Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Start of Our Friendship

Learning from his “mistake” Roy asked for my MSN account after lunch that day and since then we started talking on MSN once in a while. For the next few months, we hanged out with the same group of friends and at first, though we chatted and hanged out we still wasn’t that close until the May long weekend of 2005.

I remembered that that long weekend was the opening weekend of the last Star War movie and because everyone had already made plans but the two of us, we decided to go to the movies together. We spend the whole afternoon chatting while waiting in line for the movie (seriously, we waited for about 3 hours! And we weren’t even the first bunch in the line!), then after the movie we went for dinner and chatted some more.

Since that day, we became real close. We would see each other almost every other day and spend hours chatting over the phone, yet we were just still “close friends”.

That summer, he rushed home from work to be there on my 20th birthday, he was at my side when I was going through a bad break up, he drove me around looking at houses when my mom and step-dad moved to Vancouver, he made me smile again when my grandfather passed away. Roy was (and still is) a caring and supportive friend.

To be continue …

Saturday, May 07, 2011

Fate

After that brief encounter in the cafeteria, over the summer, we kept running into each other on campus. It was especially strange to me for not only I’ve never, ever in the three years of Langara had I ever run into anyone I know out of class time, but it was also strange that whenever we cross path, I was always running late for class or exam. So even though we sort of “see” each other a lot, our friendship did not bloom until much later.

After that summer in 2004, Roy was transferred to SFU and I continued on with my 2nd year in Langara. With no contact at all, half a year passed by and it was already 2005.

Then during the 04’-05’ Christmas break from school, we met again.

It was the day when I finally came out to lunch with Veronique, a girl friend of mine. We had planned to have lunch with just the two of us, but another friend of her at the time, who is now Veronique’s boyfriend and a friend of mine, Chris, insisted to tag along. Thinking back, I’m actually glad that Chris had came that day, because it was him who brought so many people into my life, and it was because of a phone call he made that we met again.

While having lunch, Chris asked if we had plans later for the afternoon and when either Veronique and I had anything in mind, Chris started calling people and making plans – for the rest of the day!

“Yo man! What you doing this afternoon?” Chris asked his friend on the other end.
“Nothing, just having lunch with Veronique and her friend by Cambie Bridge. You wanna join?”
“It’s okay la, you can just sit. We are going to karaoke after lunch.”
“You can sign half the time and the other half ask Ricky to come loh.”
“What friend? I don’t know, I just met her today, her name is Gloria, oh and she knows Connie too.”
“You know her? Oh that’s good. K, see you in half an hour then.”
Chris got off the phone and turned to us and said that a friend of his was coming to join us for lunch and then go karaoke after. Then he said that this friend of his, Roy, knows me!

I started thinking, “Roy? Do I know a ‘Roy’?” I really couldn’t figure out who this “Roy” was until he walked into the restaurant. And the first thing that I recall of him was, “the guy who got my number but never called!”

To be continue …

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

The First Time We Met

7 years ago on a summer afternoon, as I was walking down the hallway outside of the Langara College cafeteria, my cell phone rang and I picked up.

“What the hell are you doing on campus this time of the day?”
“Well I know I never stay on campus after class for the fact that I live right across the street from Langara, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be around, could I?” I looked around trying to locate my friend
“I’m sitting in the cafeteria waiting for class to start, wanna come keep me company?”

I had nothing planned for the afternoon so I walked in to find my friend and saw that she was sitting with a guy chatting and laughing. And that’s the first time we met.

If someone asked me what my first impression on Roy was, I really wouldn’t know how to answer. Seriously, it’s been 7 years and it was definitely NOT love at first sight so I really couldn’t remember what my first impression was, but he, for sure was one of the few people that make me feel comfortable being around. It didn’t feel like the first time we met, that afternoon, it felt more like hanging out, chatting with an old friend that I’d known for a long time. Then just before they had to leave for class, he asked me for my phone number!

“Why do you need my number?” I asked in a somewhat defensive way.
“I just felt that you are a funny person and I think I would like to hang out with you some other time in the future, that’s all.”
I stared at him hard in the eyes and eventually gave in and gave him my number.

To be continue …