In Continuum.

I am not saying that I have a lot of ideas packed up my sleeves, but at least I have a trick or two that I have yet to try on my partner before. You see, being single gives you a lot of time to think about what to do for that faceless lover of yours, and the beautiful thing is that you never have to get down and dirty to actually make it happen. So I have been giving out advices to my friends as to what might be the perfect present for this Valentine's Day, and apparently two of my friends are going to do the exact same things for their respective partners. Let's just hope that the two of them are not going to meet each other, or things may get a little bit more complicated than it already is. Anyway, I am the guy you go to for ideas, but then I haven't got a lot of fieldwork to boast about. It is that time of the year, and it certainly isn't a great thing to be single in January, to be honest. You see, you are at the beginning of the year and thinking about how far you have to go till the next December - alone. Besides, January in Singapore is plagued by heavy rainfall and cold winds at night, which gives you an extra dosage of loneliness and solitude.

Here is what happened to all those little gifts, or memorabilia, I have collected over the last relationship. You know how it is, you pick up little things along the way and you keep them for a rainy day in the future. Even a flower folded from a street side brochure can become something of utmost value, though it really is quite a grotesque ornament in your bedroom. I haven't a box for such things, though I do intend to get one. Instead of a box, I have a shelf where I collect all the little things that I might look back a few years down the road and tell stories about. I think I have posted pictures of it a year ago, but that was when everything was still fine between the two of us. Right now, my old gifts to me from her are buried underneath other memorabilia like, concert tickets, a bag of pebbles from the Louvre, an autographed CD, letters and cards from friends over the weeks and months that we haven't been together. As you can see, the love from my friends have clearly taken over the love from you, or the lack thereof. Drowning your gifts underneath their own, I feel a quiet sense of relief and contentment that I am not going to be reminded of you on a day to day basis. But that is not to say that I am not going to toss those things out of the windows someday soon, either. 

A friend of mine had her things thrown out of her ex-boyfriend's house because he, apparently, couldn't take the sight of them lying around his bedroom. So a phone call was made, she was asked to go down to collect them, and such a thing is a formula for disaster, as the conversation ended up with tears flowing down her cheeks and a tight slap across his face. At his age, it is the prime age to be a complete jerk, and that seems to have been the case throughout a lot of people that I have observed. Anyway, amongst the series of memorabilia being thrown out were photographs being torn apart and hand-drawn sketches being ripped into shreds. You would think that such a thing would only be done by girls, but it seems like this ex-boyfriend couldn't resist the feminine side of himself. I mean seriously, I have never heard of a guy tearing up photographs because of a heartbreak before, that's just one of the gayest things I have ever heard of. And if you are going to give her back the things that she left at your place, fine. But why give her back those torn photographs, what are you trying to prove? That you are hurt? Sorry to break it to you, but you are not the only person who is hurt here. Stop being a selfish idiot and be a little bit more considerate about her feelings, that is the least you can do.

Anyway, I've never believed in keeping anything from old relationships. I find them to be redundant, pretty much like how some people would want to remain as friends after a nasty breakup. I don't suppose such a thing is necessary, and I don't believe that even a friendship is going to last very well either. Things are just going to be different, and that is the same with those gifts from the old relationships. It'd be weird to be using an old cellphone given to you by your ex-boyfriend, or using a watch your ex-girlfriend has given to you in the past. Let's admit it, it is kind of silly to hold on to those gifts of old, those little gifts you received last Valentine's Day. I know, I still have them on my shelf, but then it is all part of a very sinister and malicious plot. Perhaps one day, I might give them all back as an effort to spite her, or just find an abandoned beach to burn them. I am not the kind of person who is going to be thick-skinned enough to ask for the stuff I gave you, back. Not like the ex-boyfriend of my friend, who obviously hasn't enough brainpower to know that it is the most retarded thing you can do as a guy that came and went. 

Desert Island, the game whereby people ask you what you would like to bring onto a deserted island to entertain yourself before you get rescued. I think I'd bring these little memorabilia onto the island in a box - which makes it one item - and then burn them all to make a sort of fire, so that if I do manage to catch a wild boar, I can cook it on a stake. It made me sad, just a little bit, when I heard about my friend's plight, especially just two weeks before Valentine's Day. What is Valentine's Day but a day invented by postcard companies to make bachelors and bachelorettes feel like shit, anyway? This Valentine's Day, I am going to buy a box of chocolates for myself and gorge myself silly, smear chocolate all over my face and pretend that I am happily attached and blissfully in love. At least gifts like that are not going to come back and bite you in the ass when we break up, not going to have any repercussions if things go horribly wrong. I am sure or gain a kilogram or two in the process, but at least I know that I am going to be happily fat than depressingly skinny.