I Don’t Regret Sending This. I’m Not Proud of It Either.

A few days ago, I unblocked my former baseball coach on LINE.

I sent him one of the harshest messages I’ve ever sent another person.

Almost immediately, LINE marked it Read. He happened to be looking at his phone when I sent it, apparently.

Then I blocked him.

I was going to block him either way. Whether he read it immediately, ten minutes later, or not at all didn't change the plan. I hadn't unblocked him because I wanted a conversation. I had unblocked him because, after months of saying nothing directly to him, there was something I had decided I wanted to say.

Once I'd said it, I was done.

I don't regret sending it.

I'm also not proud of it.

I've spent some time wondering whether those two statements contradict each other. I've decided they don't.

Regret would mean that, given the opportunity to go back to that morning and stop myself from pressing send, I would.

I wouldn't.

I'm glad I sent it. It was cathartic as hell.

But being glad I finally said something doesn't mean I'm proud of everything I chose to say. There are things in that message that were deliberately cruel. There were subjects I knew would hurt him, and I brought them up knowing exactly that.

I wasn't blindly lashing out.

I knew what I was doing.

That's mine to own.

But if I'm going to publish the message I sent him, I don't think it makes sense to drop it here without showing what came before it. Otherwise you get the explosion without seeing the months of pressure that preceded it.

So I'm going to do something I normally wouldn't do.

I'm going to show the conversations.

Not selected quotes rewritten from memory. Not my reconstruction of what somebody supposedly said. The actual messages.

You can read them and decide for yourself what you think of them.

This is what I experienced.

It started with a fucking profile picture

This was one of the first major arguments.

I changed the profile picture used by the team without asking the other people involved in management first.

Let's get something out of the way immediately:

I shouldn't have done that.

It was a public-facing account representing the team. There were other people involved in management. Asking first would have taken me thirty seconds.

That's mine.

But what happened afterward became an early example of why communicating with Henry eventually exhausted me.

Henry asked when “our team logo” had changed.

Then came:

“If you want to change the logo at your discretion without the internal consent of your team members and officially expose it, create your own team.”

A minute later:

“Your words and actions over the past few days have been very difficult to understand.”

And immediately after that, he proposed a management meeting.

I changed the profile picture back.

I told him there was no need to make a big deal about it. I told him he was taking it too seriously. I said his reaction seemed out of proportion.

Those responses weren't particularly diplomatic either. Reading them now, I can understand why telling somebody that their concern is “out of proportion” isn't exactly an invitation to productive discussion.

But this is also where our fundamental problem becomes visible.

I thought we were arguing about a profile picture.

Henry said we weren't.

“This is not about overreacting to a profile photo.”

According to him, the real issue was public-facing decisions, internal communication and mutual respect.

There is a reasonable point in there.

Then it expanded.

What concerned him wasn't the profile picture itself anymore. It was:

“the pattern of making decisions independently and then dismissing concerns when they are raised.”

Now we weren't discussing one decision.

We were discussing a pattern in me.

And apparently that pattern required an in-person management meeting rather than what I thought could have been resolved with:

“Pon, ask us before changing public-facing stuff next time.”

“Okay.”

Done.

Instead, the profile-picture incident became something larger: my judgment, my behavior, how I responded to concerns and what those things supposedly revealed about me.

That phrase stayed with me.

So did another one:

“Create your own team.”

Neither of us knew how funny that sentence would eventually become.

Then came the version of me I wasn't in the room to hear about

Before one of our later meetings, another person involved in management, P'Teng, messaged Henry in the operations chat.

I eventually saw that conversation.

This is it.

P'Teng essentially tells Henry to speak nicely to me. He says that if Henry speaks angrily, I'll become more resistant, and that from what he's observed, I respond better when somebody speaks calmly. He asks Henry to hold his anger back a little.

Henry replies that he isn't angry.

Then he starts explaining me.

According to Henry, I was emotional and impulsive.

I acted before thinking deeply.

I felt bad when things didn't go the way I wanted.

I had become too interested in things outside baseball: uniforms, gloves and equipment.

My playing hadn't developed as much as it should have.

Then came the part that still fascinates me.

Henry said it was “clear” that I wanted social recognition from the team.

Apparently I wanted recognition through sponsorship and having an important role, and because several things hadn't gone the way I'd hoped, I had become more emotional.

Maybe Henry sincerely believed all of that.

Maybe there were things about my behavior that genuinely frustrated him.

But here's the problem:

He didn't fucking know what was inside my head.

Neither do I know what was inside his.

I can describe his behavior. I can tell you what I thought it meant. I can tell you how it made me feel.

I cannot announce his motivations as fact.

And yet here was somebody who repeatedly stressed the importance of direct communication, explaining my supposed motivations to other people before we had even sat down together.

That contradiction stayed with me.

Then came the conversation that broke whatever was left

What follows is the longest exchange.

I'm including the whole thing rather than selecting only the messages that make me look good.

VIEW THE FULL EXCHANGE HERE

It’s excruciatingly long.

I know.

Imagine fucking participating in it.

But the length matters because the pattern becomes much easier to understand when you read the conversation from beginning to end.

Henry starts by telling me that if I have frustrations or concerns with him, I should speak to him directly. He doesn't want misunderstandings growing through indirect conversations.

Again: remember the previous screenshot.

Then he brings up an injury I'd suffered at Sathon.

He had heard that I believed the injury happened because of him and that I felt he'd hit balls differently toward me than toward other players. His response included an explanation about how sunglasses might be viewed in Korean amateur baseball and how they could potentially interfere with visual judgment.

Then the subject expanded.

He told me my focus had gradually shifted away from baseball itself and toward:

“sponsorship discussions, uniforms, conversations in the group chat, and other external matters.”

Which was interesting because sponsorships, uniforms and communication were among the operational responsibilities I had actually been handling.

Then came this:

“If your commitment to improving as a player and contributing to the team does not become your priority again, then as a coach, I will need to seriously reconsider your role and position within the team.”

That sentence still makes me laugh a little.

Not because there was nothing serious underneath it.

Because this was an amateur recreational baseball team.

I have a job.

I have family.

I have friends.

I have responsibilities.

I have an entire life that continues to exist Monday through Saturday.

I love baseball.

I can care deeply about baseball without making baseball my life.

So if recreational baseball wants to become my priority, it can get in fucking line.

I tried to explain what was actually exhausting me

I told Henry that I had already stepped away from operations because I didn't want to keep clashing with him. I told him I was mentally and emotionally exhausted.

His response:

“You are misunderstanding my point.”

Then:

“This is not about logistics, sponsorships, social media, or the operational boundaries we agreed on earlier this year.”

Now it was about my attitude on the field. How I handled mistakes. How I responded to frustration and criticism. How I communicated concerns. How I supposedly carried dissatisfaction internally.

Then my exhaustion itself became part of the lesson.

Being mentally and emotionally exhausted, he told me, wasn't an excuse to “carry resentment silently and then project it onto others.” If baseball had become draining, I needed to reflect on why and why I had chosen to carry that alone instead of addressing it “like an adult and like someone in a leadership position.”

So I corrected him.

Baseball wasn't draining me.

Operations were.

Constantly clashing with Henry was.

I told him exactly what I wanted:

Show up.

Play catch.

Field some balls.

Maybe bat if we had time.

I didn't want to run anything anymore.

I just wanted to play baseball.

His response began:

“Alright.”

Great.

Problem solved?

No.

Apparently I needed to prove I could be a normal baseball player correctly

Henry told me to focus on becoming a better player.

Stop comparing myself to others.

Put my energy into development.

Other players knew where their skill level was, he said, and instead of complaining or comparing themselves to other people, they kept showing up and improving.

My injury should have been “an opportunity for reflection and growth.”

Then:

“Are you willing to put in the work that requires?”

He told me that when he was serious about baseball, he trained every day, exercised, studied rules, simulated situations and constantly worked to understand the game.

Improvement came from:

“discipline, repetition, humility, and effort.”

If I really wanted to step away from operations and simply play baseball, apparently I needed to “commit fully to that path.”

Then came chasing balls.

Helping without being asked.

Doing the little things.

Those things showed what kind of player I was.

Skill could be developed.

Attitude was a choice.

And this is where I snapped back.

Because Henry questioned my willingness to contribute to the team.

Whatever else he wanted to criticize about me, that one hit differently.

I'd poured an enormous amount of myself into ARUN.

Recruitment. Announcements. Welcoming new players. Helping beginners. Social media. Uniforms. Equipment. Sponsorship. Administration. Money. Time. Energy.

I told him that.

Henry acknowledged it.

Then he told me I was looking at things “too narrowly.”

I needed to look at the bigger picture. The full picture.

And then we arrived at sacrifice.

“But have I ever complained about that?”

This remains one of my favorite parts of the entire conversation, although probably not for the reason Henry intended.

Henry told me:

“Honestly, I think you are only looking at your own sacrifices right now.”

Then:

“The truth is, I have sacrificed far more for this team than you may realize.”

He listed some of those sacrifices.

He paid the same membership fee as everyone else.

He showed up on days when he wasn't physically well or had personal matters to deal with.

Those things I can understand. Giving your time when you have other things going on can absolutely be a sacrifice.

Then there was this:

“Have you ever seriously thought about what it means to spend that time hitting fungos for others instead of playing for yourself?”

Yes, Henry.

I have.

You were the fucking coach.

Hitting fungos wasn't some extraordinary act of self-denial bestowed upon the rest of us by a baseball martyr.

It was coaching.

You were the person running practice. Hitting fungos so players could take fielding repetitions was about as close to the bare minimum of that role as I can imagine.

I'm not saying coaching requires no sacrifice. Of course it does. Coaching means spending time teaching other people when you could be playing yourself. It means organizing drills, watching players, correcting mistakes and sometimes putting other people's development ahead of your own enjoyment.

But if you voluntarily take on the role of coach, performing the basic function of coaching isn't automatically evidence that you've sacrificed more than everybody else.

You don't get to appoint yourself coach and then submit the job description as evidence of martyrdom.

Henry continued:

“I want to catch.”

“I want to pitch.”

“I want to play freely in the positions I enjoy.”

Then came the masterpiece:

“But have I ever complained about that?”

And:

“Have I ever made this about my own situation?”

Henry.

You were complaining about it while asking me whether you had ever complained about it.

You were describing everything you'd rather be doing, explaining everything you'd supposedly given up, telling me you'd sacrificed “far more,” and then asking whether you'd ever made things about your own situation.

I genuinely don't know what else to call that.

I tried to stop the comparison.

I acknowledged that we'd both had visions for the team and that I'd stepped away from mine precisely because I didn't want to keep fighting over them. I told him we could keep going back and forth over who had sacrificed more, but that the conversation would probably just leave both of us mentally drained.

Henry's response:

“What I am talking about has nothing to do with operational vision, management philosophy, or who sacrificed more.”

And there it was again.

Henry introduces something.

I respond to the thing Henry introduced.

Henry explains that the conversation isn't actually about that thing.

Maybe that makes perfect sense to somebody reading this from outside.

It had stopped making sense to me.

I tried to end the conversation

Eventually I wrote:

“I can't guarantee I'll be the player you want me to be, but I can guarantee you can see the best version of me out on the field every week.”

Then:

“I hope this settles it.”

I meant that.

I wanted the conversation to fucking end.

Instead, Henry told me he would “hold [me] to those words.”

He explained that he was speaking not only as my coach, but as an older brother, a friend and someone who had “walked this baseball path” before me.

He might become even harder on me if he saw less than what he believed I was capable of.

Then:

“Sports are honest.”

“What you receive will always reflect what you put into it.”

“Just like the difference between someone who practices for 10 hours and someone who practices for 10,000 hours.”

“Keep working, keep improving, and let your actions speak for you.”

Then he wished me a good lunch.

Thanks, Henry.

Then I asked for one fucking evening

Later that day, I told him I wouldn't attend dinner the following night.

I said I understood the message he'd been trying to convey.

I said I needed some time to cool off and let things settle.

I'd see him Sunday.

His answer:

“No. Cooling off is fine.”

“Avoiding the conversation is not.”

He told me to come anyway. If my desire to move forward was genuine, I needed to show up.

So I did.

The meeting was exactly what I didn't want

I should be clear about something here.

Unlike the LINE conversations above, I don't have a transcript of the dinner. What follows is my recollection of it.

And my recollection is that it was a fucking shitshow.

Remember what Henry had told me the meeting would cover after I specifically asked him?

Three things:

“Clear up tonight’s misunderstanding.”

“If you are stepping away from operations, organize the handover.”

“Set clear expectations for how we move forward on the field.”

Then:

“That’s it.”

Fine.

I showed up.

P'Teng and Minseok were there too.

And instead of this neat little three-item administrative conversation Henry had promised, much of the evening felt to me like a live-action continuation of the fucking essays I'd already spent hours reading.

Henry complained.

He revisited grievances.

He took more shots at my attitude and character.

And at one point, he asked me a question that I still find absurdly serious given the context:

Where did I see my future with ARUN?

My future?

Henry, this was an amateur recreational baseball team that practiced for a couple of hours on the weekend.

I wasn't being asked where I saw myself after residency.

I wasn't negotiating a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

I wasn't being interviewed for a fucking executive position.

I played baseball on the weekend.

I genuinely didn't have some grand three-year strategic vision for Pon and ARUN.

By that point, my answer was actually pretty simple.

I wanted to be a normal member.

I'd already said this in writing before the meeting. I wanted to show up, play catch, field some balls, maybe bat, enjoy baseball and go home.

At dinner, Minseok jokingly answered “Branding” for me.

Henry brushed past that because apparently I needed to answer for myself.

So I gave him an example of what I meant.

I said I wanted to be like Tawan.

Tawan was a regular member. He showed up. He played. He wasn't running the fucking organization.

Simple enough.

Except Henry couldn't leave that alone either.

Instead, he started explaining why, in his view, I wasn't like Tawan.

