I’m not even sure why I contacted him to ask if he would be free to meet up when I was in Melbourne for four days. Perhaps it was curiosity – he had left a comment on my blog 1.5 weeks before I was going to Melbourne and it was the first time I had heard from him in more than a year. Perhaps I was wondering what it would be like to meet someone again after 6 years. Perhaps it was boredom – I haven’t really had a social life since coming to Sydney and I wanted to talk to someone who had known me from Hong Kong.

He replied – surprisingly – to my email and said he could meet on Monday evening. I said that was fine. However, at the back of my mind, I somehow knew he was going to stand me up like previous times. And so, I didn’t say to my colleague I was going to meet a friend for dinner on Monday evening and thus ended up going out with her instead. He didn’t disappoint me; he emailed at around 8:30pm to say he was still stuck at work and couldn’t make it in the end. By which time, I had already had dinner.

A more courteous thing to do if one can’t make it would be to inform the other party earlier. Obviously, I wasn’t – and have never been – important enough for him to do so. Once again, I allowed this guy to treat me like shit. I knew this would have been the outcome yet I had allowed it to happen. I’m such an idiot. This time, I blame myself.

Perhaps it was loneliness that made me send that (stupid) email. The first few weeks of moving into my own flat was difficult; I felt depressed. After a year of living with my uncle, aunt and three cousins, I had grown used to returning home to people whom I could chat to. Then suddenly I was all by myself again. I mean I have lived alone before, but getting used to it again took a little time. It’s now been about 1.5 months since I moved out and I have gotten used to living on my own again.

Yet, I still wished I had someone whom I could share my life and have a family with. It’s been so long that a guy actually saw me as a woman and not one of their buddies. Yes, being relegated to the friend zone sucks. So perhaps it was the idea of him and not him that I missed. I need to meet new people, but my quiet personality doesn’t help me in that regard. Like seriously, why is meeting someone so bloody difficult for some while for others all they do is just show up somewhere and that special someone just walks into their lives?

Recently I thought seriously about moving back to Singapore earlier than planned. At least in Singapore I have my family and all my closest friends. But I’m too exhausted from my recent move to even contemplate another major move for the next two years. Moving house and doing everything on my own, while juggling work, really took all the mental and physical energy out of me.

So for now, I’ll just enjoy Sydney and just Australia in general. It’s a beautiful city and country – makes it hard NOT to fall in love with both!