Adult-In-Denial
We get it – Adult Life is hard. You don’t need to remind the world of how hard it is every 15 bloody seconds because we are adults too, in case you didn’t realise. Everybody needs a pat on the head now and then, but demanding attention for waking up on time is just sad.
New Zealand was her destination in February and December was New York’s month, but over lunch yesterday, she suddenly and inexplicably fell in love with the idea of Canada.
Deep down inside, she knows that she will never leave. Whatever its faults, life here is as comfortable as emigration is daunting. There are too many friends to abandon and she’s no good at burning bridges or answering hard questions.
Where would one even begin? Does my family need me?
And so life goes on, leaving her table resolutely unflipped. The studio apartment in Melbourne will never be more than a pleasant dream, a life-giving mirage that is forever receding into the distance.
You kids go ahead, he says, affecting a weary sigh to the group of 29 year olds who sincerely want to strangle him for this shitty performance of King Lear.
And it’s not just alcohol. Invite him to do something sporty and he will grumble about ‘being too old for this shit’. Talk about your poor life decisions and he’ll relate an anecdote with the preamble ‘When I was younger … ’, as if eons have passed between now and his graduation about 7 months ago.
Nobody can really knows the cause of this premature decrepitude, but I suspect malingering. Elderly folks get a free pass for many things, and this millennial probably thinks that his anti-social behaviour will be excused if he impersonates a senior citizen.
Fuck all of em’, says the Wanderlust Ultra, for whom travel is first and foremost a dick-measuring contest, where he can impress upon the world how long and hard his journey is.
When you encounter the Wanderlust Ultra at a party/dinner, back away slowly and steer clear of provocative words like ‘Airbnb’, ‘Bangkok’ or ‘Staycation’. Remember that this man travels for one-upsmanship. Any mention of Hokkaido or Seoul will trigger an hour-long, blow-by-blow recount of his motorcycle journey across the mountains of Northwestern Azerbaijan, where locals feasted him on lion kebab and a delicious goat semen soup.
Mention that you were mugged in London and he will tell you about the time he beat a man to death with his bare hands in the backstreets of Estonia. Muse about Tokyo’s sushi and he’ll make you feel small with a story about diving for radioactive scallops off the coast of Wakanda.
Don’t worry, there’s a way to fight back. Just say something like “I think Penang is more fun than Madagascar”, then stand clear and watch as the fireworks explode.
The validation usually comes from friends, who comfort him with meaningless platitudes like ‘The right one is out there!’ and ‘There’s plenty of fish in the sea!’. It can also come in the shape of Thoughtcatalog articles, which tell him exactly the same thing, but with thrice the amount of tears and melodrama.
Before long, he is hooked on the crystal meth of broken heart bloggers and 4eva alone shitposts. He makes a fetish out of staying single and builds a permanent shrine to ‘letting go’. On Facebook, every post is either a poorly-written manifesto on ‘moving on’ or a list of reasons for being alone. His friends don’t know what to do, so they look at each other, shrug, and leave awkward encouragements to try Tinder.
Honestly speaking, Singapore does put a lot of normative stock on long-term relationships that sail towards the port of BTO, but nobody really gives a shit so long as you don’t give a shit.
Her office (read: home) is somewhere in Tanjong Pagar, and contains lots of quirky shit to underline how unorthodox her thinking can be. We don’t know where she bought all the useless junk, but we do know that you can find the following: An ironic fortune cat, stationery emblazoned with Singlish phrases and a copy of Vice magazine from 2003. (Before it went mainstream)
It all seems very glamorous, but all the Supreme in the world cannot disguise the fact that she is nothing more than a glorified galley slave for the good ship Havas/Ogilvy/DDB. The cool gear is all that remains of a once vibrant personality, reduced to a pile of ashes by her agency’s Stalinist working hours.
Don’t you dare use the word ‘pitch’ in her hearing. He/she will dive under her desk and sob while sucking her thumb.
Why are we being served introspective mumbo-jumbo with a side of sideboob? Who is this Baudelaire in a sports bra?
Her male audience is confused. He doesn’t know whether to feel aroused or to laugh at the heroic couplets of cringe. Personally, I think this mixture of poetry with softcore porn is an attempt to resist the objectification of her body. It screams: “I am a person too, I think, I read, I have feelings! I am not just a juicy cut of meat!”
An admirable goal, and perhaps it says something about our society that we cannot take a beautiful woman seriously. But seriously, please just stick to prose because line breaks do not make an intellectual.
You can spot her a mile away. She’s the girl with a tapestry of burgers, kway teows, grain bowls and phos as her social media feed. Her boyfriend is hidden behind a steak florentine and her colleagues are tagged as six different types of cake. We don’t know if her parents exist, but if they do, it’s probably in the background of a lavish brunch.
In real life, her workspace contains more snack than stationery and she thinks that Heng Swee Keat is the name of a Tau Sar Piah vendor. In fact, her love of food is so all-consuming that she will ruminate audibly about possible dinner choices during lunch, with a mouthful of half-eaten korean pancake
To add insult to injury, some of the ‘Never Not Eating’ crew remain thin as high fashion chopsticks despite consuming the GDP of a small Central Asian economy. My hypothesis? Her stomach is the portal to a separate dimension of ravenous aliens intent on draining our food supply.
