Gathering with Friends

Frankly, it is really time to chide myself over my complete submersion into my work for the past half a year. Somehow taking on a consolidator role meant a greater responsibility and my work life balance started to go awry. Needless to say, friends and family took a back seat with my energy and time channelled to work.

It has been ages since I gather with any friend, much less a group of friends. I was surprised that I managed to get the time of a few friends with less than a week's notice. Most of my friends have packed social calendar which require pretty advanced pre-booking.

I was pretty nervous because it was a first attempt to bring a group of friends whose only common friend was me in a single gathering. I reckoned it was a good opportunity for my friends to know my friends and to have an enjoyable evening, ie Facebook contacts in real life. Fortunately, my friends were also enthusiastic about the idea. Moreover, I guessed if there were any mismatch of frequencies, at least each of them could concentrate on their food.

All of them were shy when they first met each other. Given that I was not exactly the most spontaneous or eloquent person around, I was busy trying to think of easy topics to keep the conversations going. I was also trying to be more self-deprecating and humourous but I failed rather miserably . The jokes were lame and slapstick and did not cause much of a ripple much less enliven the group.

Mr Ong was trying his best to help me with his travel experiences. All through the night, he managed to draw more conversations for the more reserved friends with his jokes and easy banter. Phew, I really owed him a big favour for being the best ice-breaker. Towards the end of the night, the group seemed more at ease with one another and laughter was also more abundant.

I have indeed enjoyed myself, albeit slightly draining while trying to think of things to say, catching up with friends. I hope they have an equally enjoyable evening making new friends.