Ever since I moved into a place of my own, my life has never been the same.
In the past, I used to hang out somewhere after work - be it at the gym, a mall, dinner dates with whoever – because there is not much reason for me to go home since home, in the past, has always been a room in a shared apartment. There’s not much incentive to go back to a room unless I just want to sleep.
I have been co-sharing for close to 14 years now. I counted that I have moved about 20 times now but I never bothered counting the number of housemates I’ve had because that’s just impossible. To give you an example, I once lived in a house with 11 other girls. That was an absolute nightmare, but I was only 17 years old then, with absolutely no concept of personal space. I even had a roommate, as in someone who sleeps on the same bunk bed as me. Like in the army!
Then there are those housemates whom I have lived with for years yet I don’t remember who they are. Recently, I bumped into this girl I lived with for 2 years in Singapore. I cannot, for my life, remember her name. Thank god I managed to distract her with air kisses when she approach me. The funny thing is I can remember everything about her down to what colour underwear she owns but her name just eludes me!
So now I am thinking – gee, where have I lived before and where? Let me try and recap a few of them:
I remembered I once lived with an Indian family when I was 16. It was a combo of a husband (he has a curly moustache), an alpha female wife, their baby daughter and the wife’s brother who is a swinging single bachelor. You can already tell that this family is made for a Bollywood script. I loved the food – I get to eat curry every night. Don’t love the noise, though. When they fight, it’s really Bollywood with weeping mothers, crying babies and Hindi dialogue peppered with English words which sounds something like ‘Nehnehnehneh.. you bastard… nehnehnehneh, shut up, idiot..nehnehneh…’
Then, like I said, I once lived with 11 female students in a 4-bedroom house. One room can hold up to 2 bunk beds - go figure how we slept! It was crazy because we even have to share bathroom and kitchen. Absolutely no privacy and we always need to follow a schedule to use the bathroom. If our class starts at 7.30am, we have to fight to get the best toilet time slot which is 7am. If you go first, you have to wake up at 5.30am! We also need to label our things placed in common areas. Some of the stupid ones went as far as labeling their eggs (chicken eggs lah!) in the fridge with marker pens. My roommate, Maro, and I used to wish the ink would seep into the egg and they all get poisoned so that we have less people in the house.
Then there was this house I shared with 4 other guys in the U.K in a very dodgy Pakistani neighborhood. They never once cleaned up; they were on playstation all day long and they love decorating the living room wall with topless pin up girls from Page 3. The house was filthy, old and smelly. Those boys were smelly too. But the nice thing is, boys being boys, they ‘reluctantly’ took care of me in their subtle way like making me porridge when I am sick or walking me home when it is late.
Then, there was hostel life back in Uni where I lived on the same floor with 6 other skanky and shamelessly noisy Brit girls who does nothing but party, drink and compete who can bring the most boys home for a nightcap. The common toilet is full of puke and leftover boys every weekend. Erm. Nice.
I also once stayed in an apartment famous for recovery parties. Recovery parties are parties you go to when the club closes. That means at 4am every Friday and Saturday, the whole club is back at my place. I used to wake up in the morning to find deejays, clubbers and kids from the night before, hanging out in my living room. It was fun when I was still in party mode but it became intrusive when I stopped.
Then there was that weird Chinese family I stayed with for a couple of months where the divorced mother is seeing her daughter’s 15 year old male friend from school – and all 3 of them shared one room! Now, that’s fucked up.
Well, I did have a few good (normal) stints too. Like during my Bar exam year, I was living with The Queen and her brother. That was one of the best times in my life. She sends me to law school every morning and cooks dinner for me in the evenings. On Fridays, we'll have a blast getting dressed up together to go clubbing. On Sundays, we like lazing by the pool recovering from the weekend. The not so good thing is we have to be on call to ‘not be at home’ whenever her brother wants to bring girls back. Sometimes I sneak back home just to see what they are up to.
I also lived with Phillip for a good part of my KL days. Although I never realize it back then, living with a good friend was one of the key factor that kept me sane during my very insane time in KL. It was the little things we did, like making breakfast together before going to work, planning who buys dinner that night, eating in front of the TV after work, etc. Our lives were intertwined then; we shared the same friends, same lifestyle, same habits. He sees me off when I go on first dates, and gather up my pieces after each failed one. I especially enjoyed going clubbing with him (which we do A LOT) and then coming home together afterwards. Not sure if I speak for anyone else but I personally hate coming back to an empty house after a night out sometimes. It’s lonely and depressing.
