Question 1/348: What is something I wish I could forget?
Honestly, I've had many regrets in life. But that's normal...I think? I mean, I don't know anyone who goes around without any regrets over the choices they've made for however long they've lived. As much as there are happy-go-lucky people, the saying also goes that "the people who seem the nicest are often those who have the most hurt bottled up inside" (or it goes something along those lines BUT you get the idea).
Personally, if I had to pick one specific incident, I would say that I wish I could forget about the time when I went ahead with opening my house for mahjong when I was coughing (quite badly). To be clear, here's the timeline:
3rd July 2023 (Monday) - helped my CCA at the sports camp booth. Ended up losing my voice completely
12th July - start of freshmen orientation (FO) run 1. My cough was already 95% gone, just a bit of a linger of dry cough. And I never tested positive for covid
15th July - one day after run 1 ended. I did not have covid, but my cough was getting worse (and I attributed that to the cheering and hollering). Two of the subclans tested positive for covid (and like, this was almost 2 entire subclans, so about 20-30 ppl)
17th July - was still negative for covid, so I went ahead and opened my house for some fellow facilitators in the same clan for mahjong, but my cough was noticeably worse (but still completely dry as it had been for the week before)
18th July - tested positive for covid (after my symptoms became flu, headache, runny nose and phlegm with cough), and at some point in time 2 of the ppl who came to my house also caught it and the last one just had a very bad cough but was negative throughout.
What was the outcome? One of the guys (let's call him A) had to cancel his trip to JB, and the other was in Indonesia on holiday too when he tested positive. A ended up not talking to me and I didn't know he was upset with me until a couple weeks later, when I sent him a text message to apologise sincerely that I didn't mean to infect him (of course I didn't), and that I was really sorry that he had to cancel his plans with his friends.
The thing is, I can understand where he is coming from, because the border with Malaysia DID just reopen a few months before, and I think a lot of people miss going across the straits for cheaper stuff. And obviously, given that I was already coughing so badly the day of mahjong, he obviously thought I was being selfish and inconsiderate. I feel that I was never given a chance to speak up and explain myself (especially because I also did kena HFMD in end May and I accidentally infected at least 1 person who ended up in the same clan as me because I didn't know about my HFMD until a couple of days into facilitator training), and with (false) pre-existing knowledge that I was already "irresponsible", it would just be easy to lay the blame on me.
Honestly, it took quite a toll on me. I was never the most chatty/extroverted/funny guy amongst the facilitators in the clan, and I wasn't close to any particular person before this, but I think if this covid thing didn't happen, the relationships with some people wouldn't be so frayed. And if I had taken the very safe route and call off the mahjong, I think things would still be the same as it was before: not closer, but certainly not frayed (before the end of FO).
And it still weighs on my mind, because I feel like there are a lot of them who just avoid talking to me as much as they can in a group setting. I think it's because they feel awkward talking to me, and they already have their own cliques inside, whereas I'm not particularly close to anyone, so it sucks during group meet-ups (especially since it usually would be the same few).
But c'est la vie - I wish it could have been different and I could forget about it. Not forget about FO, but just this one incident and all the awkwardness that resulted from it.
- steve, just trying to be a good friend to everyone
Comments
Post a Comment