I‘ve got to say that it has been a busy week for me. I had a promising lunch meeting to discuss the future of Indonesian Expatriates Forum last Friday at Cazbar. Tamara and Greg turned up after 5 and we had few drinks before decided to try our luck at Loewy.
Now,
I had try to arrange a meet-up at Loewy but every time I was told that
we must book the table at least two weeks in advance, a strange concept
for Indonesian. But we felt quite adventurous that night and went
anyway. We didn’t get a table, obviously, but we secured a good spot at
the bar. After several minutes spent to look around, my impression was:
boring. I don’t know why
people are so into that place these days. It’s just like another
hang-out place, nothing spectacular about it. Except that everybody
apparently goes there. No surprise then after 20 minutes, my friends
alerted me that the guy who just walked in and ordered drinks next to
me was someone I probably know. I turned around and saw my ex boss.
Correction, my ex-CEO. We ended up talking, and thank God, it was
nothing about work. At the end we left the place about 2.30 AM, right
before the waiter kicked us out. Such a long day, considering I started
drinking after lunch time.
Why
is it difficult for some people to admit they are wrong, let alone
apologise, even though they know they are wrong, or proven wrong?
In
my attempt of trying to understand this particular person who has caused a
major headache for the past two days, because I couldn’t put myself in
her shoes, I went around in the virtual world trying to find some
answers. And I guess I did.
We all have a hard time admitting that we’re wrong, it’s not entirely
our fault. Social psychologist Elliot Aronson says our brains work hard
to make us think we are doing the right thing, even in the face of
sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The
engine that drives self-justification, the energy that produces the
need to justify our actions and decisions — especially the wrong ones —
is an unpleasant feeling that called "cognitive dissonance." Cognitive
dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds
two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are
psychologically inconsistent, such as "Smoking is a dumb thing to do
because it could kill me" and "I smoke two packs a day."Dissonance is disquieting because
I once tagged about this by Fida, asking what age I wish to get back to, and I have briefly mentioned about it in this post
because at that moment people from the past suddenly reappeared in my
life at the same time, a long overdue project was back in full speed,
and of course, Indy was back after 19 years hiatus.
But then Woelank and Ecky
also tagged me recently, and this time, I let myself think a bit
harder, and I realised there is one particular moment in my life I wish
I could get back to, not because it was full of loving memories, but
because of that I had to bear a consequence for a long time, and if I
could turn back the time, I’d certainly do the other way around.
I was probably 23 or 24 and…
About four years a go, Stuart and Huib celebrated their joined birthday by throwing a BBQ party at Bugil’s bar.
I think it was either Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and there were
about 50 people turned up to stuff their faces with sausages, burgers
and beers. Most of them were people we hung out with, the usual
suspects. Some I didn’t recognise, and I guessed they were either party
crashers or Huib’s friends.
By late afternoon, 
it
became too hot and people gradually moved inside to get some cool air
from the bar, and before long the bar was packed with people buying
beers and other cold drinks. I stayed outside for most of the time,
close to the food supply. Sometime before dark I went inside to go to
the loo. It was absolutely crowded, and I had to push myself in between
people just to pass. On that moment, I felt that someone had pinched my
bum. I stopped, looked around, but there was no indication who did it.
I really had to pee so I continued my journey.
After I finished,
Inspired by Rima and Therry’s
posts about how some people just click and become so close after only
several months, as well as being insanely jealous because they don’t
include me in their (lesbian) combo, and seeing that their posts drove
more traffic to their blogs respectively (hence, more jealousy), I
decide that rather than begging (waiting for) them to love me, in the
spirit of virtual competition, I have to brag that I actually have that
sort of relationship they’re having now.
Those who read my blog regularly might know that Ecky
isn’t just my blogbuddy. She is my buddy. Well, more than a buddy,
actually. She is one of my best friends in real life. Flesh and blood
and all. Considering that we met only a couple of years ago,
we have been developing a very strong bond between us. Even back then I
sometimes wondered how we could fit so perfectly and understand each
other so much sometimes we’re so alike it’s scary. She is one of my
(real) friends who blog, and last year we were trying to learn HTML
language, we spent a lot of time in front of computers (me in Aberdeen
and her in Jakarta) and discussed how to put widgets, or how to change
the header, or what is technorati. Both of us have had zero knowledge
of HTML language so we were learning by doing. When I was back for
holiday, we and other friends met up for a coffee and before we
realized we talked about blog and bloggers, and I was helping her to
fix her expandable post mode, up until our other friends started to
feel annoyed because they were left out of the conversation and
couldn’t understand a single word we were talking. My passion of
writing (or to some, it’s more ranting but what the heck, others love
my rants!) was infectious, and Ecky (as well as another best friend Melly) started to write more regularly on her blog.
Continue reading…
Bigger
is better. More glamorous is better. More people to attend is better.
Longer train, heavier make-up, and higher hair, are better. The more
expensive is better. The more famous people, from caterer, hairstylist,
until the list of guests, are definitely better. Anything that screams ‘I’m rich, I’m fabulous‘, is typical Indonesian wedding. Even though the bride might look like Krisdayanti rather than herself on her wedding day.
But
we are going to have something small, intimate, low-key, party. We had
tied the knot last year, and this time is the celebration as well as
the first anniversary party. We only invite a bunch of close friends
and family and after a long consideration we changed from 50 to 100
guests, well, less than 100. It’s considered very, very, very small in
Indonesia, but that’s what we want.
==========================================================================
Continue to Finally Woken to read the complete story.
This particular woman drove me mad almost two years ago.
Her twisted mind and even more twisted words were really upsetting, and
I had to remind myself that she is married to someone I care
about, to calm myself down.
That
argument is never settled. I kept insisting that she was involved in a
matter that was totally unrelated to her and she didn’t show a respect
to me and my family. I told her to mind her own business and stop
messing with people’s life, especially those whom she doesn’t know. She
doesn’t even have my mobile number for God’s sake, she hadn’t seen me
for years before this issue came up, so how could she think she could
preach me about things she didn’t even understand? But when her replies
came, they became more bizarre every time. She is not a type of person
who has structured braincells and since I was too busy even to get some
descent sleep, after replying 3 or 5 crazy text messages I decided to
quit arguing. It was useless. I didn’t have time and energy, and I
didn’t want to jump into her labyrinth of mind, where I couldn’t
decipher where the reality ended and where the fantasy began.
