Barney Stinson (fav albeit superficial character from How I Met Your Mother) once expounded on the significance and importance of the Bro Code - "Bros before hoes" - to his mates. Of course he was a hypocrite because he later slept with Ted's ex Robin, but that is another story.
Personally I don't think the Bro Code, ahem the Sis Code, works for girls. I once had an acquaintance who I confessed to (I cannot keep secrets) that I kind of crushed this mutual friend, who I spent 4 hours talking to everyday. I of course now, realize that he was my intellectual whore, but at the time, after ten over years of convent school and reading too much of that idiotic Teenage Workbook (I would like to buy the rights to that book as well as Teenage Textbook and all that were ever printed and set fire to them), I was convinced that I was interested in him.
Well guess what she did? She asked him to watch a concert with her, then when it was over, she asked him to share cab with her to her place. She offered to pay for the cab fare (from Victoria Theatre, to her place and then to his place, even though his place was closer to VT than hers), even though he had a straight bus home, because "she didn't feel safe traveling in a cab alone at night". He agreed with much reluctance (or so I was told by him, when he came home and called me immediately), and just before they got into the cab, she asked him if he liked me.
He said no.
So during the journey, she got frisky and touched his inner thigh. He was rather horrified, since he didn't like her that way, and she was supposed to be a very devout person ( her religion frowns on such forwardness). When he resisted, by pretending it was not there, she planted a kiss on him. He was traumatised and embarrassed enough to inform me that he felt the piercing judgmental stare of the cab driver the entire journey home. And then that he felt cheap because when they reached her place, she just thrusted S$50 at him to pay the taxi driver then she went off.
I laughed. Cruel, you may think, but I think that laughter was my way of dealing with the betrayal.
My imagination/illusion resultant of being led down a garden path by his constant calling and chatting to me. But was I deluded to think that men would call someone they were not interested in to chat for hours everyday? What am I, a suicide hotline? He did tell me once that he didn't know whether he was interested in me, which confused me because I didn't know whether it was supposed to be complimentary or insulting. And why the hell he call me to tell me that he was fondled? Did he want empathy (he didn't find any, though I tried very hard not to laugh myself to death)? Or did he want me to react in some way?
I did react. I did not want to talk to him anymore, even though he continued calling me. Years later, he still called now and then, but I always brushed him off, until he didn't call again. I decided he deserved whatever he got from her and more. He left our group of friends because he did not want to see her. I did not want to see him either.
But subconsciously, I was even more traumatised by what my acquaintance did. She knew that I liked him, she actually asked him, and even if he said no, why the fuck did she do that? That ill-begotten creature doesn't know the meaning of loyalty, which she reminds me time and again. I would never ever touch anyone who belongs to someone else (I once rejected a guy because I knew he had crushed another girl before me. I was proven right in the long term). Is it just me or has the ideal of loyalty died or something?
The weirdest thing was that I took her side (perhaps I was instinctively more hurt by his indirect rejection and lack of honesty at the time) even though she refused to tell me her side of the story when I called her. She knew she had hurt me. She pretended not to know, until I said to her point-blank that he told me she seduced him. She reacted angrily that he was a cold fish, frigid and nasty (you don't want to hear the rest).
Having a misguided interpretation of what friendships between girls are supposed to be like, I did not realize that her sin was greater. Sure I no longer trusted her, but I was still friends with her for a short while longer until she did something worse to me (she poked me hard with a cue stick while unprovoked. She had the cheek to ask me if it hurt. The bruise did not go down for two weeks. She is dead to me now.)
I blame myself for so deluded, and putting myself out for more demeaning ill-treatment from her. If someone had told me then that "that bitch stole something from you", I would have seen it as it was, and that injury would and should have never happened (the aftermath is now spinning out of control because it suddenly involved the rest of the group, ten years on, thus influencing my move from my previous blog). She stole something from me. More than a possible relationship, she robbed me of my self-esteem.
I am a well-educated person and I do think I am an intellectual, but due to everything that has happened to me, I am emotionally damaged enough to think that I am not the social equivalent of everyone else. That no matter how much fun I physically seem to be having in a group, seemingly part of the group, mentally I will always standing in the cold like the Little Match Girl, forever watching the fun from outside. I no longer trust in friendships.
