mr. wolf

W was talking about timing. “Sometimes it’s just not the right timing,” she was telling M, and went on to give examples of businesses that had folded due to mistimed events. He leaned forward, listening, nodding.

*

As I write this, a lady four tables away is telling her friend the very same thing. “It wasn’t the right timing, but I really think it is now.” From the context I can gather — eavesdropping is a habit I cannot quit — she ran into an ex, started seeing him again, and now wants to get married. Except, she says, “he just wants to enjoy our dating life. He says he really likes it.”  

I cannot see her friend’s face, but she sounds much older and clearly alarmed. “Okay. Enjoy it while it lasts,” is all I hear before I put on my headphones to give them some overdue privacy. 

For the record, I am 100% with this friend.

*

When I was 15, the boy I thought I was so desperately in love with was desperately in love with someone else. I still remember her name: Tracie. Over months and months, this boy and I hatched plans to make Tracie fall in love with him. 

Some context: I was a year younger than him. I hadn’t yet been in a relationship. The term “friend zone” did not exist, so I felt sure this story would pan out eventually in my favour, a la My Best Friend’s Wedding but with the ending rewritten for Julia Roberts. Surely, on a date with Tracie one day — while she tittered on about something insipid — he would realise he was hopelessly in love with me, the girl with whom he so freely shared his thoughts, fears, desires. Everything would fall in place.

Over Christmas, he texts, “I’ve got good news.” He had met someone new! Her name is J*. He’s asked her to be his girlfriend, she lives in a different country but they’ll make it work because she said yes.

It was great timing, he says. She’s only back in Singapore to visit family.

I put down the phone and decided I was not just out of love; I was, on behalf of Tracie now, annoyed and deeply betrayed.