Old classmates, old memories and even older neighbours

Hi guys, as you may know, I am flying off to Singapore on Monday morning en route to Australia and I am always nervous about meeting my parents as I have a difficult relationship with them. One of the things that upsets me is what I call the 'long lost friend' from primary school syndrome. Thanks to the power of social media, some of my old classmates from primary and secondary school have managed to track me down on Facebook. I have no desire to reconnect with them given that it may have been 20 to 30 years since I have spoken to them - in the meantime, I have changed into a different person. I wouldn't necessarily use the word 'better' but a very 'different' person nonetheless. I believe our experiences shape us as people and I left Singapore the moment I finished my NS to live in a number of different countries. So when I get these Facebook friend requests, my first reaction is, "oh no, they probably remember me as the person I was back then but I'm a totally different person today - where do I even begin to explain just how much I have changed over the years?" So I just ignore those requests, denying them the chance of getting to know me for the person I am today - I am also very conscious of the possibility that they are also distinctly different today by that same token.

I like whom I am today but it wasn't always the case.

But here's another important point: I didn't like the person I was in primary and secondary school. If I may be honest, I was nervous, neurotic, insecure - I grew up a lot in NS and university, that was when I became a lot better with people, I knew how to make friends and form meaningful relationships. I was an autistic kid who was brilliant at my studies but hid away from people - I also spent every free moment training gymnastics: now that's a solo sport, not a team sport. When I got into the gym, I would have my training log book and simply focus on my training without speaking to anyone - once in a while, the coach would give me instructions, but I would respond with little more than a nod. Here's the thing: I was totally unaware of just how poor my social skills were back in those days, but now I look back at the person I was, I recoil in horror at just how oblivious I was to my faults. Admitting I am totally embarrassed doesn't even do it justice - I am perfectly fine with making new friends today and getting to know them on a clean slate, because I know how to interact with them today but as for the people back in that period of my life, I'd rather avoid them. That is why I ignore those Facebook friend requests: it is just a can of worms I'd rather not open. I have closed that door on the past, why open it?

However, if  my company sends me to do a project in Singapore and one of my old classmates turned out to be a client or contractor I had to work with in Singapore, then that would give me some meaningful interaction with them and an opportunity for us to get to know each other all over again. But if it is merely connecting via Facebook - then no, no thank you, nothing personal but I don't feel comfortable with that simply because you want to reach out to the person I was, not the Alex I am today. Therein lies a major problem: my parents are pretty much in that category. The last time they were involved in my life, I was in primary and secondary school. I was a very rebellious and difficult teenager: I did everything I could to shut them out of my life. I didn't trust them, I didn't like them, I didn't respect them, I didn't share anything with them - I told them as little as possible and it was not like we were ever close in the first place. The key interaction I had with them in primary school was based around my studies: they would scrutinize my school work and punish me for every mistake I made. I remember once, when I was in primary two, my mother found a mistake in my school work the night before my exam - she picked up the book and hit me in the face with it: I'm not talking about a light slap, I'm talking about a severely autistic woman totally losing her shit and hitting me with all her might to the point where my father had to rush in and stop her as he could see she was not in control. But the moment I got into secondary school, she stopped doing that as she simply wasn't educated enough to understand the syllabus - so she just left me to my own devices.

My relationship with my parents took a wrong turn early on.

I would put my parents in the same category as old primary school classmates who are sending me Facebook friend requests because the last time any part of my life made any sense to them was when I was in primary school. Take my three scholarships for example: they played no part in them - they didn't even fully understand the concept of what a scholarship is, at first they thought it was a prize they give really smart students who did well in their studies. I was very lucky to have had excellent teachers in my school who guided me through the process, because they probably knew the kind of family I was from and that I was not going to get any help on these issues from my parents. Let me give you an example of how this irks me: when I mentioned that I have a blog that has been read by millions, my mother's response was, "last time when you were in primary school, your English composition very good one". I rolled my eyes and said, "yeah I had also won many creative writing awards and competitions when I was in university and as an adult, but you didn't pay any attention to what I did with my life after I became a teenager, did you?" Basically, my mother knows that I get very angry when she brings up the past but she is too autistic to understand why. Yes I have been good with the English language all my life, but this isn't about my command of the English language - it is about me feeling extremely bitter about my mother's neglectful attitude and her failure to have created any kind of meaningful bond with me as an adult. Heck, we had no meaningful bond to begin with when I was a child in any case and I entirely blame them for that.

My parents are severely autistic and have the social skills of a pair of dirty socks - any kind of conversation with them is painful and the childish way they talk reminds me of what you would expect of a 7 year old at best. Kids like to impress others with their knowledge, they want to be the student who raises their hand when the teacher asks a question. I remember when I was in primary three, my teacher asked a question, "who knows why a coconut floats on water and doesn't sink?" I had put my hand up and with another boy named Edmund - the teacher chose Edmund to answer the question and I got upset that I didn't get to show off to the whole class that I knew the right answer. I took comfort in the fact that at least in raising my hand, I got to demonstrate to the class that I did know the right answer, but nothing could compare to the glory one would feel when delivering the right answer in front of the rest of your classmates who couldn't answer the question. Yes, kids do have that instinct, perhaps it is something that has been inculcated in their psyche through the classroom experience and with my parents being retired primary school teachers, well, they're now playing the part of the eager child and when I talk to them, it doesn't feel like I am talking to an adult but rather to a young child.