Tawan was diligent.

Tawan worked hard.

Tawan helped carry equipment.

Tawan chased balls.

Tawan picked up balls after practice.

Right now, Henry told me, he didn't think I was like Tawan.

And there it was again.

Even when I was trying to explain the extremely modest role I wanted in ARUN, the answer somehow became another evaluation of me.

I wasn't asking Henry to tell me whether I had achieved Tawan Certification™.

I wasn't claiming Tawan and I behaved identically.

I was trying to say:

I don't want to run this anymore. I want to be a regular fucking member.

That was it.

But apparently even being a normal recreational baseball player came with a performance review.

And the Tawan comparison was especially funny considering what Henry had told me earlier that same day:

“Stop comparing yourself to others, and put your energy into your own development.”

Apparently the complete rule was:

Pon, stop comparing yourself to other players.

Henry may compare Pon to other players as necessary.

Cool.

Glad we cleared that up.

The whole evening reinforced something I'd been feeling throughout this conflict: there was seemingly no answer I could give that simply ended with, Okay, that's what Pon wants.

I wanted out of operations.

That required further discussion.

I wanted to be a normal member.

That became a discussion of whether my behavior measured up to another normal member.

I wanted an evening to cool off.

No.

I needed to attend dinner.

I attended dinner.

Then I got more of the same conversation I'd specifically wanted a break from.

And somewhere in all of this, Henry was still talking about his own sacrifices, his own frustrations and everything he'd supposedly given up for ARUN.

At that point I remember thinking:

What the fuck are we still doing here?

I'd already stepped away from operations.

I'd already told him I didn't want to run the team.

I'd already told him I wanted to keep baseball simple.

I'd already given him my “definitive statement” that I couldn't promise to become the player he wanted but would give the best version of myself when I was on the field.

I'd already written:

“I hope this settles it.”

Apparently it hadn't.

And P'Teng and Minseok had the privilege of sitting there while the private argument they'd never asked to be part of received its fucking dinner-theater adaptation.

Henry had apparently told the management chat beforehand that we'd clear everything up and then talk about baseball and have fun.

We did not talk about baseball and have fun.

At least that's not how I remember that evening.

I remember another round of Henry explaining Henry's grievances and Henry's standards and Henry's assessment of me.

Dinner and a show.

And the show was Henry whining.

Eventually I handed over the operational responsibilities I'd been managing.

At that point, as far as I was concerned, the practical issue was finished.

I had given up the thing we'd spent months fighting over.

There was nothing left for me to manage.

Nothing left for us to negotiate.

And yet somehow I walked away from that dinner more convinced than ever that stepping away from operations wasn't going to solve the actual problem between us.

Because by then the problem wasn't really operations anymore.

It was the relationship.

And not long afterward, I left ARUN entirely.

Somewhere along the way, ARUN became way too fucking serious

The dinner also crystallized something I'd been struggling to put into words.

Henry and I didn't just disagree about operations.

I think we fundamentally disagreed about what ARUN was supposed to occupy in our lives.

Henry took ARUN extremely seriously.

There’s nothing wrong with loving baseball.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve.

There’s nothing wrong with studying the game, practicing outside scheduled sessions, caring about fundamentals, expecting people to make an effort or wanting an amateur team to become better organized and more competitive.

If baseball gives somebody purpose, structure, friendship and something to look forward to every week, fucking fantastic.

My problem wasn't that Henry took baseball seriously.

My problem was that, increasingly, his level of seriousness seemed to become the measuring stick for mine.

Read the messages again.

I wasn't simply being told how to field a ground ball better.

I was being told about discipline, repetition, humility and effort. I was asked whether I was willing to put in the work. I was told that if I wanted to step away from operations and simply become a player, I needed to “commit fully to that path.”

I was told that chasing balls, staying engaged and helping without being asked demonstrated what kind of player I was.

My injury became an opportunity for reflection and growth.

My interest in uniforms, equipment and sponsorship became evidence that my focus had shifted away from baseball itself.

My development as a player became something Henry could use when discussing my attitude and priorities.

And eventually:

“If your commitment to improving as a player and contributing to the team does not become your priority again, then as a coach, I will need to seriously reconsider your role and position within the team.”

Priority.

That's the word.

Because my immediate reaction, then and now, is:

Henry, this is recreational baseball.

We're adults.

We have jobs.

We have families.

We have bills.

We have relationships.

We have responsibilities.

We have lives that exist outside a roofed soccer field on the weekend.

ARUN practiced for a couple of hours once a week.

I wasn't on an athletic scholarship.

Nobody was paying me.

There wasn't a professional contract waiting if I improved my fielding percentage.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were not sending scouts to see whether Pon chased enough fucking baseballs after practice.

I wanted to improve.

Of course I did.

I wanted to become a better player.

I wanted ARUN to succeed.

I had already invested a ridiculous amount of time and energy into helping the organization function.

But there is an enormous difference between:

“I care about baseball.”

and:

“Baseball must become one of the central priorities around which I organize my life.”

I was willing to do the first.

I was never signing up for the second.

And the more Henry talked about baseball, the more it sometimes felt as though recreational participation had acquired this bizarre moral dimension.

Didn't chase a loose ball?

Attitude.

Interested in equipment?

Priorities.

Frustrated about something?

Mindset.

Not improving quickly enough?

Effort.

Want to step away from management and just play?

Fine—but now demonstrate discipline, humility, repetition and commitment to player development.

Want one evening to cool off?

No.

At some point I wanted to scream:

Motherfucker, can I just play baseball?

That's what I had been trying to tell him.

I wasn't asking to be captain.

I wasn't asking to control the team.

I wasn't asking to become an elite player.

I wasn't asking Henry to build ARUN around me.

I was actually asking for less.

Let me show up.

Let me throw.

Let me field.

Let me hit.

Let me have a good time with people I like.

Then let me go home and continue being Pon.

Because baseball is part of my life.

It isn't my life.

And that is why the question at dinner about “my future with ARUN” struck me as so fucking absurd.

What future?

Next Sunday?

Probably baseball.

Next month?

Hopefully baseball.

Three years from now?

I don't fucking know, Henry.

I'm not mapping my adult life around the strategic trajectory of a recreational baseball team.

Maybe I'll still be there.

Maybe I'll play somewhere else.

Maybe I'll play a different format.

Maybe I'll take a break.

Maybe my job gets busier.

Maybe family takes priority.

Maybe something I can't possibly predict happens.

That's life.

And ironically, Henry himself eventually expressed something very similar publicly. In August, he wrote that the two hours everyone spent together each week were actually “a very short amount of time.” He acknowledged that baseball could become boring, that people sometimes didn't improve, that baseball in Thailand could be expensive and difficult, and that baseball might simply stop feeling fun for a while.

He even described baseball as a “short break from my busy life.”

Exactly.

A short break from your busy life.

That's what I wanted baseball to be too.

Something important.

Something I loved.

Something I could work at.

Something that gave me friends, exercise, competition and joy.

And then I went back to my fucking life.

The difference was that I didn't need everybody else's relationship with baseball to look like mine.

Somebody wants to train five days a week?

Knock yourself out.

Somebody wants conventional baseball?

Great.

Somebody wants slowpitch?

Play slowpitch.

Somebody wants to throw a ball around in a park and then go get lunch?

Have fun.

Somebody wants to devote enormous amounts of time to becoming the best amateur player they can possibly become?

I genuinely respect that.

Just don't turn your choice into everybody else's obligation.

That became one of the biggest things I learned after leaving ARUN.

There doesn't have to be one correct way to love baseball.

And there certainly doesn't have to be one man standing in the middle of recreational baseball deciding whether everybody else is loving it seriously enough.

And somehow Henry still got to narrate my departure

I wrote my own farewell.

I left the group.

That should have been the one part of this entire saga where nobody needed to explain what Pon meant except Pon.

Henry posted his own farewell afterward.

Or rather, his own interpretation of my farewell.

It talked about how much time, effort and commitment I'd given ARUN.

Funny.

Some of the same things that privately seemed to demonstrate that my attention had drifted toward “external matters” were now publicly contributions deserving appreciation.

His announcement said I'd spent considerable time reflecting on my position and role and that my decision had come after personal consideration.

And if someday I “felt ready to return,” ARUN would welcome me back.

That wasn't how I experienced my departure.

I wasn't on a journey toward becoming ready to return.

I wasn't taking a sabbatical from recreational baseball to find myself.

I was done.

I was fucking exhausted dealing with him.

And after months of being told what my actions meant, what my frustrations meant, what my priorities should be, what my mindset was, what my sacrifices meant and what I supposedly wanted—

somebody else was narrating my exit too.

Months later, I took the microphone back

For months I didn't contact him.

I wasn't silent in the saintly sense.

I vented.

I complained.

I joked with friends.

I replayed conversations.

I imagined responses.

I built something new in baseball and got on with my life.

But there was still a lot sitting there.

Then one morning I decided I was finally going to say it.

I unblocked Henry.

I wasn't seeking reconciliation.

I wasn't asking for an apology.

I didn't want another meeting.

I didn't want another explanation of what he'd actually meant.

I didn't want another 17-paragraph Henry dissertation.

I opened with:

“Wazzup Henry.”

And then I fucking unloaded.

For once, Henry wasn't going to tell me what my story meant.

For once, he wasn't going to explain my mindset back to me.

For once, he wasn't going to decide what the conversation was actually about.

I was going to narrate myself.

And I did it with a flamethrower.

What follows is exactly what I sent him.

I haven't rewritten it to make myself sound better.

I haven't removed the ugly parts.

I haven't cleaned up the profanity.

And I haven't changed the things I now recognize were low blows.

This is what I said.

The Message

Wazzup Henry,

Been a while. Four months, I think? Anyway, I’ve had plenty of time to do that thing you kept telling me to do: Reflect. So I did. And since you spent so much time giving me advice about maturity, discipline, responsibility, mindset, personal growth and improving myself, figured I’d return the favor once before I go back to no-contact.

Looking back, one thing I still find fucking hilarious is how often you’d say something, I’d respond to exactly what you said, and then suddenly I was “misunderstanding your point,” “looking at things too narrowly,” or avoiding what the conversation was “actually about.” You brought up sponsorships, uniforms and operations. I responded. Suddenly it wasn’t about operations. You told me I was focusing too much on my own sacrifices, then literally in the next sentence told me you had “sacrificed far more” than I realized. I responded to that. Suddenly it wasn’t about who sacrificed more. You told me not to compare myself to other players while comparing me to other players yourself.

And whenever I pointed out one of these contradictions, somehow the problem became my inability to understand you. Call it gaslighting, moving the goalposts, rewriting the conversation or whatever term makes you most comfortable. I don’t really care anymore. I know what I read. I know what you said. And fortunately, LINE has this wonderful feature where the messages don’t magically change just because you later decide that wasn’t what you meant.

I also remember all those lectures about how I needed to come directly to you if I had a problem. Don’t talk through other people. Don’t make assumptions. Communicate directly. Address things like an adult. Great advice. Except while you were lecturing me about all of that, you were in the management chat telling other people that I was emotional, impulsive, didn’t think deeply enough, wanted “social recognition,” became upset when things didn’t go my way, cared too much about uniforms and equipment, and apparently wasn’t improving enough at baseball. So what happened to coming directly to me, Henry? Or was that another rule that only applied to me?

And that “social recognition” comment is still one of my favorites. Fine. Let’s say I desperately wanted recognition from ARUN. I did a pretty fucking terrible job of seeking it considering I left. I walked away from the position that was supposedly so important to my ego, took the money I was going to put toward sponsorship and put my time, money and energy somewhere else. Maybe I cried a little about losing all that precious ARUN recognition. Maybe I wiped my tears with the 1,000-baht notes that were supposed to go toward sponsorship. Tragic.

Oh, and remember one of the first incidents that started all this shit? I changed the team profile picture. A fucking profile picture. And within minutes you were talking about internal consent, calling for a management meeting, questioning my decisions, and telling me that if I wanted to make decisions at my own discretion, I should “create your own team.”

Well... I did.

Honestly, that might have been the best advice you ever gave me. I took my time and energy somewhere else and helped build another baseball community. And the funny thing is, it pulled in more people than ARUN ever did. Baseball became fun again too. No essays about my attitude. No philosophical lectures about mindset. Nobody psychoanalyzing me because I bought a glove or wore sunglasses. Nobody turning a profile picture into a management crisis or every disagreement into an assessment of my character. We just play fucking baseball. Amazing concept.

You were right about one thing, though. ARUN never belonged to me. I never thought it did. But for somebody who repeatedly reminded me that the team didn’t belong to one person, you had a remarkable habit of behaving like it belonged to you. Every meaningful decision somehow seemed to require Henry’s approval. Sure, somebody could disagree with you or do something differently. They just had to prepare themselves for the consequences, which usually meant a fucking essay explaining why their decision revealed a deeper problem with their attitude, mindset, maturity, commitment, sacrifice or understanding of “what baseball requires.”

The writing has been on the wall for a long time, Henry. ARUN doesn’t belong to one person. You just treat it like it belongs to you.

Maybe that’s something worth reflecting on when ARUN gets around 10 people at practice on a good day and tops out at roughly 11 for an actual game. Yeah, technically enough to field nine. Congratulations. You’ve got a starting lineup and two spare human beings. One guy gets sick, another has work, and suddenly everyone’s checking LINE to see whether there’s still a game. Maybe spend a little less time analyzing whether everybody else is sufficiently committed to baseball and a little more time asking yourself why the team you take this seriously struggles to get comfortably beyond the minimum number of people required to play it.

And since you gave me so much advice about improving myself, here’s some from me: reflect. Grow. Take responsibility. Learn from setbacks. Focus on what you can control. Stop blaming other people. All that good shit you kept telling me. Maybe put some of the energy you spend analyzing amateur recreational baseball players into improving yourself so that, just maybe, you stay at your next job a lot longer than you stayed at the last one. Hey, personal growth, right?

