In Continuum.

Single Serving Friend

It was probably fifteen minutes to four in the morning when a friend of mine made an observation about me, something which no one has ever told me about before. We were speaking of music and movies, and the topic inevitably shifted to the type of music or movies that might have gave us teary eyes. I was rather open about the songs that have given me a run for my Kleenex, and the movies that I so desperately tried to hold back those tears, but failed in the end. I remember listening to Nessun Dorma for the first time and catching that hint of sadness in the lyrics, despite not speaking a single word of Italian. The other song was the theme from Schindler's List, but that was really because of the imageries that got stuck in my head after watching the movie. The piles of dead bodies, that awful stench that I could almost smell with my nostrils, the sound of a dozen naked women screaming in the gas chambers. Everything came flooding back into my mind when the first note of the violin was being played, and I remember just breaking down in from of the computer, paralyzed by emotions. Those were the two songs I told her about, and I am sure I am missing out on a song or two.

But anyway, she then commented on how open I am with my feelings, especially considering the fact that it was just my second conversation with her over the internet. I bet it was due to the hour of the night, there is something about talking at four in the morning that makes anybody a little more honest about their feelings. But whatever the reason was, I started thinking about her words even after the conversation window was closed. I struck me that being this open and frank about my feelings towards a certain person or thing may not be the greatest thing in the world. It might be enjoyable to a certain level for someone to sit by the beach and talk to me, I do admit that I make a good talker and a listener in any conversation. But in the context of a social circle, I wonder if having full disclosure is really something I should celebrate about. After all, you are opening up doors to let people in, and other doors may be opened in the process. When the corridors to your heart become crowded with people you have let in, it becomes difficult to shut those doors afterwards. How did can one penetrate into your heart before you start to feel the hurt? It is hard to quantify how far, but at the same time I'm not sure if I want to know anymore.

I remember watching Sicko from Michael Moore a few weeks ago for my research paper, and he interviewed a telephone operator for a HMO in the United States. People call in to ask about whether or not they are qualified for insurance, and a whole lot of other questions regarding the healthcare system. There is a list of pre-existing condition that will bar you from getting your deserved health insurance, and the list is actually thirty-seven pages long in total. Any one of those pre-existing condition is going to prevent you from getting an insurance, and it also means that you'd have to fork out every cent the next time you visit a local hospital, uninsured. The telephone operator told Michael Moore about this old couple that called in once about applying for health insurance, and they were told to fax their application forms into her office for her to check their eligibility. Thinking that they were sure to get their insurance, they celebrated over the phone before the operator could tell them that they were definitely going to be rejected in couple of weeks' time.

They had conditions that did not make them eligible for any health coverage, but she didn't have the heart to tell the old couple that they will definitely be rejected in the near future. So she turned herself into this cold-hearted phone operator, taking emotions out of the equations whenever somebody calls in to inquire her about health insurance. I guess it just makes things easier for her, to take emotions away from her job. Because life as a phone operator, it is always better not to be involved in certain things, to detach yourself from reality when you are at work. It's just easier for anybody to get through the day at the office like robots, to not feel the boredom eating away your sanity, the sound of the fax machines and the shredding machine breaking your last nerve, setting off synapses in your head and forcing you to strangle the closest human being available. It is always easier to be cold sometimes, to be a robot. It's just easier to build a wall around you, not allowing others to penetrate too deeply into your life. Because the further they dig, they deeper they hurt you inevitably.

I guess it is a form of self defense to do such things, and I guess I am living by the life of a phone operator as well. People call in to ask a certain question, and as service staff of a major company, you just have to be nice to the callers, answer each and every one of their questions with a smile on your face, even if they are not going to see it from their side of the line. You try to be their friend for as long as the phone call lasts, attending to every need and every request. The phone call ends with those courteous 'Thank Yous' and 'Goodbyes', then life goes back to normal as you attend to the next caller. That goes on and on for a phone operator, everything is on repeat in the office cubicle for him or her. That is also how I interact with people I guess, at least what I am hoping to be as a person. Always being there for somebody who needs me, to always be concerned about somebody's dire situation. I reveal a little about myself, sometimes a little more than usual, but never too much or too deep. Because a phone call only lasts that long, you never know what may turn its back to you and then sucker punch you in the guts one day. It may happen for sure, and I am just gearing myself up for it.

This reminds me of the scene from Fight Club, when the narrator explains to the audience about his concept of a 'Single Serving Friend'. The main character played by Edward Norton, works for a famous car company, and travels around the country to take pictures of car crashes, to judge whether or not the drivers can claim any forms of insurance. Due to his frequent flights around the country, he has come to a conclusion that every passenger that sits next to him is - like the meals being served to him - a single serving friend. The sealed orange juice, the baked bun with a single square of butter, the set of utensils, the sugar and cream for your coffee. Everything the stewardess serves you is for just one person, and it can only be used once before your plan touches down on the runway. The passenger next to you is no different from the utensils you use to feed on the steak. He sits next to you for as long as the flight lasts, and you guys might converse about where you guys came from, what you guys were doing there, what you guys do for a living, etcetera etcetera. The plane touches down, the tires squeaks against the runway and you are back home. Both of you pick up your luggages, shake hands, and you are gone from his life, vice versa.

You won't go too deep into your life with him, and neither is he going to tell you too much about his life. Because you guys don't know each other that well, and everything remains on a very superficial level. When you speak to a stranger, everything becomes censored and a little distorted from the truth, but who cares anyway? It's not like anybody really treats a flight on the plane as a way to socialize with strangers, so it wouldn't matter if you lied about schooling in Stanford, or has just divorced from your wife who ran away with a Hollywood actor. Life is really like a flight from one country to another, and the people we meet in life are really very single serving in nature, at least for the most of them. They come while you are in a certain stage of your life, then they move on in their directions and you move on in yours. Some may be traveling in parallel lines, but you guys are inevitably going to be in completely different directions altogether. So it wouldn't be very wise to invest emotions on people who are potentially going to leave you, given enough time on their hands.

And as for me, I have no idea if I am telling too much, or still keeping people away from my limits. It is hard to tell how much is too much, because I am not the kind of person who likes to censor my thoughts or emotions at all. As you might have already noticed from the length of my blog posts, I am obviously not the kind of person that holds anything back at all. But at the same time, I do believe that the more someone knows of you, the more he or she is capable of hurting you, consciously or unconsciously. Somehow, that person is going to hurt your you feelings after you get closer to him or her, because only the people that matters to you can hurt you like nothing else in this world. Especially after the last tragic relationship, something inside me tells me that I should control what I tell people, remind myself to live life like the phone operator every now and then. To put my feet into the pool but don't dive, to dip my hands into the sands by don't sink. Because the pool might drown you and the sands may suffocate you, and nobody is going to be around at the end of the day to save you, but yourself. It may be a shame for others to know how defensive I may be in terms of making friends, but I guess all of us have been hurt one way or another in our lives to know, that deeper penetration only brings about pain and suffering.

I still enjoy long and insightful conversations with people of course, the ones that lasts till four thirty in the morning. But at the same time, there is always that fear of being hurt, that phobia of being stabbed in the heart over and over. Though not everybody is the same as somebody, I still feel helpless to my own defense mechanisms. They kick start without my control, and who knows how far away I am going to distance myself from my friends one day? The walls may get too thick for anybody to enter one day - who knows? - it may even be too thick for me to get out as well.