Great and Not-So-Great Expectations (Remix)

Hello again, people. Was rather rudely awakened this morning by another cheery message from my "fan". Managed to resist urge to send very cruel retort by remembering that for all she knows she's just being friendly. Can't blame people for that, eh? Getting my very own secret admirer of sorts set me thinking yesterday of how as we progress through life, our prejudices and expectations continually evolve as well. Yup, I said prejudices. Like it or not, almost everyone has their own. It may be as simple as not liking a particular brand of electronics to something as un-PC as disliking an entire race. Whatever it may be, as humans we'll definitely be able to find something we don't like.

But I digress. As I was driving back from work, I found myself thinking back to when I was in primary school and got my first fan-sent letter. I was in Primary 4, and she was two years older (for some weird reason that's always been the case, at least till now). I remember taking a look at it and very quickly tearing it up and stuffing it into the trash bin. Guess even then I was a snob. Of course, one could rationalise that it was the classic case of girl-bashing that every schoolboy goes through, but then I remembered exactly why I did it: I had this amazing crush on another girl (who of course, didn't even know who I was). Gah. And did I mention it lasted all of 3 years? As a schoolkid of course, what I wanted was very simple. To be cool, and to have a girlfriend (looking at myself now, I don't think I've fulfilled either criteria). Mostly I just wanted to be accepted. I was a bit too nerdy, back then.

In my secondary years I came to understand that I would only be interested in a certain type of person. Of course, I tried my hand at the typical puppy-love scenarios (think of any Malay song video) but as I approached my late teens I realised that I could never really accept relationships of that nature. My expectations still ran in the same directions: be cool and get a girlfriend (who should also be pretty AND cool). While I was never really cool in school, I did have my share of (usually older) girlfriends. To me, they WERE cool, simply because they were usually rebellious and more worldly (make of that what you will). Being in a private school kind of spoiled me, I suppose. I learnt several things that would be quite useful in my later life..

By the time I got into uni, my list of expectations had shrunken and grown simultaneously. No longer was my only goal in life to get a girlfriend (or get laid, but that's a whole other story) but now it had expanded to actually getting through uni with good grades, getting a good job, the whole shebang. Relationships with girls lost prominence in life, although I found I had the same set of expectations from the people I associated with. This did not work as well as I'd hoped, though. For one thing, living in a house with 7 other mates who are more often than not out with their respective girlfriends tends to amplify your single-ness. For another, there were too many compromises to be made. I nearly lost my spoken English ability, my drive..in short, myself.

Fast forward a couple years. Post-Uni, the list of expectations I have from people finally congealed into a somewhat solid mess (and I mean mess). I find I treat warmer the people who:
1) Have a basic grasp of English (or at least they try)
2) Don't resort to funny slang words in their e-mail/text messages(kerjer, pon, klas, suker)
3) Have ambitions in life (career, travel, etc)
4) Have opinions (especially when theirs don't agree with mine) on movies, books, hell even the weather, but don't force their beliefs on you
5) Read. And by reading I don't mean Sembilu Tertikam or Budak Setan or others of the ilk

There's more, but I think I've driven my point across. I'm prejudiced. There, I've said it. I've got no problem with people in small towns or rural areas (I grew up in one). However I DO have a problem with people who are given the opportunity/chance but decide not to make use of it. Oh hell, I'm just a stuck up snobbish SOB who'll probably end up with someone who's the exact polar opposite of my List. That'll teach me. But till then, I'm holding on to it simply because I don't think I'll want it any other way.