Conversations with my father are painful at best. 

I was trying to explain to my sister on Skype what I do for a living (in Mandarin may I add, since my father was there), in corporate finance and my father latched onto the word '银行' (bank) and he then said that a new Indian bank had opened in Singapore recently. I rolled my eyes and thought, okay, thank you for the meaningless interruption, I'm glad you know what a 银行 is, now can I get back to talking about what I do for a living? I then talked about how I had intended to open a company to take advantage of lower corporation taxes, so I won't have to pay as much income tax. Again, once my father latched onto the words '所得税' and he said that Donald Trump was going to lower income tax for the rich. I rolled my eyes once again and thought, here we go again, what the heck does that have to do with me? Even my sister said, "that has nothing to do with Alex, he lives in England, not America. Whatever Trump does with tax in America is not relevant to him". You get the idea, my father doesn't so much as 'participate' in conversations but simply latches on to random words that he understands and then says the first thing that comes to mind that he associates with that word. The only way I can have a meaningful conversation with him is when I ask him how he is, what he does and okay, he is capable of talking about himself but he is totally incapable of talking about anything else: that is exactly what a 7 year old is like, because at that age, a child has yet to develop more sophisticated social skills, such as the art of holding a meaningful conversation. The worst part is that my dad thinks he is impressing me with his wealth of knowledge on these topics, but all he is doing is exposing just how severely autistic he is as he makes an utter fool of himself like that.

I have long given up on trying to have any kind of relationship with my father as I believe he is more autistic than my mother - but perhaps that has more to do with the language barrier as I have to communicate with him in Mandarin. With my mother, I mostly speak in English (with some Hokkien) but the problem then isn't the language barrier, it is more to do with the fact that she doesn't listen properly. Even when she doesn't understand something, she would rather remain ignorant than to ask me to explain what I meant. Given her child-like demeanor because of her autism, I can't help but feel like she is somewhat frozen in time, especially when she tends to relate everything I do today to what I did back in school. I remember when I told her that I was working in banking - her response was, "wah luckily you last time got study economics in JC, very useful one right? Give you good foundation for your job one. And maths as well." And I had to say no, not at all - you're completely wrong. Studying economics and maths have so little to do with banking (and I can't remember what I learnt in school anyway as it was so long ago) - I didn't get hired because of what I studied at school, my boss didn't even ask to see a copy of my degree. In the real world, the most important skills cannot be taught in the classroom and top recruiters have their own ways to test if the right candidates have picked up those skills. That is why companies invest a lot of money in HR these days rather than just give the jobs to the candidates with the best results.

It is not that I want to keep putting my parents down but rather, I just feel like if they only took a bit of interest in what I do, they would find it utterly fascinating - I'd like to think that I have quite an interesting life in every aspect. I work hard, I play hard. I am constantly taking myself out of my comfort zone for new challenges. I work in a variety of countries in a few different industries. In comparison, I find their life boring - the closer I look at it, the more I feel bad for them. They are constantly treating my nephew like he is a complete idiot just to justify their need to take care of him. Is my nephew perfect? Hell no, he's a geeky awkward teenage nerd - just like I was when I was his age, that makes him actually rather ordinary by that token. Yet my parents insist that he is completely incapable of taking care of himself and I don't know how long that situation can be sustained. I just want to say, hey, you actually have three amazing children who are all extremely accomplished and have excellent careers. If you spent a moment trying to get to know us, you might actually find us quite interesting people. Certainly, I have plenty of interesting stories to share with my readers on my blog, stories that generate lengthy and meaningful discussions in the comments section - that is why I enjoying blogging so much.

Then again, I have to accept that I have virtually nothing in common with my parents. If we weren't related by blood, I wouldn't be talking to them at all. You know, I moved house last March and where I used to live, there was woman in her late 80s in my block called Hilda, who lived on her own. I had nothing in common with her, but out of a sense of charity and responsibility, I took care of Hilda. I wanted her to know that she could come knocking on my door anytime she needed help and she did take me up on that offer over years we were neighbours. There were times when she was ill and I went out of my way to take care of her, to let her know that someone cared. Were we friends? No, I am not sure I would use that word, but I felt compelled to take care of her nonetheless. I didn't like her - I just felt sorry for her. The care giving was pretty much one way, I got virtually nothing in return but I didn't help her because I liked her or wanted anything in return - it just felt wrong not to ignore an old lady living on her own when she was my neighbour. You see, I didn't care if she didn't take any interest in my personal life or what I had achieved, she was my neighbour, we weren't related by blood. But somehow, in spite of all that, I felt  that I had a much better relationship with Hilda than with my own parents - don't get me wrong, Hilda didn't have much social skills either but I didn't mind or care. Perhaps it was because my expectations of her were so extremely low that I made it impossible for me to be disappointed within that relationship.

