Plugging into a new world
It has been a year in Melb and recently, an incident that had happened months ago sort of resurfaced in my mind on and off, that made me examine, in particular, one aspect of my life here - building a social network from scratch.
A year ago, in June 09, I moved to Melbourne with my hub and just-turned-6mths-old kiddo with 6 pieces of luggage and part of our savings to start a new life. I left behind my friends, my job which i enjoyed, my colleagues and my dear pet cat in exchange for an address which i had visited a few times in the last ten years, cold winter chills, no job, no clue of the future and almost no friends. I think out of the things i listed, having no one to count on, to rely on, to even have a chat on the telephone (without dialling international) was one of the hardest thing for me. In SG, i had a few closed girlfriends who will comfort me when time gets tough over dinner and wine... i had a closely knitted group of colleagues who helped me through rough days at work and make merry with me after work... i had many people that i could meet for gatherings and social activities.... I missed all that when i first arrived here.
Thankfully, i didn't start at quite ground zero here. From my 'forages' in various forums, i made virtual friends who are sporeans in Melb and even those who would soon be in my shoes. From other friends, i was introduced to their friends who are in Melb and in turned was introduced to their friends. There was also a couple of old friends and acquaintainces from my past. Inch by inch, i tried to 'plug' into some semblence of a social circle/network... I am glad to say, some of these folks turned out to be real friends now which helped me to establish my first 'roots' in a new place. A few tentative friendships hang in limbo.. probably due to a lack of interest (on one or both parties) to make more of what's began. But it wasn't quite "love lost", and i am comfortable without having to try to hard, and there are still opportunities to build on them. However, what happened to one of these friendships, sometimes made me wish that perhaps i should have done something different at that time...
It was someone whom i briefly knew many years ago when i started having friends through online chatrooms. Even at that time, i do not recalled if we have met or talked much. But we have ties to mutual friends, also from that 'era'. We met once after i came to Melb and subsequently continued to have correspondences over the internet. It was... like i said, a tentative friendship and may have been more if not for something that happened a couple of months ago. At that time, wilk was struggling with worries about his school, his future and of course finances, and he had just agreed to take on a part-time work stint for an ex-vendor from SG, doing market research here in Melb so as to earn abit of extra cash and also get to know more of the edu system here. And for his work, he had hoped to talk to teachers working in Melb so as to know about the state of use of technology in schools (or something to that effect).
From his old contacts from MOE and friends, he managed to speak to some and people had been friendly... helpful... I knew it wasn't easy for him, to try to get contacts so that he can talk to people as he wasn't quite as 'plugged' in as i was. So to help, when i heard that my friend's spouse was a teacher, i approached her to ask if wilk could talk to her spouse. On hindsight, i guess it wasn't something that i would normally had done (me and wilk usually let each other deal with work stuff individually) but i think it is tough to start out and any contacts may help. To cut a short story shorter, my hub did managed to have a chat with her hub. As i wasn't around, i didnt know what was said but what was surprising was when i came back, wilk said that my friend suddenly called him after he had spoken with her hub and reprimanded him. Again, i didnt hear what was said but wilk was quite shocked and more than a little hurt. It seemed that she had told him that he had put her hub's job in jeopardy by talking to him and asking those questions. Again, i did not know why she thought so but i gathered that she thought wilk was going to call up the school (to sell some prodts?), perhaps using her hub's name, and her hub may be viewed as leaking school's classified info? I just do not know why the anger and what triggered the attack.
I was just as shocked and surprised, and initially, more than a little embarrassed because it was me who had made the 'introduction'. Wilk went on to msg her hub to apologize for any questions that may be offending and wanted to know if everything is okie but the reply from him was that it wasn't a problem and it is fine to talk to wilk... We were too worried to ask her hub why then did my friend blew up at wilk in case things get worse. After reading the hub's reply... i couldn't be sure if he was being polite (after complaining to my friend for troubling him with 'our problem') or that it was just something my friend herself felt wilk had done wrong. At the end of the day, i was incredibly unsure if i had inevitably done something wrong and yet, just as incredibly upset that someone had scolded my husband before ascertaining the facts. I have heard the questions wilk asked other teachers and the discussions they had (most of the time i was there during the meet-ups etc) and not one person had any issue... the things discussed was pretty generic about the use of technology.. how much access do students here have to things like computer, edu software etc.. And wilk had never pushed to 'sell' his vendor's prodt or ask for contact of the school etc. And because he is my husband and i trust him, though i did not hear that particular conversation, i chose to believe that he did not do so this time round too.
