Good to See You But That Is As Good As It Gets.

It makes me uncomfortable, when people start to act as if they know me very well.

She came up to me after the drama performance today, and pounced on me like an over-eager golden retriever ( except without the drool) and squealed in that glass-cracking pitch:"oooo....glad to see u...!" *Clasping my hands* . Then she started scrutinizing at me at point blank range, face so close to mine that i could almost smell her breath, before lifting her finger to touch my face :" Wait. Don't move, there is a something on your face." She then smudged it off, as I felt the discomfort of such proximity, and replied:"err..thanks.." Next on, u guessed it, the good old :" U look better everytime i see uuuu..." cliche. Hur hur. "thanks again? U look good too." ( I guess this is the standard reply. And the ultimate exchange the person who says it first desires: the trick is always to praise someone so that u get praised in return, haha. )

I am sure she had nothing but bountiful of excitement of seeing an old friend. But to me she is just an acquaintance whom I haven't seen in almost a year, and to her , I am definitely not worthy enough to be in her Top 100 must-keep-in-touch list. When such a common understanding is established, over-reaction just seems a little superfluous.

I am just not good at faking to feel alot when i don't feel it. Neither am i good at hiding what i feel when i do feel it. I do think that she is nice; but I just couldn't respond to her enthusiasm with the same reactive energy. Meeting once a year is not frequent enough to warm up to that level of affection, I am very sorry.

Later, some more happy hopping bunnies came along too. It was thrilling to see some of these old faces again; but when all the ooooohhhs, ahhhs, laughing for no apparent reasons etc got over the top and became suffocating, i felt like escaping. Before i could successfully slip away with those people i went with, just as I expected, there was this "let's get together to take a picture!" thingy. Great. So we huddled together in one big "happy family" to take a picture. And more pictures. And my mouth ached from stiffened kodak smile.

After the pictures, we knew it was the opportuned time to just bid farewell to the group, before anyone of them could suggest to go for supper together or something else just to do some "re-bonding" and catching up. And to say no at that time would make one look like a sour party-booper, so run, now!

And so we did. The four of us said proper goodbyes and we left. I felt I could finally relax my facial expressions and breathe properly again. The four of us then parted to go different ways. I turned around to have a final look at the group of my friends, who were very much still engaging excitedly in their conversations and reminiscing the good old times. I smiled,then quickened my steps on my solo journey home.