I also have to thank you for the comedy that came after I announced publicly that I was leaving ARUN. Privately, I was apparently emotional, impulsive, seeking social recognition, too interested in uniforms and equipment, not improving enough as a baseball player and someone who needed to understand that ARUN wasn’t “my team.” Then I announced my departure where everyone could see it and suddenly I became the guy who had “dedicated a great deal of time, effort, and commitment to the team,” whose contributions everyone should “appreciate and respect,” and who would “always” be welcomed back.

Damn, Henry. What a character arc.

Apparently I underwent tremendous personal growth in the time it took me to type my goodbye message. Or maybe once the whole team was watching, a little damage control sounded better than telling everyone what you’d been saying about me privately. Either way, don’t worry about keeping that door open. I’m good.

And remember telling everyone in the management chat not to worry because we’d clear everything up at dinner and then “talk about baseball and have fun”? Yeah, that never fucking happened. You basically regurgitated the same shit you had already sent me privately while P’Teng and Minseok had to sit there and listen to it. Poor guys. It wasn’t dinner and a fun conversation about baseball. It was dinner and a show. The show was you whining.

But underneath all the jokes, there is one thing I actually want you to understand. I heard you went through a hard time lately. Once upon a time, hearing that would’ve mattered to me. There was a time when I wouldn’t have hesitated to reach out, ask if you were okay, see if you needed anything or help however I could. Because whatever else was going on, I genuinely considered you a friend.

Not anymore.

I don't say this because I enjoy hearing that you’re struggling. I’m saying it because when I heard about it, I realized I had absolutely no desire to check if you were doing okay. No feeling that I should do something. Nothing. And that probably says more about what happened between us than all the baseball bullshit ever could.

You spent so much time lecturing me about my attitude, my mindset, my maturity, my emotional state and whether I knew how to contribute to a team that maybe you should’ve spent a little more time thinking about how you were treating someone who actually considered you a friend. Because you didn’t lose someone who hated you, Henry. You treated someone who would’ve had your back like shit until eventually he stopped giving a fuck.

There was a version of me who would’ve lifted a finger to help you without even thinking about it. That version of me is gone. That ship sailed a long time ago, and you pushed it away from the dock.

Funny enough, though, you actually did help me figure something out. You kept telling me to sort out my thoughts and decide what I wanted. So I did. Turns out it was remarkably simple:

I was done with your hierarchical baseball bullshit.

I wanted baseball to be fun again. And once I left, I realized the thing making baseball less enjoyable wasn’t sponsorships, uniforms, gloves, sunglasses, equipment, social media or my supposed desperate need for “social recognition.”

It was you.

Four months without another Henry dissertation every time I do something you don’t like has been pretty fucking peaceful.

Anyway, I’ve said my piece. I didn’t send this because I want an explanation, an apology, another discussion, or (God fucking forbid) another 17-paragraph Henry dissertation explaining what I’ve misunderstood this time. I don’t care what your response is because I’m not sticking around to read it. There’s nothing left for us to talk about. I don’t intend to speak to you again, I don’t want to “clear the air,” and I’m definitely not interested in meeting over dinner so you can explain all of this to me one more fucking time.

So yeah. That’s all I wanted to say. I’m blocking you again now.

Fuck off, Henry.

Oh, and keep working. Keep improving. Let your actions speak for you. I did. You told me to sort out my thoughts. I did. You told me to create my own team. I did that too.

But hey, what do I know? You’re older than me, after all.

You’ve walked the path.

The message went Read almost the moment I sent it.

That wasn't something I'd been waiting for. I was already going to block him, read receipt or no read receipt.

So I blocked him.

And it felt fucking fantastic.

That's the truth.

I don't regret it

I didn't put my phone down and immediately feel ashamed.

I didn't panic.

I didn't wish I could unsend it.

I felt an enormous release.

For months, I'd felt like every disagreement ended with Henry getting another opportunity to explain me.

This time there wasn't going to be another round.

No correction.

No “You are misunderstanding my point.”

No “Look at the full picture.”

No discussion of my mindset.

No explanation of what the conversation was actually about.

The instant Read wasn't something I'd engineered. It just happened to appear before I blocked him.

The plan had always been simpler:

Say what I wanted to say.

Block him.

Walk away.

That's exactly what I did.

Maybe somebody reading this thinks that's cowardly.

That's fair.

I sent a message knowing I wasn't going to stick around for his response.

That's not a conversation.

It's a statement.

I knew that when I sent it.

I know it now.

And I still don't regret it.

But there are things in it I'm not proud of

This is where I don't want to bullshit myself.

Some of that message wasn't about finally communicating clearly.

Some of it was about hurting him back.

The job comment is probably the clearest example.

That had fuck-all to do with baseball.

I knew it.

Henry knew it.

I included it because I knew it would sting.

I could now manufacture some elaborate justification about how I was merely applying his philosophy of reflection, growth and accountability to another part of his life.

And, sure, that's how I framed the joke.

But underneath the clever callback was something much simpler:

I wanted to hurt him.

There were other moments like that too.

That's not something anger forced me to do against my will.

I chose the words.

I pressed send.

I own them.

And I don't need to pretend that because I believe Henry treated me badly, everything I subsequently did becomes righteous by default.

It doesn't.

I'm also not going to rewrite the rest of the story to punish myself

Accountability doesn't require me to manufacture a different memory of what happened.

I still believe too many disagreements became assessments of my character.

I still believe my motivations were repeatedly interpreted rather than asked about.

I still believe stepping away from management should have ended the management conflict.

I still believe I was entitled to decide how important recreational baseball was going to be in my own life.

I still believe asking for one evening to cool off was reasonable.

I still believe leaving ARUN was the right decision.

And I still believe building something different afterward was one of the best things I could have done.

None of that gives me a free pass for every sentence I sent Henry.

And admitting that some of those sentences were cruel doesn't require me to surrender everything else.

Both things can be true.

That's really the whole point

I don't want a redemption arc here.

I don't want to finish this by announcing that I've realized Henry was right all along.

I don't want to announce that I've forgiven him.

I don't want to reconcile.

I don't particularly want to speak to him again.

And I'm not going to manufacture regret because “I did something ugly and now I'm very sorry” makes for a cleaner personal essay.

The truth is messier.

I was angry.

I had reasons to be angry.

I carried that anger for months.

Eventually I delivered it directly to the person I associated with it.

Some of what I said was fair.

Some of it was vicious.

Some of it was probably both.

Sending it gave me closure.

It also showed me what I'm capable of saying when I decide somebody deserves to be hurt back.

I'm glad I know that about myself.

Not because I particularly like it.

Because it's mine to own.

And there's one final irony I can't resist.

One of the last pieces of advice Henry gave me was:

“Keep working, keep improving, and let your actions speak for you.”

I threw those words back at him in my final message.

Sarcastically.

Angrily.

And with considerable satisfaction.

But if I'm going to spend this much time criticizing somebody for constantly telling other people to reflect, eventually I have to point that same fucking flashlight at myself.

So here it is.

I don't regret sending the message.

I'm not proud of everything in it.

I'm not apologizing for leaving.

I'm not apologizing for being angry.

I'm not pretending the hurtful parts weren't hurtful.

And I'm not going to justify them simply because I can explain where they came from.

I sent it.

I meant it.

Some of it was fucking cruel.

It was cathartic as hell.

And if I could go back, I would still send it.

Maybe those statements aren't supposed to fit neatly together.

They don't have to.

For months, one of the things that angered me most was feeling as though somebody else always got the final word on what my actions meant.

What I meant.

What I wanted.

What I needed to reflect on.

What the conversation was actually about.

I'm done with that.

So if there is one thing I want to do differently here, it's this:

I'm not asking Henry to explain himself.

I'm not explaining Henry to you.

I've shown you what he said.

I've shown you what I said.

I've told you how I experienced it.

You can make whatever judgment you want.

As for what my message means?

For once, nobody else gets to decide that for me.

I do.

Hey Henry, This One’s for You, You Chickenshit!

I left ARUN months ago. I built something new. But there are things about what happened that I still need to say.

I have written about leaving ARUN before. I have written about what came afterward, about starting Bangkok Catchball Club, and about everything I unexpectedly learned from building a baseball community of my own. But there is another part of that story I have never really put together in one place.

Henry, this one is for you.

I'm not writing this because I expect an apology. I'm not expecting you to read it and suddenly agree with my version of events. I'm certainly not interested in restarting an argument that ended months ago. I'm writing it because for a long time, you had plenty to say about me. You assessed my character, my motives, my mindset, my maturity, my commitment to baseball, the way I spent my own money, the way I communicated, and eventually whether my role and position on the team needed to be reconsidered.

So this time, I'm going to talk about what you did.

I also want to be fair about something from the beginning. Not everything you said was unreasonable. Sometimes you had a legitimate point. Sometimes I could have communicated better. Sometimes I was frustrated, and I'm sure that frustration showed. This isn't an attempt to rewrite our history so that I was right about absolutely everything and you were wrong about absolutely everything.

The problem was the pattern that developed around those disagreements. What I experienced wasn't simply coaching or criticism anymore. I experienced it as bullying, manipulation, and gaslighting. Small disagreements became assessments of my personality. My explanations of my own intentions were repeatedly replaced with your interpretations of them. And eventually I reached the point where remaining in the team felt worse than leaving it.

It started with money

One of the major turning points was sponsorship. I offered my own money to ARUN with a specific purpose: I wanted it used to reduce the financial burden on the people already playing. Lower fees. Make participation cheaper. Make baseball a little easier for people to afford.

You wanted something different. You wanted the money directed toward ambitions such as renting a baseball-specific stadium and transportation to that stadium. You were entitled to prefer that model. I was equally entitled to say that wasn't what I wanted my money used for and withdraw the offer.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, something changed in the way you treated what I did afterward. I began spending my own money directly on things I wanted to contribute: equipment, merchandise, apparel, things for other members. I enjoyed doing it. I wasn't asking anyone to worship me for it. I wasn't keeping a ledger of gratitude.

But you started interpreting my generosity for me. During one conversation about uniforms, you told me, “You can't win someone's heart just by paying money.” You talked about people experiencing relative deprivation, people accepting favors without gratitude, and favors eventually becoming perceived as rights.

I remember thinking: whose heart was I supposedly trying to win?

Sometimes I bought things for people because I wanted to buy things for people. That really was the entire explanation. But increasingly, my explanation of my own motives didn't seem sufficient. There always seemed to be another interpretation waiting underneath it.

A joke couldn't just be a joke

There was the uniform conversation. I made a joke in the group chat while secretly intending to pay for the uniforms myself. When you raised concerns about how somebody might interpret what I'd said, I explained that nobody was actually going to pay. The uniforms were my treat. I was going to surprise them.

That could have been a short conversation. Instead, it became a lecture about other people's feelings, gratitude, favors, human nature, leadership, and understanding people's minds. You constructed a six-point scenario about what people might think and feel, culminating in the possibility that people receiving something for free might somehow feel uncomfortable without being grateful.

This became one of the most exhausting things about dealing with you: nothing could simply be small. A joke became psychology. A gift became a discussion about motives. A disagreement became a discussion about mindset.

Even a changed profile picture became a major issue.

And yes, I can acknowledge the reasonable principle underneath that disagreement. If something publicly represents a team, consulting the other people managing it is fair. I could have handled that differently.

But there is also something called proportionality. Not every mistake requires an examination of someone's decision-making tendencies. Not every disagreement needs to become a management crisis. Sometimes the appropriate response to someone changing a profile picture is simply, “Hey, can we agree on these things first next time?”

“Sure.”

Done.

Instead, the cumulative effect was that I increasingly felt as though every little thing I did could become evidence in a much larger case about the kind of person I supposedly was.

Eventually, you stopped criticizing my decisions and started defining me

This is where, for me, criticism crossed into bullying.

You didn't simply tell me what you thought I had done wrong. You started telling me what was happening inside my own head. You told me I seemed to carry dissatisfaction internally and allow it to emerge indirectly. You told me that being mentally and emotionally exhausted wasn't an excuse to carry resentment and project it onto others. You told me to address problems “like an adult” and to take responsibility for my own mindset.

You told me I was looking at things too narrowly. You told me I was only looking at my own sacrifices. You told me some of my conflict might come from holding too tightly to my own perspective and that sometimes growth meant learning to let that go.

At one point, you even asked me to compare who I had been when we were simply playing catch under the bridge with who I had become once more people were around the team.

Think about how personal that is.

We weren't talking about whether I should have caught a fly ball differently anymore. We weren't discussing whether I should have consulted someone before doing something administrative. You were constructing a narrative about how I had changed as a human being and then asking me to reflect upon the person you had decided I was.

That is where I experienced gaslighting. When I tried to explain what I meant, I was told I was misunderstanding your point. When I brought the conversation back to our operational disagreements, I was told that wasn't what the conversation was about. When I explained that I was exhausted, exhaustion itself became part of the argument about how I handled my emotions. When I stepped away from operations, the conversation moved toward whether my attitude as a player was acceptable.

Whatever direction I moved, the frame seemed to move with me.

And that makes defending yourself extraordinarily difficult. If someone has already decided what your underlying mindset is, disagreement itself can become evidence that they're right.

Then came the threat to reconsider my “role and position”

One message stayed with me more than most. You told me that if improving as a player and contributing to the team did not become my priority again, then, “as a coach, I will need to seriously reconsider your role and position within the team.”

By that point, I had already stepped away from operations.

So what exactly was the role and position you were threatening to reconsider?

I was a player.

Maybe you intended something different. I can only tell you how I received it. After everything that had already happened, I read it as a threat: get back in line with what I expect from you or your place here can be reconsidered.

Earlier, during another disagreement, you had effectively suggested that if I wanted to make decisions independently, I should create my own team.

I'm not sure you expected me eventually to take that suggestion quite so seriously.