It was tough deciding what i ought to do then. I grappled with whether i should call to apologize to my friend and at the end of the day, i guess i was too upset to do so. The whole experience got both me and wilk really down because to him, it was a job he had to do (not that he enjoyed much of it) and i felt responsible for what had happened to him. I also thought that my friend COULD have called me and told me off if she felt that there was anything wrong or clarify things but she just went straight and scolded a rather bewildered wilk. What was even more mindboggling was that, the interviewee himself said that everything was okie and there wasn't a problem etc. I guess, in my own insecurity (when i am making tentative headway to put myself out there, making friends) i too got defensive and was pretty angry about the whole thing. Suddenly i felt that friendships are impossible to build in this new place, esp when people start accusing us of doing things we are not doing, and i was miserable.. and without anyone here that i was comfortable at that time to talk things out and chill.
It was also hurtful to our pride when something like that happened... because asking for help is already something that made us feel indebted to a person, what more having the person turn around and accuse us for abusing that help when we honestly felt that we didnt. Not the mention the sense of defenselessness of being unable to feel the liberty to retort because we DID ask for help in the first place. On so many levels, i was upset, with myself, with wilk, with our situation, with my "friend", with this place... End of the day... i just couldn't bring myself to take that first step to call her. I didn't think i could face the possibility of being 'attacked' for asking for their help... i couldn't trust myself to be able to clear up the misunderstanding calmly or rationally at that point in time because i was too emotional.
And as of all things difficult between people... the longer you put it off... the more it felt awkward to have to bring things up after time have passed. Do you talk to the person as if nothing has happened or do you try to bring it up? What if they have already put things aside? What if they are still angry? Days passed and letting things be just became the easy way out. Now, i have made some close friends here. Things do not seem as bleak anymore. I have people to go out with for meals and drinks, people who see me as their friend and part of their social circle. There are also people whom i feel comfortable bitching about life and vice versa. Friends who had asked for my help and who i enjoyed helping because it made me feel useful and able in life again. Perhaps because of what happened, I cherished the friendships of those who had helped me and my family even more and hoped that i am doing the same for the 'newbies' whom i have gotten to know. Now I no longer feel that it is impossible to have friends here and that life is miserable... and feels more confident about myself and my life here.
From time to time, i would still think about this incident and ponder about it. I don't know if we would ever talked again or if this misunderstanding (I truly think that that's what it is) will clear up. Perhaps it would never. We are still on each other's contact list and i wondered if this is one of those "friendships" that i just ought to 'write-off' since it doesn't seem to go anywhere. But somehow, i still couldn't click on the "remove friend" button on my contact list just yet.
A year ago, in June 09, I moved to Melbourne with my hub and just-turned-6mths-old kiddo with 6 pieces of luggage and part of our savings to start a new life. I left behind my friends, my job which i enjoyed, my colleagues and my dear pet cat in exchange for an address which i had visited a few times in the last ten years, cold winter chills, no job, no clue of the future and almost no friends. I think out of the things i listed, having no one to count on, to rely on, to even have a chat on the telephone (without dialling international) was one of the hardest thing for me. In SG, i had a few closed girlfriends who will comfort me when time gets tough over dinner and wine... i had a closely knitted group of colleagues who helped me through rough days at work and make merry with me after work... i had many people that i could meet for gatherings and social activities.... I missed all that when i first arrived here.
Thankfully, i didn't start at quite ground zero here. From my 'forages' in various forums, i made virtual friends who are sporeans in Melb and even those who would soon be in my shoes. From other friends, i was introduced to their friends who are in Melb and in turned was introduced to their friends. There was also a couple of old friends and acquaintainces from my past. Inch by inch, i tried to 'plug' into some semblence of a social circle/network... I am glad to say, some of these folks turned out to be real friends now which helped me to establish my first 'roots' in a new place. A few tentative friendships hang in limbo.. probably due to a lack of interest (on one or both parties) to make more of what's began. But it wasn't quite "love lost", and i am comfortable without having to try to hard, and there are still opportunities to build on them. However, what happened to one of these friendships, sometimes made me wish that perhaps i should have done something different at that time...
It was someone whom i briefly knew many years ago when i started having friends through online chatrooms. Even at that time, i do not recalled if we have met or talked much. But we have ties to mutual friends, also from that 'era'. We met once after i came to Melb and subsequently continued to have correspondences over the internet. It was... like i said, a tentative friendship and may have been more if not for something that happened a couple of months ago. At that time, wilk was struggling with worries about his school, his future and of course finances, and he had just agreed to take on a part-time work stint for an ex-vendor from SG, doing market research here in Melb so as to earn abit of extra cash and also get to know more of the edu system here. And for his work, he had hoped to talk to teachers working in Melb so as to know about the state of use of technology in schools (or something to that effect).
