referred someone they knew, which I think is AKA friends. By being friends, we learn about each other, and as we do, we’re able to better help one another.
I thank you, bow!
That’s all.
To everyone whom I had the privilege to hang, said yes to my sometimes random and crazy ideas, thank you. You don’t know how much your saying yes meant the world to me!