Closing the door behind someone who was already leaving

There was another moment that stayed with me. Someone who had been deeply involved in ARUN was already withdrawing from the team's activities and was going to leave either way. I want to be precise about that: you did not force this person out by removing them from the group chat. The decision to leave had already been made.

What bothered me was what happened afterward. You removed them from the team group chat before that departure had fully run its course. Perhaps you considered it simple housekeeping. From where I was standing, it felt like a very public way of closing the door behind someone who was already walking out of it. It gave me the impression that you were uncomfortable with someone who was leaving continuing to see what was happening inside the team.

I can't claim to know what was going through your head when you did it, and I'm not going to assign motives to you with certainty. I can only tell you how the action read to me. It looked defensive. It looked controlling. It looked like making absolutely certain that someone who was leaving was now unmistakably outside.

What made it particularly uncomfortable was that this wasn't some peripheral member who had simply stopped showing up. This was someone who had invested considerable time and effort into keeping ARUN functioning behind the scenes. Someone who had done the administrative work that tends to disappear the moment it is done properly.

And that is where the incident connects to something much larger about my experience at ARUN—and brings me back to one of your favorite words:

Sacrifice

You talked about sacrifice a lot.

During one of those long conversations, you told me that you had sacrificed far more for the team than I might realize. You said you wanted to catch. You wanted to pitch. You wanted to play freely in the positions you enjoyed. Instead, you picked up the fungo bat and hit balls for everyone else because you believed helping the team improve should come before what you personally wanted. You asked whether I had ever seriously considered your position. You told me real commitment sometimes means giving up what you want for what the team needs.

Here's the thing, Henry.

I don't deny your sacrifice.

You did sacrifice playing time. You did spend practices coaching. You did hit fungos instead of simply playing the positions you wanted. I'm perfectly capable of recognizing that.

But your story about sacrifice had a rather convenient omission.

What about ours?

While you were sacrificing your playing time on the field, Minseok and I were doing the work that nobody dreams about when they imagine running a baseball club.

We reconciled the team accounts. We collected attendance fees and membership fees. We contacted venues. We booked venues. We paid venue fees. We searched for alternatives. We contacted other venues to ask about their prices, their availability, and whether they even allowed baseball activities. We procured equipment. We dealt with the repetitive, boring, inglorious administrative work required for everyone else to arrive and play baseball.

Nobody grows up dreaming of reconciling the accounts of an amateur baseball club. Nobody buys their first glove thinking, One day, I hope I get to chase venue operators for their rates and availability.

There is no highlight reel for collecting membership fees.

There is no box score for paying the field invoice.

But without somebody doing those things, there is no practice for you to coach. There is no field on which to hit fungos. There is no equipment to use. There may not even be a functioning club.

And yet when you lectured me about sacrifice, your sacrifice became the reference point. You were the person giving something up. You were the person putting the team ahead of yourself. You were the one asking whether I had considered everything you had sacrificed.

So here's the question I wish I had asked more clearly at the time:

Did you ever seriously consider ours?

Sacrifice is easier to recognize when it's your own

Running Bangkok Catchball Club has taught me something about sacrifice that I didn't understand as clearly when I was at ARUN.

Your own sacrifice is incredibly vivid.

You know how tired you are. You know how many hours you've spent. You know what you wanted to do instead. You remember every problem you solved because you were the one who had to solve it.

Other people's sacrifice is much easier to overlook because you don't experience it.

Administrative work is particularly invisible. When it's done well, it almost disappears. The venue is simply booked. The money is simply reconciled. The equipment simply appears. The registration list simply exists. The announcement simply gets posted.

People arrive and baseball happens.

That's why I'm increasingly cautious whenever I find myself thinking about how much I sacrifice for BCC. Because there may be someone next to me contributing something I don't see. Their contribution doesn't become smaller simply because mine is more visible to me.

Minseok and I weren't necessarily sacrificing less for ARUN.

Our sacrifice just didn't look like yours.

And what happened after we left made the irony harder to ignore

The administrative work didn't disappear when Minseok and I did. Somebody still had to perform it.

But from what I have observed since leaving, you didn't suddenly absorb all of those responsibilities yourself. Duties such as social media were instead passed to other members.

I'm sure that can be described as delegation. It can probably even be packaged as giving members opportunities to develop leadership.

Running BCC has made me appreciate genuine delegation. One person shouldn't do everything. People should be trusted with responsibility. A healthy organization shouldn't collapse whenever its founder takes a day off.

But I've also learned that there is a difference between delegation and displacement.

Delegation is distributing responsibility because other people are capable of owning parts of the organization.

Displacement is consistently moving undesirable work onto somebody else while retaining the authority and status of leadership.

And I have become deeply skeptical of dressing the latter up as the former.

Leadership cannot conveniently mean that the leader performs the parts of leadership he finds meaningful while everybody else performs the parts he doesn't.

The boring work counts too.

The spreadsheets count. The invoices count. The venue inquiries count. The registrations count. The social-media posts count. The equipment procurement counts. The messages count. The repetitive administrative tasks that nobody applauds count.

If you're going to lecture somebody about sacrifice, you should probably understand what they've already sacrificed before explaining how much more you've sacrificed than them.

Sacrifice isn't a debt

This is probably the biggest difference between what you taught me about sacrifice and what I eventually learned from experiencing it myself.

If I choose to sacrifice something for Bangkok Catchball Club, that is my decision.

It doesn't mean BCC members owe me obedience.

It doesn't mean my ideas automatically deserve priority.

It doesn't mean someone who contributes less time than I do cares less than I do.

And it certainly doesn't give me the right to pull out an imaginary ledger during a disagreement and say, Look at everything I've done for this community. What have you done?

Sacrifice becomes dangerous when it becomes currency.

I gave this, therefore you owe me that.

I worked harder, therefore my opinion matters more.

I suffered more, therefore I have greater authority.

At that point, sacrifice has stopped being generosity and started becoming leverage.

You once told me that I was looking only at my own sacrifices and that you had sacrificed far more than I realized.

The irony is that I now think one of the greatest dangers of leadership is exactly that: becoming so conscious of your own sacrifice that you become blind to everyone else's.

Maybe that's why all the lectures bothered me so much

Looking back, I don't think any single message explains why I eventually had enough.

It was the accumulation.

The sponsorship disagreement. The interpretations of why I spent my own money. The uniform joke becoming a lesson about my understanding of people. The profile-picture argument. The repeated assessments of my mindset and character. Being told I carried resentment. Being told I projected frustration. Being told to behave “like an adult.” Being told I was looking at things too narrowly. Being told to reflect on how I had changed. Being told that my role and position might need to be reconsidered. Being told how much you had sacrificed and how I needed to understand sacrifice. And eventually watching Minseok be removed from the group chat as he was already withdrawing from the team.

Any one of those things can be explained away. Put together, they became the environment I experienced. That's why I call it bullying. That's why I call it manipulation. That's why I describe parts of it as gaslighting.

Whether those were your intentions is another matter. Maybe you genuinely believed you were mentoring me. Maybe you believed every long message was for my benefit.

You eventually described yourself to me as not only my coach, but an “older brother, a friend, and someone who has walked this baseball path before you.” In the same message, you said that if you saw less than what you believed I was capable of, you might become even harder on me.

Perhaps you thought that was encouragement. By then, I was exhausted by you. Intent matters. But intent doesn't erase impact.

Here’s the thing: you’re not my friend and you sure as hell aren’t my older brother.

So I left

Eventually, there was nothing left for me to accomplish by continuing to argue.

I could have kept responding to the messages. I could have kept trying to convince you that you had misunderstood me. I could have fought over my reputation inside a tiny amateur baseball community. Instead, I left.

And then, on May 23, 2026, I went to Lumphini Park with a bag of baseballs. Bangkok Catchball Club began. There was no grand revenge plan. I wasn't trying to destroy ARUN or prove that I could build a better baseball team. In fact, BCC wasn't supposed to be a conventional team at all.

I wanted somewhere people could play baseball without all of this. Somewhere accessible. Somewhere inexpensive. Somewhere beginners didn't have to prove they were serious enough to belong. Somewhere someone could simply show up and play catch.

People came. Then more people came. We outgrew the public parks. We started renting fields. People who had never played baseball found somewhere they could try it. Experienced players helped beginners. Friendships developed. The club eventually received media attention. Members found pathways into competitive baseball if they wanted them.

And throughout all of it, there was one thing I remained unusually conscious of.

I didn't want to become you.

That's the part I owe you

Running BCC has actually made me more sympathetic to some aspects of leadership. It's difficult.

People disagree with you. Plans fail. Somebody has to make the final call. Sometimes the answer has to be no. Sometimes you put in hours nobody notices. Sometimes you sacrifice your own enjoyment because thirty other people are relying on you to make something work.

I understand that now better than I did when I was at ARUN. But understanding the difficulty of leadership hasn't made me reconsider what happened between us. It has made me more determined not to reproduce it.

You taught me not to turn every disagreement into a character assessment. You taught me not to tell people what they're secretly thinking. You taught me not to confuse criticism with mentorship simply because I believe my intentions are good. You taught me that responsibility doesn't mean ownership. You taught me that recreational sports should never become so consumed by hierarchy and politics that people forget why they wanted to play in the first place. You taught me that administrative work is still leadership even when nobody sees it. You taught me that somebody contributing differently isn't necessarily contributing less. And you taught me that sacrifice becomes poisonous when a leader uses it as leverage over the people supposedly benefiting from it.

Most importantly, you taught me to keep asking myself a question I hope I never become too proud to ask:

If somebody decides that leaving a community I lead feels better than remaining under my leadership, what did I do to make leaving feel like freedom?

Henry, I did learn from you

Probably not what you intended to teach me.

For a long time, you had the authority to tell me who you thought I was. You told me about my mindset, my attitude, my commitment, my perspective, my sacrifices, my supposed resentment, and the person you thought I needed to become.

You don't have that authority anymore. And I don't need you to agree with this account for it to be mine. I'm sure you have your own version of everything that happened. I'm sure there are things in mine you would dispute. There are probably moments you remember completely differently. That's fine. This is what the experience looked like from my side of the field.

And perhaps the strangest part of this entire story is that buried among all the lectures, arguments, assessments, and messages was one piece of advice that turned out to be genuinely useful.

You suggested that if I wanted to do things differently, I should create my own team.

So I did.

And building Bangkok Catchball Club taught me something that all those lectures about leadership and sacrifice never could:

Leadership isn't proving how much you've sacrificed for your community. It's making sure the community never has to sacrifice itself for you.

I Walked Away From a Baseball Club. Then I Accidentally Built One.

How a falling-out in a small Thai baseball team led to Bangkok Catchball Club—and something much bigger than I expected.

There is an alternate version of 2026 where Bangkok Catchball Club doesn't exist.

No Saturday morning catchball.

No jerseys.

No group chats.

No scrambling around Bangkok looking for fields.

No 30-plus people turning up with gloves.

No MONOMAX camera crew.

No Bangkok Catchball Club players finding their way onto rosters at the Baseball Thailand Championship.

Nothing.

And strangely enough, that version of reality probably exists if things had simply gone better for me at my previous baseball club.

Bangkok Catchball Club wasn't something I'd been secretly planning.

I didn't leave one club thinking, Fine. I'll make my own.

There was no five-year plan. No market research. No membership target. No business model.

I walked away from a situation I no longer wanted to be part of.

Then I thought:

What if we just got some people together and played catch?

That was basically the business plan.

And somehow, here we are.

First, you need to understand baseball in Thailand

Baseball is tiny here.

And when I say tiny, I mean tiny.

Thailand doesn't have a professional baseball league. The people playing adult baseball aren't doing it for salaries or contracts. We're amateurs. People have jobs, families, university, businesses and everything else going on in their lives, and then they sacrifice some combination of their money, weekends and sleep because they really, really like baseball.

That also means the community is small enough that people tend to know each other.

Players know players.

Coaches know coaches.

People move between teams.

Someone you've played against may eventually become someone you play alongside.

There aren't hundreds of adult clubs scattered around Bangkok where you can have a falling-out with one group and simply disappear into another corner of the baseball universe.

So relationships matter.

And unfortunately, so does reputation.

That's important for what happened next.

ARUN

Before Bangkok Catchball Club, I played with ARUN Baseball Team.

At first, I was simply happy to have somewhere to play baseball.

Over time, though, I increasingly found myself clashing with the way things were being run, particularly with the coach.

The moment that really changed things involved money.

I had offered to personally sponsor the club.

Now, remember: this is amateur baseball.

Nobody is being paid to play.

Players are the ones paying.

So my thinking was straightforward. If I was going to put my own money into the club, I wanted that sponsorship to benefit the players by helping reduce their membership fees.

That mattered to me.

The coach wanted to redirect the sponsorship elsewhere.

I disagreed.

This should have been a boring administrative disagreement.

It wasn't.

What followed became increasingly personal.

My intentions were questioned. My character was scrutinized. I experienced behavior I regarded as manipulative, including repeated attempts to make me question whether my understanding of events was somehow unreasonable.

There was bullying.

There were attempts to discredit me.

There was what I saw as a smear campaign within an already very small baseball community.

And there were threats.

The interesting thing about threats is that sometimes people make them because they're convinced you won't do anything.

I don't think the coach expected me to act.

I did.

But eventually, something else clicked.

Why was I fighting this hard to remain somewhere that was making me miserable?

Nobody was paying me to be there.

This wasn't my livelihood.

This wasn't Major League Baseball.

We were grown adults playing amateur baseball on our weekends.

At some point, the absurdity of it becomes impossible to ignore.

So I left.

In May 18, 2026, my time with ARUN was over.

And then…nothing

There wasn't some triumphant movie moment immediately afterward.

I didn't walk away in slow motion while inspirational music played and then dramatically unveil the Bangkok Catchball Club logo.

I just wasn't part of ARUN anymore.

And I still loved baseball.

That was the problem.

I didn't want the politics.

I didn't want the hierarchy.

