Q&A - Michael answers questions about ending DYHIT.

For everyone reading this, I'm frankly going to tell you that I am formally ending this blog within the next month. I'm a frank kind of guy, so I speak frankly - or at least, I want to be a frank guy - and that's that. I may be a little optimistic and presumptuous here, but I'm thinking there are some questions that people want to ask about this move. A good friend of mine agreed to create a Q&A session with me addressing these questions, and here I am, hoping that my answers will satisfy.

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Q: So, Michael... are you just ending this blog, or is it all of your blogs?
A: I'm ending all four of them.

Q: Okay... why?
A: I'm going to try and make this as clear and simple as I can. When I first started blogging, I was seventeen years old, going to high school. I'm now nearing nineteen years old, studying at university. I've moved to another country, the company I have around me has changed, and quite frankly, my character has changed to adapt to what life has presented me with.

Q: Are you saying that the pressures of school have given you less free time to write?
A: That is a factor, but it definitely is not the main one in this decision. I have a lot of free time actually, probably a lot more than most of my readers, but what I want to do with that spare time is up to me, and I'd rather use it to treat myself to what makes me happy. I think that the premise of Do you hate it too? was fun, helpful and easy for me in Oct. 2008, but as I've grown up and gone through some major transitions, my personality has changed, and I no longer see the need, or the humor, in complaining.

Q: You don't complain about annoying people anymore in your daily life?
A: Heh, well, let me rephrase that: I no longer see the need, or the humor, in projecting my annoyance on a designated public forum. Blogging is a tricky ordeal - you want to be honest enough so that people feel that sense of connection, but you also don't want to be so opinionated that you upset people. I can still chuckle to myself if I should hear someone using the word 'irregardless' for example, but I'm just not comfortable anymore being the one pointing it out.

Q: Would you be open to letting people continue the fun on DYHIT by offering guest posts to be published here for your readers' entertainment?
A: This blog is fun, and wouldn't be the same without all the feedback I've received from the readers, but in the end, it is all me and I'd like to keep it that way. Quite frankly, I still don't believe I'm actually a writer - what I wrote at the beginning of this was the essence of the 17-year-old me. I'm sure there are many a talented writer who could help carry on this blog, but I would be much happier reading their thoughts on their own blogs where their creativity and professionalism can really shine on its own.

Q: Perhaps a writer could do you...
A: ... yes, like as a character! That would be great... to have a character in a book be based on misanthropic me. Hah!

Q: Speaking of books, what happened to that DYHIT book you were planning on publishing next month?
A: I may still do one at some point, but I guess there is a reason you don't get a lot of successful teenage authors these days. We, as a group, are still figuring ourselves out and have no idea what the heck we want in life. We're so impulsive, and haven't learned yet how to learn what we really want in life. I'll just say that the idea is still looming, and it may still happen - next year, the year after that, five years later? - I don't know. I'll be sure to get the word out there, though, to those of you who would be interested.

Q: How would you let us know?
A: Well... (thinking) here's what's going to happen. I want to create a new blog to replace the old four. If I shall have any thoughts of publishing a book, or doing anything else exciting in the future, I'll let you know there. I plan to launch the new blog some time next month. Beforehand, I will save everything I've done in a trusty hard drive for safekeeping, and give you all about a week's notice or something before I shut these ones down.

Q: Wait a minute, you're going to delete these ones?
A: You see, all the best things that have come to me have come at times where I went through a major transition, from one thing to a totally new, different thing. Wiping the slate clean allows for me to move on more easily. I wish I could just give these blogs a remake or something, but I feel like the fact that I'm not happy with its current state, indicates to me that I didn't do it right the first time. Hopefully, this new blog that I'm currently molding will feel 'right' for at least a longer period of time, will need no changes, and will be more flexible for my usage as I continue to grow up (unfortunately).

Q: I look forward to that one then, as I'm sure your readers are too. Maybe for old time's sake, let's go over where this all began?
A: Well, great idea. I said that in the span of a single post each day, I would consider one thing that was a nuisance to me. I was raving to another friend about how I hated it when people invited you to events at the last-minute, and he suggested - blogging. I got seriously pissed everyday during that time, and I had no idea why, it was just my character. I don't know if I was actually writing to the best of my ability, but all I was trying to convey was a voice, a style of humor, easy reading, and a dash of truth. I always knew it would be funny.

Q: And now it's not funny anymore?
A: It's hard to say. I think it's always funny to point and laugh at things people do, but funny also has to come from the heart, because otherwise, you're just a sadistic person. I'm not sure why exactly, but I'm just not feeling it in my heart anymore. I have my long days, I get sick and tired of some people, but when I get to sit in front of a computer now, I don't feel like typing it all down. It portrays me as a negative person, it makes me feel like a negative person... all of a sudden, it isn't so funny anymore.

