2020

About the time when I was 15 in 2001, I fell in love with a boy who would later become one of my biggest public critics in business and economics. He had all the qualities in a man I was a sucker for- intense drive and ambition, self-discipline, and apparent lack of emotion. And so these qualities became the benchmark for what I looked for in a man.

Its now 2020 and 18 years since we broke up. He still today embodies those qualities, and though we became estranged after the breakup, I continued to admire his strength of tenacity and drive to his ambitions. In high school, college and beyond, I often wondered how my relationship with him would have materialized if we kissed and made up. Perhaps I never got over him, maybe I could have been in part felt guilty for the humiliating way I broke the relationship or it might the way he avoided me in all fashion possible-creating a mechanism where I wanted to contact him even more.

Strangely I always thought he would be in life one way or another when I grew older. In 2001 I remembered we watched together the movie Bridget Jones Diary where Bridget was all lonely and single at 33. I pointed out that it would be me in the future and he replied that he would still be around. Of course, keep in view that at that time, he was still trying to woo my heart. But I now look back and think how ironically things turned out.

I still feel the tension in the air every time I see him. Though the raw feelings of anger, bitterness and jealousy are gone, residues of those have come to characterise our meetings with each other. In press conference rooms bursting with reporters trying to get hold of our polar opposite opinions or us hurling insults at each others views, I start to wonder if he is still the same person deep down inside-him constantly relentless in the quest for greener grasses and greater things. I wonder he might actually retain that affection for me he never ever wants to admit. Or, under the impressive belt of accomplishments and tough exteriors of his seemingly emotionless demeanors, he is still fundamentally the boy I met on June 12th, 2001 at the YMCA building in Singapore.