Y.O!

Contributed by: Felicia Clara Tan Jun Hui, 16
Y.O! blogger

I thought I was going to be in big trouble this morning when I got into the car with my mum. This unusual circumstance arose because last night my friend D called at 11pm and I yakked with him for an entire half hour. Add that to the fact that the conversation wasn’t about something one would discuss in decent society. We were having a discussion so crass and bawdy it looked like something out of Shakespeare when I heard movement in the house and quickly changed the subject and asked him for his opinions of calculus. Still, we were overheard.

I was being very quiet in the car this morning, because I was trying to make up for my bluff behaviour on the phone last night. Then my mum broke the silence, asking, “Who were you talking to on the phone last night?”

I fancy myself to be like George Washington. I cannot tell a lie. I told her the truth and then watched as her eyebrows hit the ceiling and she gave a little involuntary exclamation of surprise. But she didn’t start hollering it, just said lightly, “Oh! I thought it was J.”

J is my other really good friend. In fact she and D are practically my best friends. The odd thing here is that J and D aren’t acquainted. What little they know of each other, they know through me.

But anyway, my mum started grilling me on what D was talking about. Did he sound like he was studying for his O levels? What was he doing? Why did he call me? Weren’t his prelims coming soon? I replied all her questions, adding with emphasis that yes, he was studying and in fact he had actually told me a nifty little fact about iron oxide that I hadn’t known. She left me in peace then, but not before giving me a mysterious little warning about not losing my head.

So like all the times I had received this grilling about my associations with certain fellows, I fell silent, feeling pensive and a little embarrassed.

My parents tend to get a little paranoid about boys, which is partly my fault. I feed them with all the latest gossip like who got a boyfriend or who’s having boyfriend trouble. Last year T, my friend from German class walked me to the station in Bishan, carried my files for me and was sighted by my parents. They were horrified because they thought there was something going on they didn’t know about. Imagine my embarrassment a few months later when I had to ask my parents for permission to go down to the Goethe-Institut with him.

I lament not being able to hang out with blokes without my parents getting all jumpy. I like hanging out with blokes. We understand each other. My first ever best friend was a bloke. I hung out with him all the time and my parents never minded! Of course, I was six years old then but being older doesn’t change a thing. I don’t have crushes. I don’t intend to have a boyfriend until I finish university. I could tell my parents to their face that they have nothing to worry about but I don’t dare. It was fine when I was a small child and associating with boys is generally acceptable when one is of marriageable age but a teenage girl chatting on the phone to a boy is enough to spook any parent.

I don’t blame my parents. In fact I would commend them for being protective. Even D has to run and hide somewhere where his parents can’t find him before ringing me up. I’m already in my mid-teens so it’s only a matter of time before this passes. It’s only a phase. Meanwhile I’ll carry on with the George Washington policy.

Incidentally, last night one of the impolite things that D and I discussed was American politics. Usually politics is a topic fit for the dinner table but D likes to bash presidents, which is why such talk should not be allowed to be heard on the streets.

“Presidents always lie,” he said with finality.

“What about George Washington?” I protested. “He could never tell a lie.”

“That’s because he was too stupid to even come up with a lie to tell.”

Oh well.

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