Q: You've written over two hundred entries since Oct. 2008... can you select five favorites?
A: Impromptu invitations, throwing things in the bin, vulgar mispronunciations, having to reach into the tissue box for a tissue, and holding grudges.

Q: Any last remarks?
A: To anyone that eagerly follows me, there is a phoenix that will rise from the ashes - a blog that will just be a personal one about me, that may still feature some of the classic annoyed-at-the-world me, I promise. I take with me from these four blogs, four different lessons in how to approach the blogging world to maximize what I get from it. I assure you, all is not forgotten. This has been amazing fun for most of the past eighteen months, and without this one, I wouldn't have met a lot of great people that genuinely want to listen to me. I'm so happy I touched your hearts, made you laugh, and/or turned you on, or whatever else I did for you, but it's time to move on and I hope you can understand. I'll be back in a month or so with the new blog, so I'll catch you then.

I just want to finally thank Stuart, for this all would never have happened without his prompt. Thanks Sarah, Ariel, my mother and all 23 of the FIS-ers for providing me with many an idea for the blog, and also Elizabeth, Cindy, Michelle, Melvin, Jen, Eve, Amanda, Arthur and Graham for your expressed encouragement in the real world.

Thanks to J.J., Douglas, gaf85, Marcy, Jacynta, Gabriel, Ruchi, AV, Liz, and Madame DeFarge for sticking by since the early beginning, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. 

And shout-outs to Louise, Eugene, Larissa, Joebs, Logan, Shimmer, Chris O, Steven, Nilu, Madeline, Evelina, Robyn, Amanda, Pavitra, Chun, Yolanda, Chricel, Ren, Bindu, Eura, Naomi, Stephanie, Mike, Adora, Rachel May, Charis, Randa, Shanne, Ares, Daphne, Vincent, Jill, Vlado, Alan, Kimmy, Fish, Vivienne, Kate, Eura, KMcJoseph, Neen, and the people who follow me on Facebook, on Twitter, via my RSS feeds, the Hong Kong Blogs Review, the Standard, CNNgo, and whoever I forgot but actually contributed to it all in some way! Thank you!

114 - When your best friend says that it's time to end your friendship

It's Monday morning now, and I am not really ready to hand in all of my homework due in today, but I think I can get by today and the rest of this week just fine, just as long as I keep my mind focused on what really matters in the long run. There has been one thing, however, that has been distracting me these past couple of days, and in addition to making my thoughts linger away from light diffraction and organic chemistry, this distraction has also hindered my ability to feel genuinely glad to see my friends at school, impeded my ability to feel truly happy for the birthday girl, and to just look on the positive side of things generally, with or without the influence of alcohol.

On this blog, I try to steer away from topics that are too touchy. This is subjective of course, but to me, this includes anything to do with marital affairs, sexual orientations and racial issues, as I am a bisexual who has divorced parents, and has learned the hard way how sensitive people can be to color and creed. But one thing that has always remained important to me was my friendship with this one individual, and this will mark the first time I ever talk about him in my blogging career.

We met in September 2002, and while I offered him a seat at my table in our first high school class, he offered me some of his food at our first ever high school lunch. Since then, we have talked for thousands of hours on the phone over the past six to seven years, and I share with him, a lot of memories, heart-to-heart conversations,and inside jokes, as I'm sure you know how typical best friends usually do.

Oh, but last Wednesday, he called me and told me that he didn't want to be friends with me anymore. He said he has grown to hate me because I go against everything he ever believes in. He wanted to 'fix' me, to make me see the 'right' way to live. He says the way I see the world is naive and impure, and while I see his rationale, at this point in time, I don't see how I can change the way I approach life to resemble his philosophies.

I am sorry that I don't care about anyone else but myself, that I am an egoist, and an egotist. I apologize for being so hypocritical, so ironic, for telling others about what I hate when you have a hatred for me that goes so much deeper. I am sorry you have had to keep all your secrets to yourself for all these years, I know it must have been hard at times because you cared about me, yet I was so difficult. And I'm sorry if I care more about money than the children in Africa.

But just because our minds don't run the same way doesn't mean we have to throw all that away. It's unfair for you to give me just twenty minutes to absorb what you have been hiding for six years. You can't just end it, because I put all my trust in you, and my care for you is all the genuine caring I can muster.

But if you want it to finish there, then so be it. As you said, perhaps our paths will cross again some day.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Various people, in my old school, in my current school, and the school I went to in between those two other schools, have all ended their interactions with me. They block online communication, they refuse to reply to my invitations to social gatherings of ten or more, they ignore my text-message, they don't pick up my calls, and they walk by me, and don't care. And to be honest, I don't care either, I mean, why bother if they won't reciprocate?

But there's something extremely wrong about breaking it off with my best friend. I feel a hundred percent guilty about this one, because in my eyes, there was very little wrong with him, and I must attribute this resolution to my own personality flaws. Sigh.

This has happened to you before, right?
Don't you just hate the feeling too?