Things We Should Do Better

My housemate Tjen Ket (actually I have no idea how to spell his name) has undergone a transformation in recent days from glumness to chattiness. I am sorry to admit I preferred the morose state. When he gets excited, his Singaporean English hardens into a series of clattering syllables. Although I find him unintelligible, I must still listen and nod politely. We did have one amusing conversation in March about his love of French toast, which led to such weight gain during his undergraduate years that his mother asked him if he had become pregnant. That was probably the high point of our relationship in the four months we have known each other.

I saw him at a party not long ago. He was alone at the edge of the dance floor, pacing back and forth in a hopefully animated way. Whenever he leaves the door to his room open, there is always the same cheesy eighties love song playing. I suspect he is unhappy in love, but I have no intention of asking because I won’t be able to understand the answer. My boyfriend suggested that I be a good person and befriend him, but I do not wish to be a good person in this instance. Something about him makes me want to run away. (This has nothing to do with the fact that he took my yogurt and hid it at the back of his refrigerator shelf. I did not take it back because I decided it was contaminated.)

A few days ago I concluded that our relationship had deteriorated to the point of no return. Abandoning our regular two-line conversation of “How was your day?”/ “Fine, thanks,” Tjen Ket had ceased to speak to me in the kitchen. In fact, he ran out of the kitchen anytime I came near it. I was pretty sure this was my fault. I felt bad that I had failed in yet another relationship through total lack of communication.

But on Monday he suddenly switched from dejection to exuberance. He entertained me with an incomprehensible monologue about his search for a house to live in next year. He even knocked on my door to ask a question about traffic noise. This sort of intimacy must be discouraged at all costs.

Last night in the kitchen he began to ask me questions about myself (!), but fortunately I was saved by a fit of coughing which made it impossible for me to answer and forced me to flee to my room in search of cough medicine.

Considering that I had done nothing differently between Sunday and Monday, it seems likely his mood swings have nothing to do with me, just as my mood swings have nothing to do with him. I should have heeded the advice of my favorite self-help book, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, which counsels us not to take anything personally because everybody is living in his own dream.

What if one day, through some retributive karmic magic, I wake up and find myself living in Tjen Ket’s dream? I may find it necessary to flood the kitchen on a Saturday morning by defrosting the freezer overnight without laying down any towels, and I will not be able to comprehend my own explanations as to why this was a necessary and desirable course of action.

Thank goodness we are not sharing a bathroom.

Tags: cultural differences, secrets, unrequited love