Ten years later, I am finally dealing with the pain from that situation.
Personally I don't think the Bro Code, ahem the Sis Code, works for girls. I once had an acquaintance who I confessed to (I cannot keep secrets) that I kind of crushed this mutual friend, who I spent 4 hours talking to everyday. I of course now, realize that he was my intellectual whore, but at the time, after ten over years of convent school and reading too much of that idiotic Teenage Workbook (I would like to buy the rights to that book as well as Teenage Textbook and all that were ever printed and set fire to them), I was convinced that I was interested in him.
Well guess what she did? She asked him to watch a concert with her, then when it was over, she asked him to share cab with her to her place. She offered to pay for the cab fare (from Victoria Theatre, to her place and then to his place, even though his place was closer to VT than hers), even though he had a straight bus home, because "she didn't feel safe traveling in a cab alone at night". He agreed with much reluctance (or so I was told by him, when he came home and called me immediately), and just before they got into the cab, she asked him if he liked me.
He said no.
So during the journey, she got frisky and touched his inner thigh. He was rather horrified, since he didn't like her that way, and she was supposed to be a very devout person ( her religion frowns on such forwardness). When he resisted, by pretending it was not there, she planted a kiss on him. He was traumatised and embarrassed enough to inform me that he felt the piercing judgmental stare of the cab driver the entire journey home. And then that he felt cheap because when they reached her place, she just thrusted S$50 at him to pay the taxi driver then she went off.
I laughed. Cruel, you may think, but I think that laughter was my way of dealing with the betrayal.
My imagination/illusion resultant of being led down a garden path by his constant calling and chatting to me. But was I deluded to think that men would call someone they were not interested in to chat for hours everyday? What am I, a suicide hotline? He did tell me once that he didn't know whether he was interested in me, which confused me because I didn't know whether it was supposed to be complimentary or insulting. And why the hell he call me to tell me that he was fondled? Did he want empathy (he didn't find any, though I tried very hard not to laugh myself to death)? Or did he want me to react in some way?
I did react. I did not want to talk to him anymore, even though he continued calling me. Years later, he still called now and then, but I always brushed him off, until he didn't call again. I decided he deserved whatever he got from her and more. He left our group of friends because he did not want to see her. I did not want to see him either.
But subconsciously, I was even more traumatised by what my acquaintance did. She knew that I liked him, she actually asked him, and even if he said no, why the fuck did she do that? That ill-begotten creature doesn't know the meaning of loyalty, which she reminds me time and again. I would never ever touch anyone who belongs to someone else (I once rejected a guy because I knew he had crushed another girl before me. I was proven right in the long term). Is it just me or has the ideal of loyalty died or something?
The weirdest thing was that I took her side (perhaps I was instinctively more hurt by his indirect rejection and lack of honesty at the time) even though she refused to tell me her side of the story when I called her. She knew she had hurt me. She pretended not to know, until I said to her point-blank that he told me she seduced him. She reacted angrily that he was a cold fish, frigid and nasty (you don't want to hear the rest).
Having a misguided interpretation of what friendships between girls are supposed to be like, I did not realize that her sin was greater. Sure I no longer trusted her, but I was still friends with her for a short while longer until she did something worse to me (she poked me hard with a cue stick while unprovoked. She had the cheek to ask me if it hurt. The bruise did not go down for two weeks. She is dead to me now.)
I blame myself for so deluded, and putting myself out for more demeaning ill-treatment from her. If someone had told me then that "that bitch stole something from you", I would have seen it as it was, and that injury would and should have never happened (the aftermath is now spinning out of control because it suddenly involved the rest of the group, ten years on, thus influencing my move from my previous blog). She stole something from me. More than a possible relationship, she robbed me of my self-esteem.
I am a well-educated person and I do think I am an intellectual, but due to everything that has happened to me, I am emotionally damaged enough to think that I am not the social equivalent of everyone else. That no matter how much fun I physically seem to be having in a group, seemingly part of the group, mentally I will always standing in the cold like the Little Match Girl, forever watching the fun from outside. I no longer trust in friendships.
Ten years later, I am finally dealing with the pain from that situation.