When I move to Singapore, I realised that most people I met here judge you by where you stay (or have I been meeting idiots?!). I was amused that the first 3 questions they usually ask are - what's your name, your occupation and where you live. Well, my first place was in Newton, and apparently that was high on the 'glam' list - whereas places like Punggol and Sengkang are not. Anyway, you would think that I should be so lucky to live near the city centre except my first job was all the way in Science Park so that's not cool. I had my first taste of taking public transport to work, and I wasn’t particularly ecstatic at all about that.
My next home in Singapore is Siglap. I absolutely love that neighborhood. There is something very laid back about the East. Proximity to the beach, perhaps? Also, I was staying with a really cool housemate, Seth, whom I grew rather close to. He’s a good looking executive in his mid 30s and playfully single just like me. We had a blast partying and drinking together, not forgetting getting our hearts broken. He likes to date Chinese ah lians and I like dating Chinese ah bengs back then – and we used to go home and sob to each other about why things never worked out. (Gee!) He was a big brother to me too, and took care of me. I once banged on his door in the middle of the night, in pain from god knows what, and he literally carried me to a hospital. On nights when we are sick of the world, we would sit in our respective chairs (we only had 2 in the living room), drink beer and watch cable TV all night without talking. It was always easy company with Seth.
What makes Siglap that much nicer is the fact that Empress Bao lived just down the road from me and Secretary Pig was just a stone throw away. The Empress and I used to have breakfast every morning before going off to work in the same cab. Secretary Pig was my colleague at work, and minion after, so having her close by is very useful. On weekends, we used to go for long biking trips to Changi, swim all day at her club and then go home and beg her mother to feed us bacon.
My Siglap stint ended when people moved on and away. After Siglap, I stayed at.. gosh, two different condos at Upper Bukit Timah (UBT) with that Indian girl whose name I forgot. I found her on the Internet, and it was such a coincidence that she is also from JB and The Queen’s good friend back in primary school! She was the first female housemate I’ve had for ages, and I was quite apprehensive at first (after my experience with the House of 11 Horrors!) but thank goodness she is cool. We were both working adults and travelling most of the time. We mostly kept out of each other’s way out of respect for the other person’s privacy.
After UBT, I moved all the way across the planet to Changi (!!?) for a short while (1 hour drive to work!) before moving back to Siglap for a couple of months. When that fell through, I stayed temporarily in Bukit Timah next to the Chinese High School where I can hear the students singing tribute to Mao Zedong every morning. I also stayed in Sixth Avenue for a bit after that, which was really nice and quiet but frankly, quite sterile. Then, there was my first HDB experience in the noisy bustling Clementi where my neighbors never sleep and the birds love crapping on my car.
And so, finally, here I am now – in the Pig’s Cage (Read: Jurong = Zhu Long) just down the road from Toi. I laughed at him when he first move to Jurong, and now I am right in the same cage with him. (FYI. I think Pig Cage ranks very low on the glam list!)
I meant to write about the joys of single living when I first started this post but now that I have gone on to describe all the places and people I have stayed with, and the crazy times I had, I don’t think I need to tell you just how GREAT living by myself in the Pig Cage is. Surprisingly, I don’t miss having any company at all. I only wrote about the good stuffs about having a housemate above, but it’s not always good. In fact, more often than not (especially when you are older and more discerning about your personal space) housemates tend to grow apart the longer they stay together.
People change (after all, we are all in our formative years) and that always affect the housemate relationship and your living arrangement. Seth and I grew apart after he met a girl (who is now his wife) which in all fairness, is very good for him. What that translate for our friendship though, is living together is no longer convenient. Similarly, the Indian girl at UBT decided to move in with her boyfriend. I have also moved out of places because I couldn’t tolerate my housemate’s lifestyle, hygiene, personality etc. It’s always tough living with someone when neither party has any mutual ‘obligation’ to make the other person change or compromise – unlike with a partner or family member.
That explains why 'change is the only constant' has been my motto when it comes to where I live or who I live with. But for now, I am reveling in staying on my own in my faraway sanctuary. Now I can go home to a place where there is no one I need to be nice to, and where I can do any darn thing I like without having to consider anyone’s feelings. Pure self-indulgent joy! My favorite after-work activity is cleaning my apartment in the buff, knowing that no one else will mess it up after me. I also started cooking my own alibaba meals because I have the entire kitchen at my disposal. If I am not cleaning or cooking, I’m rolling on the couch in front of the TV (in the living room, not bedroom anymore) with my hair sticking south and saliva dripping down my chin.
Well, just because I can.
PS: Hope this post answers some of your queries on where The Frou has been holed up the past few weeks. Hibernating (and drooling)!
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