Expectations

I seem to have created a bit of a reputation. I’m the guy who’s come into town only a short while ago, but knows everybody, is always full of positive energy, drinks like a fish and dances like a madman. I’m the guy who you see at every happening party and who raises the energy level through his exuberance and attitude. I am the guy that everybody wants to be around.

Somehow my reputation has way outgrown the actual me. It’s a bit intimidating, actually. When I’m tired and not full of energy, people ask me what is wrong. When I bend down to tie my shoe laces the DJ tells me to get back up. When I go home early to get some sleep, people call me up to ask if I need to talk.

When I’m in a good mood, that’s brilliant; their very expectation creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. They expect me to have good energy, therefore walk up to me with good energy themselves, thereby infecting me with their energy in turn; which then helps to perpetuate the cycle. When I’m in my downtime, on the other hand, and just want to spend a bit of time by myself to philosophize and incorporate all the new things that I’ve learned into my psyche, it can become a drag to constantly have to sit with everybody, great everybody and meet everybody (especially since I don’t remember half of their names!).

I’m also just not used to this much attention. It’s a bit freaky, to go from having only a few real good friends in Singapore and almost nobody else, to having this huge social network that I somehow have to maintain.

I’m secretly expecting the entire thing to implode on me. When the novelty of the new kid in town wears off and people realise I’m not quite as amazing as they make me out to be, things will doubtlessly change.

Unless, of course, I actually am the person everybody makes me out to be. That is, however, a thought I don’t want to tackle just yet. I’d rather just live with the idea that it will end (and therefore enjoy it all the more) so that if it does I won’t be too scarred and if it doesn’t, well then I’ll recalibrate my thoughts at some future time, when I’m more certain of the course of my social life.