I didn't want to spend ridiculous amounts of money just for the privilege of participating in an amateur sport.

But I still wanted to throw a baseball.

So I started thinking about something much smaller.

Not even a team.

Just a gathering.

People could bring their gloves.

I'd bring baseballs.

We'd play catch.

That's it.

May 23, 2026

The first Bangkok Catchball Club gathering took place at Lumphini Park.

Even calling it a "club" at that point was probably generous.

We were people in a park with baseball gloves.

I didn't know whether people would keep coming.

I didn't know whether we'd last a month.

I wasn't thinking about growth.

I certainly wasn't thinking about media exposure or tournaments.

I wanted to test one idea:

Could baseball be made easier to enter?

Because baseball has a problem that people who already play it sometimes forget about.

It's intimidating.

You need equipment.

The rules are complicated.

Throwing is difficult.

Catching a hard ball flying toward your face is not exactly instinctive.

Joining an established team as a complete beginner can be terrifying.

And in Thailand, where the baseball community is already tiny, making entry even harder seemed completely backwards to me.

So BCC started with a philosophy that remains important to me:

Baseball should be for everyone.

And:

No one should pay more than necessary to experience baseball.

Eventually, we found an even simpler way to say it:

JUST BRING A GLOVE. WE'LL BRING THE BALLS.

Then people wouldn't stop showing up

This is the part I didn't anticipate.

People came.

Then they came again.

Then more people came.

By Week 3, we had 21.

Eventually, we started seeing sessions with more than 30 people.

Experienced baseball players showed up.

Complete beginners showed up.

People who hadn't played in years showed up.

People brought friends.

Players lent gloves to people who didn't have them.

Experienced players started teaching newcomers without me having to tell them to.

And suddenly I had a completely different problem.

We were running out of park.

BCC had started in public spaces because they were accessible and cheap.

But there is a limit to how many people can safely throw baseballs around in a public park.

At some point, "Wow, look how many people came!" becomes "Oh God, where am I going to put everybody?"

So we moved.

Proper rented spaces entered the picture.

Which meant costs entered the picture.

And registrations.

And attendance management.

And scheduling.

And equipment logistics.

And safety rules.

And budgeting.

And the realization that apparently I had accidentally given myself a second job.

The 100-baht question

Once we started renting spaces, completely free sessions were no longer sustainable.

This was important to me because I didn't want BCC to recreate the very barriers I had become frustrated with elsewhere.

So we introduced an attendance fee.

100 baht.

No annual membership.

No big upfront commitment.

Come when you want to play.

Pay toward the cost of making that particular session happen.

That model isn't revolutionary.

But it reflects what I want BCC to be.

I don't want someone wondering:

Am I good enough to justify joining?

What if I pay for membership and then realize baseball isn't for me?

What if I can't attend every week?

Just come.

Try it.

See what happens.

If you love it, come back.

At some point, I stopped being able to call it "my" club

Something changed as the weeks passed.

I can't identify exactly when.

Bangkok Catchball Club stopped being a thing I was organizing for people.

People started treating it like their place too.

That difference matters enormously.

People welcomed newcomers before I could.

People helped each other.

People made friends independently of me.

People started caring whether BCC succeeded.

And that's when I realized something I wish more people in leadership positions understood:

You can found an organization. You cannot personally manufacture a community.

A community exists because other people decide it does.

I could book a field.

I could buy baseballs.

I could make posters.

I could create registration forms.

I could write rules.

I could design jerseys.

I could coordinate everything down to the last detail.

None of that would make BCC a community.

The people did that.

My role increasingly became creating the conditions that allowed it to happen.

That changed my understanding of leadership more than any management book ever has.

Then MONOMAX found us

This one still makes me laugh a little.

Because remember where this started.

People.

Gloves.

Lumphini Park.

That's it.

Then one day, Bangkok Catchball Club was discovered by MONOMAX.

And BCC ended up getting its own segment on Her Vibes.

Suddenly, I was sitting with two hosts with a camera crew pointed at us, being interviewed about Bangkok Catchball Club.

There are moments when you're living through something and part of your brain briefly steps outside your body and asks:

How exactly did we get here?

That was one of them.

We hadn't engineered some elaborate media campaign.

We weren't selling anything.

We weren't a professional sports organization.

We were a grassroots community centered around an amateur sport that most people in Thailand barely think about.

And someone thought our story was worth putting on camera.

That meant a lot.

Not because I wanted to be on television.

But because it meant people outside our little baseball bubble could understand why this community mattered.

Then BCC players went to the Baseball Thailand Championship

This may be the part that means the most to me.

BCC was never designed to produce competitive baseball players.

We're not an academy.

We're not trying to turn every newcomer into an elite athlete.

And I never want competitive ambition to become another barrier to entry.

If you want to come every week, play catch for two hours, have fun and never enter a tournament in your life?

Fantastic.

You've understood BCC perfectly.

But some people want more.

And because BCC brings people into contact with Thailand's wider baseball community, opportunities started appearing.

Eventually, members of Bangkok Catchball Club were able to join teams participating in the Baseball Thailand Championship.

That completed a pathway I hadn't even realized we were building.

Imagine someone entering BCC simply because they are curious about baseball.

They show up with a glove.

Maybe they barely know how to throw.

Someone helps them.

They return.

They improve.

They meet players.

They become part of the community.

And one day, if they want it badly enough, they can find themselves stepping onto the field at a national baseball tournament.

That's incredible to me.

Not because everyone needs to reach that point.

But because now they can.

The door is open.

How far someone walks through it is entirely up to them.

The irony isn't lost on me

Sometimes I think about why BCC exists at all.

It came from a horrible experience.

There was a period where I was angry.

Really angry.

There was a temptation to fight every accusation, correct every story and prove every point.

But eventually, that stopped mattering.

Because I had something better to spend my energy on.

I could have dedicated months to fighting over what happened at ARUN.

Instead, I built the alternative.

And the alternative started growing.

The irony is that the experience intended to make me feel as though I was the problem ultimately pushed me into creating an environment where I could test my own ideas about how a baseball community should work.

No theory.

No arguments.

Just:

Fine. Let's try it.

Some ideas worked.

Some didn't.

We've changed things repeatedly.

We'll change things again.

That's part of it.

Baseball accidentally taught me how to lead

My day job is in content and corporate communications.

I never expected baseball to become one of the places where I'd develop some of my most practical professional skills.

BCC has forced me to learn community management.

Event operations.

Venue coordination.

Budgeting.

Branding.

Merchandise development.

Supplier management.

Social media communications.

Partnerships.

Stakeholder management.

Conflict resolution.

Logistics.

Decision-making.

And, perhaps most importantly, leadership.

Not the LinkedIn version of leadership where someone posts a photograph of a lion and writes something about "mindset."

Actual leadership.

The kind where 30 people are coming on Saturday and something has gone wrong.

The kind where you make a decision and immediately discover why it was a bad one.

The kind where someone disagrees with you and sometimes they're right.

The kind where nobody notices when everything works but everybody notices when it doesn't.

And the kind where you slowly understand:

Leadership isn't ownership.

A title doesn't make a community yours.

Being the founder doesn't make every idea you have correct.

People aren't there to validate you.

If you're responsible for a community, you serve the community.

Not the other way around.

What happens next?

I genuinely don't know.

And I've grown comfortable saying that.

When we started at Lumphini Park, I didn't predict 21 people by Week 3.

I didn't predict 30-plus-person sessions.

I didn't predict renting fields.

I didn't predict merchandise.

I didn't predict MONOMAX.

I didn't predict the Baseball Thailand Championship.

So I'm not going to pretend I have some grand vision where I know exactly what Bangkok Catchball Club looks like three years from now.

Maybe it gets much bigger.

Maybe it stays roughly where it is.

Maybe new programs emerge from it.

Maybe people currently attending BCC eventually start communities of their own.

I'd actually love that.

Because the goal was never to build an empire.

It was to make baseball easier to experience.

And every person who picks up a baseball because BCC made that first step a little less intimidating is a win.

Walking away

There's one final thing I've thought about a lot.

We're often taught that walking away means losing.

You couldn't handle it.

You gave up.

Someone else won.

I don't see it that way anymore.

Leaving ARUN felt terrible at the time.

There was anger, frustration and uncertainty about what my relationship with Thailand's already-small baseball community would look like afterward.

But if I hadn't left, I probably wouldn't have asked myself what kind of baseball environment I actually wanted.

I wouldn't have tried that first gathering.

There might never have been Bangkok Catchball Club.

No overflowing parks.

No community.

No MONOMAX.

No BCC members at the Baseball Thailand Championship.

All of that grew out of something that, at the time, felt entirely negative.

So if there's one lesson I take from this strange journey, it's this:

Sometimes walking away isn't giving up.

Sometimes the thing you're walking away from has become so consuming that you haven't noticed how many possibilities exist outside it.

And sometimes you don't need to defeat the person on the other side.

You don't need the last word.

You don't need everyone to agree with your version of events.

Sometimes the best answer is simply to go somewhere else and build according to your own principles.

That's what I did.

On May 23, 2026, we went to a park and played catch.

I had no idea what would happen next.

Bangkok Catchball Club began as an alternative.

The people turned it into a community.

And I think that's a much better ending to that story.

Or, hopefully, just the beginning.

The “Dream Job” That Lasted Six Months: My Time at Thai Fight, Six Years Later

From the outside, Thai Fight looked like a dream.

If you were even remotely interested in Muay Thai, you knew the name. The production, the fighters, the branding—it had presence. It felt big. Established. Like something that had already made it.

And for me, it felt personal.

This wasn’t just another job. It was tied to something I actually cared about. Something I understood. Something I wanted to be part of.

So when the opportunity came, I took it without hesitation.

I lasted six months.

Looking back, what stands out the most isn’t just what the company was—it’s the gap between what it looked like and what it actually was.

Because from the outside, Thai Fight looked like a machine.

From the inside, it felt like something barely held together.

The office should’ve been the first sign.

It was a small three-story townhouse. Only two floors were used as working space. It didn’t feel like the headquarters of a company trying to position itself as a global brand. It felt cramped. Improvised. Temporary.

But the physical space wasn’t even the main issue.

It was what that space represented.

There were goals—big ones.

Talk of becoming “world-class.”
Talk of expanding internationally.
Talk of reaching audiences far beyond Thailand.

The kind of vision that sounds impressive in meetings.

But behind all that talk, there was very little to support it.

No real tools.
No structured systems.
No clear pathway to get from where we were to where they said we were going.

Just expectations.

And expectations, when they’re not backed by support, don’t motivate people.

They exhaust them.

The internal culture didn’t help.

The older employees—the ones who had been there the longest—didn’t really lead. They delegated. Or more accurately, they offloaded.

Work flowed downward.

Responsibility flowed downward.

But guidance didn’t.

For younger staff like myself, it felt like being thrown into something without a map. You were expected to deliver, but not necessarily equipped to succeed.

It wasn’t mentorship.

It was survival.

Then COVID hit.

Or rather, it had already started unfolding when I was there—but the early stages were chaotic everywhere.

No vaccines.
No widespread testing.
Uncertainty across every industry.

Companies were adapting quickly. Work-from-home policies. Reduced schedules. At the very least, some acknowledgment that things were not normal.

At Thai Fight, it was business as usual.

Six days a week.
9 to 6.
In-office.

As if the world outside hadn’t changed.

And the irony was impossible to ignore.

We were an event company… during a time when events couldn’t happen.

If there was one department that captured the dysfunction perfectly, it was HR.

There was only one person handling it.

He had the role because of a family connection—the owner had married his sister.

And it showed.

Half the time, he wasn’t present in any meaningful way.

He’d fall asleep in his office.
Leave early.
Or not show up at all.

But the moment someone else took a day off?

Everything changed.

Suddenly, there were lectures.
Complaints.
A tone of authority that didn’t match his own behavior.

It was the kind of hypocrisy that doesn’t need to be explained.

You just see it.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Then there was the owner.

This is where something clicked for me—something I still carry with me.

He kept saying the company was “world-class.”

Repeatedly.

In meetings. In conversations. As a defining identity.

And it reminded me of something I’ve always believed:

If you have to constantly tell people what you are, there’s a good chance you’re not that thing yet.

At the time, the company’s main platform had around 400,000 followers.

My supervisor was confident—almost certain—that by the end of the year, it would reach one million.

It didn’t.

By the start of the following year, it was around 600,000.

Growth, yes.

But nowhere near what was promised.

And more importantly, there was no real system driving that growth.

No strategy that matched the ambition.

The vision was always there.

“Global.”
“International.”
“Next level.”

But every time someone younger tried to contribute ideas—new approaches, new directions—it went nowhere.

Ignored.
Dismissed.
Or rejected without consideration.

There was no openness to change.

Just repetition of the same approach.

Over and over again.

And that’s the thing about companies that rely on identity over execution.

They don’t evolve.

They maintain.

They repeat what has worked before, even when it stops working.

And eventually, they plateau.

To this day, Thai Fight is still doing what it has always done.

Same audience.
Same positioning.
Same ceiling.

And after seeing how things operated from the inside, that makes perfect sense to me.

I don’t regret those six months.

If anything, they were necessary.

Because they taught me something I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

They taught me to pay attention—not to what a company says, but to how it actually operates.

To look at:

• how people are treated

• how ideas are handled

• how leadership behaves when no one is watching

Because a company can look impressive from the outside.

It can carry a strong name.
A recognizable brand.
A reputation that makes it seem like a “dream job.”

But once you’re inside, the illusion fades quickly.

And what you’re left with is the truth.

Sometimes, it’s exactly what you hoped for.

And sometimes, it’s not.

Thai Fight, for me, was the latter.

And six months was enough to know that.

Underdog Triumph

Writing Stories with Chat-GPT & Me: Where I feed a detailed prompt to Chat-GPT and get a story.

Chapter 1: New Beginnings

Lance, a studious senior at Redwood High with a penchant for science, walks the halls with his books clutched tight. He's a bright student, but socially awkward, often lost in his own world.