From his old contacts from MOE and friends, he managed to speak to some and people had been friendly... helpful... I knew it wasn't easy for him, to try to get contacts so that he can talk to people as he wasn't quite as 'plugged' in as i was. So to help, when i heard that my friend's spouse was a teacher, i approached her to ask if wilk could talk to her spouse. On hindsight, i guess it wasn't something that i would normally had done (me and wilk usually let each other deal with work stuff individually) but i think it is tough to start out and any contacts may help. To cut a short story shorter, my hub did managed to have a chat with her hub. As i wasn't around, i didnt know what was said but what was surprising was when i came back, wilk said that my friend suddenly called him after he had spoken with her hub and reprimanded him. Again, i didnt hear what was said but wilk was quite shocked and more than a little hurt. It seemed that she had told him that he had put her hub's job in jeopardy by talking to him and asking those questions. Again, i did not know why she thought so but i gathered that she thought wilk was going to call up the school (to sell some prodts?), perhaps using her hub's name, and her hub may be viewed as leaking school's classified info? I just do not know why the anger and what triggered the attack.
I was just as shocked and surprised, and initially, more than a little embarrassed because it was me who had made the 'introduction'. Wilk went on to msg her hub to apologize for any questions that may be offending and wanted to know if everything is okie but the reply from him was that it wasn't a problem and it is fine to talk to wilk... We were too worried to ask her hub why then did my friend blew up at wilk in case things get worse. After reading the hub's reply... i couldn't be sure if he was being polite (after complaining to my friend for troubling him with 'our problem') or that it was just something my friend herself felt wilk had done wrong. At the end of the day, i was incredibly unsure if i had inevitably done something wrong and yet, just as incredibly upset that someone had scolded my husband before ascertaining the facts. I have heard the questions wilk asked other teachers and the discussions they had (most of the time i was there during the meet-ups etc) and not one person had any issue... the things discussed was pretty generic about the use of technology.. how much access do students here have to things like computer, edu software etc.. And wilk had never pushed to 'sell' his vendor's prodt or ask for contact of the school etc. And because he is my husband and i trust him, though i did not hear that particular conversation, i chose to believe that he did not do so this time round too.
It was tough deciding what i ought to do then. I grappled with whether i should call to apologize to my friend and at the end of the day, i guess i was too upset to do so. The whole experience got both me and wilk really down because to him, it was a job he had to do (not that he enjoyed much of it) and i felt responsible for what had happened to him. I also thought that my friend COULD have called me and told me off if she felt that there was anything wrong or clarify things but she just went straight and scolded a rather bewildered wilk. What was even more mindboggling was that, the interviewee himself said that everything was okie and there wasn't a problem etc. I guess, in my own insecurity (when i am making tentative headway to put myself out there, making friends) i too got defensive and was pretty angry about the whole thing. Suddenly i felt that friendships are impossible to build in this new place, esp when people start accusing us of doing things we are not doing, and i was miserable.. and without anyone here that i was comfortable at that time to talk things out and chill.
It was also hurtful to our pride when something like that happened... because asking for help is already something that made us feel indebted to a person, what more having the person turn around and accuse us for abusing that help when we honestly felt that we didnt. Not the mention the sense of defenselessness of being unable to feel the liberty to retort because we DID ask for help in the first place. On so many levels, i was upset, with myself, with wilk, with our situation, with my "friend", with this place... End of the day... i just couldn't bring myself to take that first step to call her. I didn't think i could face the possibility of being 'attacked' for asking for their help... i couldn't trust myself to be able to clear up the misunderstanding calmly or rationally at that point in time because i was too emotional.
And as of all things difficult between people... the longer you put it off... the more it felt awkward to have to bring things up after time have passed. Do you talk to the person as if nothing has happened or do you try to bring it up? What if they have already put things aside? What if they are still angry? Days passed and letting things be just became the easy way out. Now, i have made some close friends here. Things do not seem as bleak anymore. I have people to go out with for meals and drinks, people who see me as their friend and part of their social circle. There are also people whom i feel comfortable bitching about life and vice versa. Friends who had asked for my help and who i enjoyed helping because it made me feel useful and able in life again. Perhaps because of what happened, I cherished the friendships of those who had helped me and my family even more and hoped that i am doing the same for the 'newbies' whom i have gotten to know. Now I no longer feel that it is impossible to have friends here and that life is miserable... and feels more confident about myself and my life here.
From time to time, i would still think about this incident and ponder about it. I don't know if we would ever talked again or if this misunderstanding (I truly think that that's what it is) will clear up. Perhaps it would never. We are still on each other's contact list and i wondered if this is one of those "friendships" that i just ought to 'write-off' since it doesn't seem to go anywhere. But somehow, i still couldn't click on the "remove friend" button on my contact list just yet.
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