I have mixed feelings about my relationship with Hilda.

Somehow in my head, I had structured things in a way to make me have that relationship with Hilda - couldn't I therefore make things work with my parents? After all, I structure complex business deals all the time at work - gosh, I did something so utterly brilliant this week and it almost sounds like something out of Suits. I am negotiating a huge multi-million dollar deal at the moment and suddenly, the guy turns around and says, "Alex because the deal is so big, I think I deserve a bigger cut because I am sure you guys don't get such huge pots of money and there are other options I could invest in, so offer me a bigger cut and we have a deal." I called his bluff and said, "funny you should say that as just this morning, we have just had another guy bring in an investment that was over twice what you are offering. But hey, I am on your side, so let me speak to the directors and see what I can do." I was stalling for time as I knew the answer was no but I couldn't tell him that. So instead, I spun another story that we had another distributor who drips feed us investments all the time - each trade is small but it all adds up and at the end of the day, he still brings us millions. It may not be in one big cheque but we really don't mind if it in one big cheque or a many small ones. "Giving you a bigger cut would make it unfair to that other guy, because you're both bringing in the same kind of money at the end of that day - it's just that you look a lot more suave when you deliver it in one big fat cheque. Looking this suave isn't a good enough reason for me to offer you a better deal than the one in your contract. But hey, if this is just the first of a whole series of fat cheques, then there's a conversation to be had after we have had say 20 of those fat cheques." Guess what? He agreed with me and agreed to do the deal on the terms on his original contract - I shook his hand and said, "I believe in the principle of you don't ask, you don't get - you had absolutely nothing to lose by asking and that makes you a good businessman." I managed to contain a potentially difficult situation with a greedy client by calling his bluff and talking my way out of it.

You see, I can tell you stories like that and you guys get it - many of you watch Suits of course and it sounds like something Mike Ross would do as an investment banker. I can tell my parents that same story and they would probably get lost halfway through, or my mother would just remain completely silent because she didn't understand half of it but is too embarrassed to admit that she doesn't get it. Or worse, she might relate this to something totally irrelevant that I did in primary school. Oh and my dad would probably latch onto one word and say something totally irrelevant like a 7 year old child desperate to impress the adults that he knows something. No, this is not the kind of thing that I can share with my parents even if it is a great story - nor is this the kind of thing I would have told Hilda anyway, because believe you me when I tell you that she wouldn't understand it either. But Hilda isn't my mother, she didn't raise me - I see my relationship with her as something I can simply look back and say, "hey, look, I did this because this was the right thing to do, call it charity if you must but it proves that I am not a bad person." I guess that was the one thing I got out of hat relationship and perhaps, things were easier with Hilda because I got to know her when I was 28 - I could start my relationship with her on a completely clean slate. With my parents, I'm afraid there's way too much emotional baggage from my childhood.

My parents are simply unable to understand my life today.

When I moved house, I said goodbye to Hilda and never saw her again. The irony is that because I saw our relationship as an act of charity, I wasn't emotionally attached to her and I never went back to check on her. Perhaps that was somewhat callous and heartless of me, but if she had made a greater effort to win my friendship, then I think I may have grown closer to her rather than treat our relationship as an act of charity. Look if I can't even force my own parents to take more interest in me, how can I make a neighbour do that? Perhaps it will always be very hard for us to have meaningful relationships with people that much older than us because of the generation gap that will always be in the way - that is why it is far easier for us to relate to people of our own age group because they understand us so much better. And thankfully, I have plenty of good friends who are around my own age group. Now the question is, how can I deal with the fact that my parents have no idea whom I am today and their only reference is the boy I was many years ago? Is there a way I can structure it in a way to work like my business deals, or simply compartmentalize it in a way that is emotionally convenient for me, the way I dealt with Hilda? If I can extend this much patience, charity and kindness to a neighbour like Hilda, why can't I do the same to my own parents? Perhaps I had deliberately structured my expectations of my own parents in a way for them to always fail, so I can always feel like a victim - and if that is the case, then perhaps that means it is me who has been in the wrong but that also means I have the power to fix this, to make things better.

When I watch The Amazing Race China, they always do this thing before the commercial break, it is like a short teaser, "coming up after the break, watch what happens when the racers encounter the most difficult road block yet in this race that will push them to the limit and challenge their fear of heights! Don't go anywhere as you don't want to miss this even more exciting next part!" I look back at my childhood and thought my life was pretty mundane then especially when I was in primary school, but the irony was that was when my parents were most involved. Just as my life got interesting and had the most exciting developments, they changed the channel and completely lost interest. Go figure. I am baffled. That's it from me on this topic. I wonder what your experiences are with your parents: did they continue to take an interest in your life as you became an adult or did they lose interest once you became more independent? I hope things go well when I arrive in Singapore. Let me know what you think, leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.