His routine changes when he stumbles upon Lara, a striking figure with a hidden life beyond the school walls. She was Redwood MMA Promotion's most dazzling ring girl, a secret kept from her high school peers.

"Hey, you're in my chemistry class, right?" Lara asked Lance one day, breaking the ice.

"Yeah, I'm Lance. I've seen you around," he replied, surprised by her approach.

"You really into this MMA stuff?" Lance asks, curiosity piqued.

"Yeah, it's thrilling! You should come watch sometime," Lara replies with an infectious enthusiasm.

"You seem different, Lance. Ever thought about trying something new, like MMA?" Lara asks, her eyes gleaming with challenge.

"I've never really thought about it," Lance admits, intrigued by her boldness.

Chapter 2: The Bully Emerges

Their friendship blossomed, but it drew the ire of Bryce, Lara's boyfriend and an upcoming MMA fighter. His pranks escalate from harmless to aggressive.

"You should steer clear of Lara, nerd," Bryce taunted.

Lance finds himself locked in the bathroom, his lunch tray knocked over, his patience tested.

Lara confronts Bryce, "Stop it, Bryce! Leave him alone!"

Bryce smirks, "He needs to learn his place, away from you."

Chapter 3: A Harsh Reality

The confrontations reach a boiling point when Bryce challenges Lance to a sparring match at the gym.

The gym falls silent as they step into the ring. Bryce's experience is evident. He unleashes a barrage of punches, each one landing with precision. Lance, inexperienced, struggles to defend himself. The match ends with Bryce executing a brutal choke, leaving Lance gasping for air and dignity.

Chapter 4: Seeking Guidance

Demoralized, Lance contemplates his next move. Fueled by a newfound determination, Lance sought the guidance of Coach Anderson, a former MMA champion known for his grappling prowess.

"I want to learn, to defend myself," Lance says, determination in his eyes.

"You've got heart, kid. Let's channel that into skill," Anderson said, recognizing Lance's potential.

Chapter 5: A Fighter's Journey

Months of grueling training followed. Lance's natural aptitude for strategy made him a formidable grappler, and he quickly racked up victories in regional MMA events.

Despite his success, Bryce's taunting persisted. Lance's frustration boiled over, leading to a bitter confrontation with Lara.

"Why did you have to come into my life? Everything was fine before!" Lance exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, Lance. Bryce is... complicated," Lara replied, hurt by his out burst. "I just wanted to be your friend, Lance. I can't control Bryce." She soon ended her tumultuous relationship with Bryce.

Chapter 6: The Rematch

The inevitable clash between Lance and Bryce became the talk of Redwood, culminating in a showdown at the Redwood MMA Annual Championship.

Lance enters the cage, calm yet alert. Bryce is all bravado, a sneer on his face.

The fight begins. Bryce is aggressive, but Lance's new skills shine. He counters with precision, grappling effectively. Bryce's confidence wavers.

The fight was intense, with both fighters exchanging blows. Bryce's striking prowess had Lance on the canvas four times, but Lance's resilience shone through.

"You can't beat me, Lance! Give up!" Bryce yelled as he dominated the stand-up exchange.

But Lance's moment came in the third round. Seizing an opportunity, he executed a flawless armbar, forcing Bryce to submit. The crowd erupted as Bryce's arm snapped, a poetic end to his reign of bullying.

"I did it for every kid who's ever been put down," Lance declared, standing victorious.

Chapter 7: New Beginnings

In the aftermath, Lance found Lara waiting for him. Their eyes met, a mix of pain, understanding, and respect passing between them.

"I'm sorry, Lara. I let anger blind me," Lance admitted.

"I know, Lance. I'm just glad you're okay," she replied, her voice soft.

In a moment of vulnerability, they embraced, their kiss sealing a new chapter in their lives.

Chapter 8: Love and Victory

Post-fight, Lance's reputation at school is forever changed. He's no longer just the smart kid; he's a fighter.

Lara approaches him. "You were amazing, Lance. You've changed so much."

"I did it for myself, but... also for you, Lara," Lance admits, his feelings surfacing.

Lara's eyes light up. "I've seen a side of you I never knew. I... I like it."

They share a tentative, yet profound kiss, their bond sealed in the throes of challenge and triumph.

Epilogue: A New Beginning

Graduation day. Lance and Lara, now a couple, prepare to embark on new journeys. Lance continues his MMA training, his passion ignited.

Lara smiles at him. "Who would've thought? The scholar and the fighter."

Lance grins back. "We make a pretty good team, don't we?"

Hand in hand, they step into a future filled with promise, their love and strength forged in the fires of adversity and courage.

Striking Courage

Writing Stories with Chat-GPT & Me: Where I feed a detailed prompt to Chat-GPT and get a story.

Chapter 1: Into the Fray

Jake, an unassuming high school senior, timidly enters the Prime MMA Gym. The clashing sounds of gloves and grunts fill the air. He watches in awe as fighters spar with a raw intensity.

"First time here?" Ariel's voice snaps him back to reality. A fighter in her twenties, her gaze is both fierce and friendly.

"Yeah, I'm Jake. Trying out the cardio kickboxing," he replies, nervously adjusting his gloves.

"I'm Ariel. If you need help, just shout. It's a friendly place," she says with a reassuring smile.

Chapter 2: Bonding Through Combat

Weeks pass, and Jake finds an unexpected friend in Ariel. Their bond grows as they train together, sharing laughs and learning from each other.

"Your left hook's improving, Jake. Just relax your shoulders more," Ariel advises, holding the pads.

"Thanks, Ariel. Never thought I'd be decent at this," Jake says, throwing another punch, feeling a bit more at ease.

Chapter 3: A Brutal Lesson

Jordan, a muscular, menacing fighter, confronts Jake after a session.

"Stay away from Ariel. This isn't a playground," Jordan's voice is laced with threat.

Ariel steps in, "Jordan, he's just training. Leave him alone."

Ignoring her, Jordan's aggression mounts, leading to a sparring session where Jake is clearly outclassed.

Jordan's punches are ruthless, each one a hammer blow. Jake's defense crumbles under the onslaught. A final, crushing choke leaves Jake gasping for air, consciousness slipping away.

Chapter 4: Confrontation and Reflection

Jake avoids the gym, his body bruised, his pride shattered. Ariel finds him sitting alone at school.

"Why did you even talk to me, Ariel? You and your world... it's just brought me pain," Jake's voice trembles with a mix of anger and hurt.

"Ariel, I don't need your pity or your protection!" Jake snaps, his frustration boiling over.

"I just wanted to be your friend, Jake. I didn't mean for any of this to happen," Ariel replies, her voice cracking.

She walks away, leaving Jake alone with his thoughts.

Chapter 5: A Fighter Reborn

Jake returns to the gym with a newfound resolve, diving into wrestling and jiu-jitsu.

He later finds Ariel in a shopping mall, her eyes hinting at unspoken troubles. They sit at a cafe.

"My family... it's complicated. Fighting is my escape," Ariel confesses, her eyes welling up.

"Ariel, I... I was wrong to lash out at you. I didn't understand," Jake admits, his voice sincere.

"I'm here, Jake. We'll get through this together," *Ariel says, her hand finding his.

Their moment is interrupted by a phone call from the gym - Jordan is challenging Jake to a rematch.

Chapter 6: Challenge Accepted

"Jordan, I'm not the same person you beat down. I'm ready for a real fight," Jake declares.

Jordan looks at him, a smirk playing on his lips, "You're on, kid."

Ariel, torn, watches from a distance, hope and fear mingling in her eyes.

Chapter 7: The Final Showdown

The arena buzzes as Jake and Jordan face off. Jordan's wrestling is formidable, but Jake's newfound grappling skills keep him in the fight. A powerful knee catches Jordan off guard.

Jake presses the advantage, his fists finding their mark time and again. As Jordan shoots for a takedown, Jake counters with a stunning knee to the jaw, sending Jordan crashing to the mat.

The crowd roars as Jake and Ariel embrace, their kiss a symbol of their triumph.

Epilogue: A New Beginning

Years later, Jake, now a seasoned fighter, stands victorious in the octagon. Ariel, his constant support, beams with pride.

"Ariel, you've been my coach, my friend, my love. Will you marry me?" Jake asks, kneeling in the octagon as the crowd held its breath.

She nods, tears of joy streaming down her face. "Yes, Jake, a thousand times yes!"

Their story, a blend of struggle, friendship, and love, resonates with everyone who dreams of rising above.

THE END

The Champion’s Legacy

Writing Stories with Chat-GPT & Me: Where I feed a detailed prompt to Chat-GPT and get a story.

In the serene town of Kent, Liam O'Sullivan and his wife Esmeralda had found a measure of peace. Their children, Patrick and Fiona, however, faced relentless bullying for their mixed Irish and Gypsy heritage.

One evening, Patrick approached his father. "Dad, teach me to box. I need to defend Fiona and myself."

Liam sighed, his eyes reflecting past battles. "Son, your fists won't solve this. Violence only begets more violence."

Esmeralda, witnessing the torment her children endured, had a different idea. One day, she took Patrick to London to meet her father, Viktor.

"Granddad, I don't know if I can do this," Patrick confessed, hesitant in the boxing ring.

Viktor, old but with eyes still sharp, shared Liam's story. "Your father overcame much through these skills. It's not about fighting, but standing up for oneself."

Motivated, Patrick trained with newfound determination. After months, he returned to Kent, stronger and more confident.

A dreadful day arrived when Patrick saw a group harassing Fiona. Initially, he tried diplomacy. "Leave her alone," he pleaded calmly.

But when they turned violent, Patrick's training kicked in. He defended himself and his sister, his punches swift and precise.

Liam, hearing of the incident, confronted Patrick. "You used your skills to fight?"

"Dad, you don't understand what we go through every day," Patrick retorted, frustration in his voice.

Liam realized his mistake and embraced his son. "I'm sorry, Patrick. I'll help you refine your skills."

Their new bond was tested when news arrived that Viktor had been mortally wounded in a ransacking of the Gypsy community, orchestrated by the Baron of Kent.

In London, Liam and Esmeralda found Viktor in his final moments. "Let the boy stand his ground, Liam. Boxing is more than fighting," Viktor whispered, passing away in peace.

At Viktor's grave, Esmeralda tearfully whispered, "You were always our strength, Father."

Fueled by a need for justice, Liam tracked down the assailants, learning of the Baron's involvement. Despite his injuries, Liam incapacitated them with a stoic fury.

Back in Kent, the Baron's son, Edward, challenged Patrick to a match. Despite the dirty tactics, Patrick used his father's teachings to emerge victorious.

Watching proudly, Liam stepped forward as the Baron challenged him next. "I may be injured, Baron, but I'd rather stand and lose honorably than live as a coward," Liam declared.

Esmeralda pulled Patrick aside, whispering, "Your father has a heart of a lion."

Despite his injured hand, Liam faced the Baron. Each round tested his limits, but encouragement from Patrick gave him strength. Employing Viktor's techniques, Liam turned the tide, defeating the Baron after a grueling 84 rounds.

As the Baron lay defeated, Liam advised sternly, "Ensure your son and his friends never trouble mine again. And compensate the Gypsies for your deeds."

Years passed, and the O'Sullivan family found contentment. Patrick, a respected prizefighter and beloved innkeeper, trained alongside his former adversary, Edward. Fiona dedicated her life to nursing, her compassion touching many.

The Baron, now a recluse, faithfully compensated the Gypsies for his misdeeds. The Gypsy community, resilient as ever, thrived once again, with Liam's family visiting often.

Liam, watching his son from afar, whispered, "Viktor, your legacy lives on. Our children have learned to stand tall."

In the heart of Kent, the O'Sullivan family's story became one of resilience, honor, and the unbreakable bond of family.

The Champion’s Redemption

Writing Stories with Chat-GPT & Me: Where I feed a detailed prompt to Chat-GPT and get a story.

In the tranquil seaside city of Kent, Liam O'Sullivan and Esmeralda had built a new life. Liam, now retired from prizefighting, owned a bustling local inn, "The Pugilist's Rest." Their days were filled with the salty sea breeze and the laughter of patrons, a stark contrast to the brutal rings where Liam once fought.

One evening, as the couple closed the inn, a well-dressed man approached them. He introduced himself as Reginald Smythe, an associate of Sir Edmund Blackwood.

"Liam O'Sullivan, I bring a challenge from London," Reginald declared, his eyes gleaming with contempt. "Sir Edmund demands satisfaction for his defeat."

Liam shook his head, "I'm done with that life, Mr. Smythe. I seek no quarrel with Sir Edmund."

Reginald sneered, "Afraid to lose, or has the Gypsy witch sapped your strength?"

Esmeralda stepped forward, fire in her eyes. "Watch your tongue, sir!"

Liam's fists clenched, but he remained composed. "Leave now, Mr. Smythe. I'll not be goaded."

But the provocation ate at Liam's soul. He decided to confront Reginald, accepting the challenge to put an end to this vendetta.

The fight was a brutal affair. Reginald fought dirty, employing tactics like headbutting and eye-gouging. Liam struggled against the onslaught. By the 44th round, his vision blurred, pain searing through his eyes.

Esmeralda, tears streaming down her face, threw in the towel. "Enough, Liam! I can't bear to see you like this!"

Reginald taunted him one last time, "Edmund's honor is restored!"

Liam, his pride wounded, sought solace in the Gypsy community. Viktor welcomed him back, saying, "We'll train you in the ways of old, Liam. You'll be stronger, smarter."

"Teach me to fight dirty, Viktor. He used eye gouges against me," Liam demanded.

Viktor shook his head sternly. "No, Liam. We fight with honor. You'll win the right way, or not at all."

Liam underwent a rigorous training regime, learning new techniques including wrestling and kicking. His body ached, but his determination never wavered.

Finally, Liam was ready. He challenged Reginald, but instead, he was offered a match against Reginald's porter, a giant of a man.

