When I am chatting or treating my Canadian friends here, I can be honest and blunt whereas when I am chatting or treating my friends from Asia, be they old or new friends – I have to add a spoonful of sugar in every sentence I speak. Sometimes, I feel so un-genuine but this is in our culture to always coat whatever you say with some sugar or honey because we don’t want to “offend” our friends. I always come home from my coffee or tea with my friends from Asia feeling quite the scam artiste, that I am not and do not believed in but if I don’t be “polite” than my friends would be so offended and some would even make me their enemy.
But with my friends from Canada, I never need to mince my words, I just tell them like it is – so why the double standards? Are my friends from home that shallow? or am I braver here in Canada? I tell my kids to be honest but I’m less than that, so what does that make me? No wonder I like my friends from home from a distance and what about those friends who only need you for something? those who only calls upon you if they need your help? In my many years of friendship with some, I’ve seen some who are so bitchy at about everything and everyone and I should have seen that woman like that cannot be good friends and it didn’t take long to show their true color. After many “friends” like that I think I’ve given up on “friends” like that, for as soon as I see people like that, I steer clear of them. I don’t have time for people like that, my time and energy is channeled into something more useful everyday without “friends” like that and I’m glad I’m able to see more clearly now. Why can’t any relationship be simple and truthful? If a relationship cannot be truthful at all, what makes this relationship any good?