A love story - Part 1

I am going to share a love story about one of the 2 men that I've met in my life so far, with whom I was am willing to marry and have children. This is going to be a long story, split into parts (I don't know how many yet). I hope my readers will be patient.

I think it is time to share this story because recent events bring my thoughts back to the matter. E.g. The comments from 2 readers.

• From Alan Heah: if one does it 'because', due to social norms and 'age', then be resigned to a lifetime of social obligation, or the tedious consequences of relationship fallout;
  http://winkingdoll.blogspot.ca/2012/07/loneliness-vs-solitude.html
• From asingaporeanson: What happened at 28 years old? tell me leh
  http://winkingdoll.blogspot.ca/2009/03/value-of-human-life.html

[Btw, TGC, if you're reading this, you will know who I'm writing about. Please keep the confidentiality of the whole matter. Thanks!]

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Part 1 - An office buddy.

Early 1990's. I first met AL at my first job after graduating from university. He was transferred from Hong Kong, together with the entire department due to a strategic decision by our MNC's head-office, given Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997.

We were IT folks working in the financial services industry, mostly in our 20's. Since it was my first professional job, I struggled with office politics. I was in the development team and AL was in the testing team. In particular, I had a lot of difficulty with a particular female colleague CML who was on the testing team with AL.

We were young and used to hung out to socialize together after work. CML was attracted to a good-looking colleague TL on the development team. Unfortunately for CML, TL fell in love with me and we had a brief (outside-of-office) romance. After a few months, I broke up with TL mainly because I couldn't take the social pressure and gossips from CML, and partly because I was ambitious then and I felt that TL was too "immature" as he lacked dreams/plans for the future.

I often worked late (often past 10pm, sometimes overnight) because I wanted to do well professionally. AL often worked late too (I think) mainly because he missed his girlfriend back home in Hong Kong and re-channelled his energy into his job. Many a times when CML made things difficult for me, and I would confide with her team-mate, AL. We also de-stressed by chatting with each other whenever his/my work overwhelmed him/me (although AL got upset over work much less often than I did). Since AL, his girlfriend and myself all loved the Peanuts comics, AL would often reminiscent about his girlfriend (whom we code-named "6Snoopys") with me -- they had met during their undergraduate days and stayed together since. I totally respected his commitment to his girlfriend and his steadfastness in love.

By mid-1990's, AL had an opportunity to transfer back to Hong Kong. He decided to take it up so as to fulfil his promise to his girlfriend that he would return to Hong Kong once he had spent a few years exploring Singapore. After AL returned to Hong Kong, we kept in touch through the office BBS chat system. He shared mostly about issues with re-adjusting to Hong Kong, the office politics there and his relationship with his girlfriend. I shared my usual doubts, frustrations and challenges at work and in life.

Up until then, we were good friends -- purely platonic ones.

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If you want to know what they looked like.

• TL looked like Leon Lai [ 黎明 ]. Yup, we used to joke amongst us youngsters at work that TL was our workplace's "Leon Lai".
• AL had Nicky Wu's air [吴奇隆] and looks-wise was an average-looking version of Nicky Wu.

Leon Lai [ 黎明 ] - Everlasting Love [ 長情 ]

吴奇隆 刘诗诗 - 等你的季节
[Nicky Wu, Cecilia Liu - "The seasons of waiting for you"]