The porter was powerful, but Liam's new skills turned the tide. By the 58th round, the porter couldn't continue, and Liam was declared the victor.

In the days leading up to his fight with Reginald, Liam faced ambushes in dark alleys, but he overcame each one with his honed skills.

The day of the fight arrived. Reginald resorted to his underhanded tactics once more, but Liam was prepared. He countered with throws and kicks, wearing down his opponent.

After 66 grueling rounds, Liam landed a decisive blow, leaving Reginald blinded and unconscious.

"I need to find Edmund," Liam declared, standing over his defeated foe.

In Edmund's residence, Liam found a man defeated by life, a shadow of the fighter he once was.

"Edmund, why? Why send Reginald after me?" Liam asked.

Edmund looked up, his eyes hollow. "I never asked for revenge, Liam. Reginald acted on his own. After I lost to you, everyone turned their backs on me. I have nothing left but my peace."

Liam's anger faded, replaced by pity. "Can I help you, Edmund?"

Edmund smiled sadly. "No, Liam. I've found solace in my solitude. But I'm glad to see you well."

The two men shook hands, a gesture of mutual respect.

As Liam and Esmeralda prepared to leave, she whispered, "Liam, I believe we'll soon be three."

Liam's eyes widened with joy. They returned to Kent, their hearts full, ready to welcome a new life into their world of love and honor.

The Champion’s Heart

Writing Stories with Chat-GPT & Me: Where I feed a detailed prompt to Chat-GPT and get a story.

In the heart of 18th-century London, Liam O'Sullivan, a rugged Irishman with a spirit as fiery as his hair, navigated the cobbled streets. His journey from Ireland, marked by poverty and despair, had brought him to a land where disdain for his kind was commonplace.

"Another day, another pence, but not a shred of respect," Liam muttered to himself, his hands roughened by odd jobs that barely kept him afloat.

His only respite was found in the warmth of a Gypsy community, particularly in the company of Esmeralda, a young fortune teller whose wisdom belied her years.

"You've got more mettle than most men here, Liam," Esmeralda would often say, her eyes gleaming with unspoken affection.

One tumultuous night at a local inn changed everything. A burly Englishman, fueled by ale and disdain, taunted Liam.

"Go back to your land, Irish scum!" he bellowed.

Liam's response was a swift, powerful punch that sent the man sprawling across the floor, unconscious. The inn fell silent, eyes wide with shock and awe.

Esmeralda's father, Viktor, a former prizefighter, witnessed this and approached Liam the next day. "Son, you've got a gift. Let me train you," he offered, seeing potential in Liam's raw power.

Under Viktor's tutelage, Liam transformed. His fists became tools of precision, his movements a dance of controlled aggression. Fight after fight, he emerged victorious, his fame spreading like wildfire.

Yet, with fame came a growing rift. Liam found himself welcomed in circles that once shunned him, but at the cost of alienating those who had been his true friends.

Esmeralda confronted him one evening, her voice laced with hurt. "You've changed, Liam. These people, they only love what you can do for them, not who you are."

Liam, blinded by his newfound status, retorted, "And what would you know of success, Esmeralda? You spend your days reading palms in a caravan!"

The words hung heavy in the air, and with them, their friendship seemed to fracture.

As time passed, Liam's victories in the ring were met with lukewarm cheers, the fickle nature of fame becoming ever apparent. The hollow feeling of his supposed glory gnawed at him. 

In a moment of reflection, Liam realized the depth of his folly. He sought out the Gypsy community, his heart heavy with remorse.

"Esmeralda, I was a fool," he confessed, finding her outside her caravan one evening. "I let pride blind me to what truly matters."

Esmeralda, her hurt still raw, replied softly, "Your heart knew the truth, Liam. It just took your mind a while to catch up."

Their reconciliation was cut short by an upcoming title match - Champion of the World, against a fighter under royal patronage, Sir Edmund Blackwood. The fight was brutal, each round an ordeal.

Knocked to the ground repeatedly, Liam's resolve wavered. Then, in the crowd, he spotted Esmeralda. Her presence reignited the fire within him. With renewed vigor, he turned the tide, each punch a testament to his journey.

After 95 grueling rounds, Sir Edmund was unable to continue. Liam, battered but unbroken, was declared Champion of the World.

The crowd's cheers, once his sole desire, now meant little. He walked over to Esmeralda, his heart laid bare. "It was you, Esmeralda. In the darkest moments, it was the thought of you that kept me fighting."

Esmeralda stepped forward, her eyes reflecting the moonlight. "You were always a champion to us, Liam, but I'm glad the world sees it now."

Together, they rejoined the Gypsy community, celebrating not just a title, but a love and acceptance that was unconditional. Liam O'Sullivan, Champion of the World, had finally found where he truly belonged - not in the roaring crowds, but in the quiet, steadfast heart of his beloved Esmeralda.

An Open Letter to Myself, A Confidential Compilation (September 2023)

Note: All names have been changed for anonymity

Letter I: July 23, 2018

For most (if not all) of my life, I’ve struggled to maintain a positive outlook on things. I never really belonged with any group of people when starting school and, as a result, I didn’t make many friends. Perhaps I was one of those people who had few but very close friends as opposed to one of those who had many but just not as close. I was more or less an outcast. But that was only the beginning.

Because I couldn’t find myself a group to stick with, from kindergarten through high school, I found myself thinking that I didn’t belong anywhere. And because of that, I stopped seeking out the company of others. That was when I earned myself the label of introvert. Yes, I had a few select friends to hang out with or talk with, but most of the time I preferred to keep to myself. I think that took a turn when I started the first of my final two years of high school in Hong Kong.

  Junior year at HKHS marked as a turning point in my life. Owing to my lack of confidence and generally low self-esteem, I wasn’t really the type to draw the attention of people. Simply put, I could’ve easily disappeared into a crowd of 5 people (yes, 5) if I wished. I was nobody. But by the age of 17, I’d somehow captivated the attention of a 16-year-old Hong Kong student by the name of Clara. We met at the school orientation in September 2012 and started out as friends. Clara and I would continually exchange text messages when we weren’t together. We were close enough that she’d invited me to her 17th birthday party on November 17, 2012.

I didn’t make it to the birthday party. Why? On the night of November 15, I’d suffered my first seizure. I found myself waking up in the school’s infirmary, dizzy and confused. They were in the process of getting me into an ambulance. I was set to stay the night at the nearby hospital to be kept under observation. The following morning, outside of a phone call from my dorm neighbor, the first message I received was from Clara, asking how I was doing after having heard of last night’s debacle. Looking back, I’m glad she was concerned for me. But then again, later in the day, a lot of people from school posted on my social media wishing me to ‘get well soon’ and ‘feel better’. I would like to take this moment to thank them all.

Anyway, I was able to join with the party group after I was discharged from the hospital on November 17. I hugged Clara for the first time that same day after I shared a story about my grief on the passing of my Labrador and close friend. Truth be told, that was probably the first time I felt something for her. In this case, I mean something more than friendship. Funnily enough, on November 21, she asked me: “I want to know how you feel about me.” Now at this point, I know how I’m feeling but I just didn’t know the words to use. That was when I sought out the help of my then-roommate Izmail. I guess you could say that had it not been for Izmail, Clara and I would probably never have dated.

So yeah, Clara and I began a relationship. But there was only so much we could do since we were confined to boarding school and its bogus rules. December 1st of 2012 was the first time we officially went out. We hung out in the city, caught a movie, and finished our night at Times Square Hong Kong, where I was to take a cab back to school. Five and a half years later, I still look back fondly on our first kiss.

Clara and I were together from November 21, 2012 up until June 27, 2014 (although I guess she decided to break up with me before, can’t give an exact date on that). At first, I felt sad. Little did I know it would be the first step to my first bout of depression over our breakup. Sometimes it got to the point of me being unable to get out of bed or going to bed as early as 6 PM. In addition, I also lost control of my eating habits. At night, I’d sneak out to the nearby convenience store to buy bags of chips, bottles of sodas and occasionally some beer. I’d be stuffing my face at midnight or 1 in the morning.  

Later on, when I started university, the depression was joined by resentment. Eventually, it developed into a trifecta of depression, resentment and anger. Before that, I’d tried in vain to talk Clara into getting back with me only to be met with harsh words of rejection. To add to that, she also began talking about another guy at her university. That was when I became vengeful. One night on November 2014, I snapped and opted to break off all contact with her. Every social media platform, I erased every trace of her from my life. Later on, on April 2018, I made amends with Clara and you could say we’re back on good terms.

At university, I’d made myself some friends, surprisingly enough. With certainty I will say that my first friend at college was Brie the anime enthusiast and cosplayer. However, the current status of our friendship is in question. Regardless, the most prominent people in my first set of friends would most definitely be Mel and Flora. Mel had enrolled as 16-year-old college freshman out of high school. Even though she was 16, she was the designated driver among us (and yes, she did this without a license). Flora was about my age, having graduated from a school in Singapore, having studied there for almost half of her life. Others I will mention include Leon the Frenchman and Nick the cat-lover. Later on in my sophomore year, I would also befriend Paula, Nora and Val.

Naturally, having broken up with Clara after high school, I’d done some searching when I arrived at college. I’ve said it before and I won’t hesitate to say it again, Madison was my first crush in college. From her competence to the sound of her voice, I was actually crazy about her. My mistake? Advertising to pretty much everyone in the faculty my feelings. That was a lesson I later learned: Don’t always be so trusting of the ones around you. But I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her face-to-face. Sure, I’d given a few gestures (a rose for her after she’d won a competition to become the university’s MC), but that just wasn’t enough. My lack of confidence held me back. While she found out, followed by a crazy maelstrom of emotions (all of which were on my part), we have remained on good terms and I’m happy to say we’re still friends.   

But by then, I was also dealing with other issues. Months prior, my mom had been diagnosed with cancer for the fourth time. Still, she was fighting with my dad and sister by her side. Where was I? Too preoccupied with sulking in my own sorrow. Much so that I forgot that there were other people who needed me. In retrospect, I should’ve been there for her. In the last several weeks of my mom’s life, it took so much out of me having to watch her wither away. On the morning of February 24, 2015, at approximately 5:10 AM, my mom finally left. I was broken down, devastated. But of course, life goes on. We mourned her loss and we moved on.

During this time period, I was significantly struggling with my weight, despite having a personal trainer. I remember stepping on the scale on my first day at the gym to see 81.0 kg on the screen. I was clearly overweight with a fat percentage of 28%. I also remember telling my trainer that my target weight was 60 kg, no matter how long it took. But in the beginning, I was going in the wrong direction. By the end of my freshman year, after having paid a visit to Hong Kong for the first time in a year, I had peaked at a ghastly 85 kg. After being continuously teased and mocked by family friends for my physical stature, I decided that it was now or never.

I hit the gym five days a week, avoided high-carb and high-fat foods, and pretty much ate the equivalent of two meals a day: smoothie for breakfast, regular lunch, and protein bar for dinner. No matter how bad I’d want a double bacon cheeseburger, I would always remind myself that it wasn’t worth the weight gain. The protein bar diet did pay some dividends. Having begun my diet on August 2015 at approximately 84 kg, I was 71 kg by August 2016. People really did notice the progress I’d made and I thought that it was as low I could go. Boy, was I wrong indeed. Today, I refer to this period as “Phase 1”.  

Having shed 14 kg, I felt that I was allowed to resume my regular diet. Okay, I didn’t exactly go back to eating cheeseburgers or Chinese takeout every night but I did eat regular-sized portions for three meals a day. What I didn’t take into consideration was the quality of the foods I was eating. Because of that, I gained as much as 4 kg heading into 2017. Despite being cautious of what I ate during my internship at a newspaper from June to August 2017, this time was when I gained most of my weight. Beginning in February 2018, I began what I now refer to as “Phase 2” of my weight loss goal. I’d gone to my cousin’s wedding struggling to breathe in size 34 trousers. That same day, the scale had read 75.0 when I stepped onto it. I resumed my two-meal-a-day plan with some changes. This time, I would eat strictly two meals, breakfast and lunch only. As of July 2018, I weigh in at 59 kg. I can say that I’ve achieved my target weight, even if it took three years. Now I find myself able to wear size 30-32 pants. These past few months were perhaps the first time in my life where people have actually told me to eat more and that I was getting too skinny. Now whether or not they mean it, I don’t know. But it sure does feel good to hear it from others.

When the “I Have a Crush on Madison” ship had left port, I set my sights on another friend, Val. I was able to convince myself that I was in love with this girl, despite having known her for a total of three months by then. Her significant other, whom she is now back with, was (and still is) a full-blown tomboy. Still, I told myself that Val was the one. Long story short, I had a crush on her for half of 2016 before she went on exchange in South Korea in our junior year. Then it was just pretty much coming to an end. Whatever happened then, I’m just glad with the way things are now between us.  

During the first semester of my junior year in October 2016, I suffered another seizure. Apparently, this particular one warranted a prescription of Valium from my doctor. Ignoring the instructions, I took a pill every night before bedtime. As the Diazepam accumulated within me, I realized I was in another depression. At the time, I didn’t know that my medication was the cause of it. But boy, the depression really came at a bad time. Mel was dating this guy she’d met while working one summer at an ice-cream shop and Paula was talking with some guy from the accounting faculty. I was hit with the strong feeling of abandonment. Eventually though, after I ceased taking Valium, all of it began to fade away and I was feeling fine by the time 2017 rolled around.

In the first semester of my senior year, however, I realized that depression wasn’t far behind me. Around September 2017, Mel (having already broken up with the ice-cream shop guy) had begun to realize her orientation and decided to reciprocate the feelings Flora has had for her since our sophomore year. The day she told me, she was dropping me off at the gym. To be honest, I was completely taken by surprise. Simultaneously, I completely felt down. I did everything my PT instructed but I didn’t say a word. That same day, after seeing an ad on social media, I signed up for HarmonyHeal so that I had someone to voice my feelings to. After all, before this, Mel had been my one true confidant. But that part was over, forever changed. Mel found out about how I was feeling and it left her briefly conflicted. Before long, the two had started a relationship, meaning Mel and Flora. And whenever the two had a falling out, Mel would come in my direction seeking solace. At the time, I thought I was just the person to pick up the broken pieces between the two, the fucking crutch to lean on when everyone else had turned their backs on her. Looking back on it, I wasn’t sad because I had a crush on Mel, I was sad because of the change that was to come. And she only came to me because she trusted me. There’s no easy way to say this but our friendship has forever changed because of everything that’s happened. Not much I can do but make the most out of how things have turned out.

For a time during our final semester of senior year, I turned my attention to Paula. I just wanted to be away from Mel and Flora, even Val (who related well to the two). I’ll admit I was never as close to Paula and Nora as I had been with Mel and Flora; but I would’ve preferred to be with the former as opposed to the latter. Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed being in the company of Paula. My most favorite memory of her has to do with Hong Kong and JoyWorld. From time to time, I’ll go on my social media and look at the pictures I took with her during our 2017 trip to Hong Kong. I won’t lie, at some point I may have also been smitten with Paula. I’ve written pieces about her, not that she knows they’re about her. I have sent only one piece of prose to her; but that’s just one of many. Our paths have diverged now that we’ve finished university. I don’t know how many more times I’ll see her but I do know that I’m damn grateful for her presence in my life. No matter what happens between us, she will always be a great friend I’ve had the pleasure of having.

Which is why I’m talking in the first place. I’ve been a negative person for most of my life; just ask my dad, my sister, and my friends. I seem to find the dark even in the brightest of things. There’s always this urge to always dig up some dirt. They got married? Huh, she’s probably in for the money. They’re doing community work? Huh, publicity will get you places. You know what I mean. In the meantime, I would always complain about how things didn’t turn out a certain way.

For sure, there are many things in my life (and I’m sure in others’ lives) that didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to. You know how they say you’re in control of your own destiny? I beg to differ. While part of it may be true, you’re not always in control of the happenings around you. Example? Unreciprocated feelings. I could swim halfway across the world (in reality, I can’t) to prove my love only to find that the other party isn’t willing to do the same. You see, while I may be able to control my own feelings, I have no control over the feelings of another person. And ultimately, things play out differently.

Sometimes I wonder if one course action would’ve made the difference. Did I make a mistake in not calling? What if I’d told her how I felt instead of keeping quiet? My life has mostly been built up of “what-ifs” and “why-nots”. There are endless possibilities when you stop to think about it. I’ve come to realize that I’ve spent too much time wishing for certain things in life. Life is a far cry from perfect but there is still so much to love about it. Sometimes you just can’t force a certain outcome in life and you just have to roll along with it. Over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate every little thing out of every single situation. Furthermore, I’ve learned to live with every outcome. In my opinion, I believe life is about finding small things in every aspect that you learn to appreciate and just ultimately trying to make the most out of every possible situation life takes you, regardless of how much or how little you like it. Essentially, I can appreciate what I do have instead of focusing on what I don’t. When you learn to do this, you can ultimately achieve some degree of happiness in the end.     

Letter II: September 11, 2019

Who am I kidding? Eventually, we all knew there was going to be a second part, and a part three and a part four. Because this story–my life–has yet to come to its conclusion. Asking myself the same question, I still do struggle to maintain a positive outlook on life. However, what I have changed over the past few months is tell myself that everything that’s happened–good or bad–has all been for the best. It’s like I said before, make the most out of every possible situation life takes you and appreciating the small things. To me, that is how you can find happiness.

            Am I still an outcast, an introvert? Yes, but perhaps not as much as I was before I started work. So I began working my first job on October 1, 2018, having finally graduated from college. I landed in the Content team of the Marketing Communications department of the Asia Retail Group, who’ve been responsible for running three of my childhood malls. My responsibilities are primarily writing content to post on the shopping malls’ official websites and social media pages. So I’m something of a copywriter. Additionally, I’ve conducted some interviews with several brand owners. My official title says I’m a “Content Creation Officer” (CCO). It sounds pretty cool, I guess.

            I remember saying that I wanted to work here between 1 or 3 years before moving on. But that was when I’d just started back in late 2018. To be honest, I don’t exactly love my job. Every day when I go to work at 9 AM, I always look forward to 6 PM, which is when I finish. Tuesdays and Thursdays are fun because those are gym days. Initially, I went to the gym only on the weekends. Eventually, my trainer pushed me to go during the weekdays as well. Now, I’ve also come to value my weekends so much more. It is my colleagues who make the job tolerable and even enjoyable at times. In our down time, we share a bunch of laughs and I just feel like it exudes so much positive energy. It may feel like a long shot to say this, but it sometimes feels like some of my colleagues are my family.

            There’s my boss, Amy, a former magazine chief editor who has a knack for seeing the potential in everyone, including myself. Coming into the office initially writing only in English, I’ve been able to start writing Thai-language content with her tutelage. Then there’s Pat, my boss’s second-in-command and longtime best friend. I look up to her as a mother/older sister figure. And if there’s anyone I respect most in this office, it’s Pat. She’s helped me in both the work and personal aspects of my life, especially after hearing of my romantic woes. To say the least, I’ve learned a lot from her. Next, you have Wanda. What once was an older brother figure to me has now become an aunt-like figure with a preference for girls. I guess you could say she’s the closest person to a dude in the office next to myself. Aside from helping me get on my feet upon my arrival at the office, she’s also given me her fair share of ‘guy advice’. And last but not least, there’s Bonnie and Kara. Bonnie mostly works with the tourist department and speaks fluent Chinese. She’s also an expert with the best spots to eat in Bangkok, among other places. Kara is the graphic designer on our team. She’s wicked talented with Adobe Illustrator and is a great artist. One of these days, I’m thinking about having her design a new tattoo for me (when she has time, of course). They’ve all made my working experience a very pleasant one. To sum it up, both Pat and Wanda have taught me valuable lessons–both good and bad–that I won’t forget any time soon. And if they are willing to accept, I am happy to call them my new friends.

            On to the progress of my weight, things have turned out far better than I’ve expected. When I was filling out forms for my job application, I’d written down my weight as 58 kg. Believe it or not, my weight had dipped as low as 53 kg in my first couple of months at my workplace. It was at that point that people were beginning to say that I was seriously looking too skinny and sickly. My weight loss plan had worked out too well. So when I finally opted to go to the gym for an extra two days during the weekdays, the main goal was to put on muscle. I began drinking whey protein as well. The last time I measured, I had up to 84% muscle mass and 11% fat mass, not bad in my opinion. At this point, I look to build more muscle in my arms and upper body so that it can optimize the appearance of a tattoo. Yes, that’s right, I’m working out for the purpose of getting a tattoo. Now, as of September 9, 2019, I weigh in at 56.5 kg and wear size 29 jeans.

            Additionally, at my second gym, I began taking up kickboxing classes as well. I was getting tired of just lifting weights and doing abdominal workouts; I was looking for a new challenge. Now, the last time I’d exercised through boxing was 10 years ago. And I pretty much chickened out after developing blisters on my knuckles. This time, I wasn’t going to back down so easily. I bought myself a pair of 4-oz MMA gloves, hand wraps, boardshorts, and ankle supports from the fight gear shop near my college campus to prepare myself. In my first time back, I foolishly sparred without hand wraps, leaving my knuckles bleeding and virtually scarred. I also brought a compression clothing set to help stabilize myself for the heavy-duty workouts that were to come. It all paid off. This time around, I really enjoyed my cardio kickboxing sessions, connecting on my combinations and relentlessly throwing my roundhouse kicks. My favorite part of the kickboxing workout was perhaps the Boxmaster. After purchasing a pair of 10oz boxing gloves, I’ve been able to spar at my optimal strength and fully enjoy my kickboxing sessions, despite how physically demanding they can be. I’ve devoted all my Thursdays to kickboxing and have even nicknamed them “Muay Thai Thursdays” or MTT.  

            My re-ignited love for kickboxing stemmed from my rediscovered passion for combat sports. In sixth grade, I loved pro wrestling and Worldwide Wrestling. But when I found out wrestling wasn’t real, I grew out of it and set my sights on boxing in eighth grade. I had idolized a number of boxers for the longest time, putting up a poster of one of them in my dorm room during my freshman year of high school. After boxing, there was kickboxing and Muay Thai. I would watch videos of legendary Thai fighters competing at World Kick on YouTube. This all happened while I was at high school in the United States. When I discovered American football, though, I was sidetracked and combat sports went on the shelf for quite a long time.

            That was until I found Premier Championship, Southeast Asia’s first major MMA organization. Now, I’d seen the World Fight Championship several times but never really liked the World Fight Championship because of its trash-talking aspect. Its stars had ruined mixed martial arts, in my opinion. You had to talk so much shit just to sell tickets and make more money. But Premier Championship was just different. It taught different values: honor, respect, humility and sportsmanship. And its CEO held the belief that Asia, the birthplace of martial arts, should embrace one of its most important cultural treasures. Additionally, it also hosted kickboxing and Muay Thai matches, which I found to be very appealing. So I began following Premier on a regular basis, watching every major event on Friday evenings via livestream. I also started watching weekend Muay Thai programs that included Extreme Muay Thai and Champion Muay Thai, shows which had been around for a while but I had only recently discovered. But it didn’t end there; I subscribed to World Fight Library, where I was able to access events in MMA and kickboxing. Watching fight sports essentially became a new part of my lifestyle. That was how I discovered my love for martial arts and, ultimately, combat sports.

            The reason why I bring this up is because Premier Championship may have affected my plans for the future. Being at Asia Retail for a year, I can’t help but say that I’m slowly feeling the effects of occupational burnout. I know, one year shouldn’t warrant something like this. But it’s happened and I no longer feel the drive to put up my best performance here any longer. I couldn’t even if I tried. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to learn new things while working at Asia Retail. After completing my one year at this current job, I’m seriously considering the possibility of moving on. A few months earlier, my dad had gotten in touch with a friend who happens to be part of the board of a Muay Thai organization called Siam Fighting. I’ve seen many of their events before, having started to regularly watch their events, and they aren’t short on talent. It’s certainly a far cry from Premier Championship but if I do take a job in Siam Fighting, it may just be my first step towards achieving my dream of being able to work in Premier Championship. A stepping stone, if you will. And at least, I’ll be able to work in the realm of something I truly love: combat sports.    

            Now, on to the recurring issue, my love life. Months after graduation, I have refused to see Paula. I have successfully avoided her for a total of 1 year. There’s no point in denying it, no matter how much I try, she still has an effect on me after all this time. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought this but she has continued to haunt my dreams. I tell myself every time that I’ve moved on from her, that a relationship between us would be impossible. I’ve come to accept that as well. I’ve done my best to sever our ties and burn our bridges. What I can’t deny is that she has been one of my favorite people to have been present in my life. But for now, it’s better if I didn’t see her. While I know it’s not the healthiest solution, I believe it’s all for the best.

            But in cutting her out of my life, I’ve also inadvertently cut out other friends as well. Not only is this unhealthy, but this type of behavior is self-destructive. Day by day, week by week, month by month… I’m slowly losing friends I’d once made during my days at university. But being me, it honestly doesn’t faze me much. As an introvert, I can handle being alone. Hell, I even value being alone over being in the company of people, even if they’re pleasant. During my sister’s graduation from college for her master’s, I even made it a point to avoid Paula and my college friends, double-checking the graduation schedules to make sure that my sister’s graduation day didn’t fall on the same day as my faculty’s (which was where Paula my friends would show up). Slowly but certainly, old parts of me die each day with this continued pattern of self-destruction.         

            What’s made things easier is the fact that Mel and Flora are both overseas, with Mel studying for her master’s in London and Flora working her job in Singapore. With that said, reunions will be more scarce. Believe me when I say the last thing I want is a reunion. Whenever the group asks if we want to meet up, I’m the first to say I can’t make it and I’ll make up an excuse to not show up. If you ask me now if I ever want to see these friends of mine again, I would probably say, “No.” To tell you the truth, I could honestly live without them. Have they wronged me in any way? Absolutely not. But one of them has somehow managed to play a significant role on my heart. And because of that, I can’t afford to see her face or even speak to her. In an ideal world, it’s best if we never saw each other or heard from each other again. The final nail in the coffin was when I permanently left our friend group chat in order to avoid any conversations or talks of meeting up. The last time I ever spoke with Paula? Through a phone call back in December 2018 before I was headed for the airport to take a flight to Tokyo.     

            However, from my encounters with Paula, I’ve learned not to expect things when it comes to love. Having transitioned from university life to office life, I’ve somehow managed to not attempt to seek out love. Why? Because there’s too much heartache and too much false hope to be found. Now, I have no expectations. Without expectations, there’s no need to have any hope. I can’t explain how relieving it feels to be free of such an emotional burden. I have been told by my colleagues, including Pat and Wanda, that there will come a time that I will long for the company of friends and yearn for a life partner but I will say that now isn’t the time. Right now, I’m savoring every moment of solitude and freedom that I have.

            But I’m going to bring up the other side of the argument. Yes, my colleagues are right. Damn them for being right. A time will come where I will begin yearning for a girlfriend–a life partner–once again. Hell, a time may even come when I want to start a family and have kids. One weekend, I got to meet my niece on my mother’s side. In my mind I couldn’t help but think how she was the most precious and adorable thing I’d ever seen. It also got me thinking that having a family wasn’t the most terrible thing in the world. Then I was also reminded by a conversation I’d had with Pat. It went something along the lines of whenever she felt like giving up, her family–her daughter–was her reason to keep on working. However, I still have certain fears and doubts. I’m afraid that if I were to get married, it would end in separation. I’m afraid that if I had a child, they would go down the same path that I have.

            But it is these “what-ifs” that will ultimately prevent me from finding out how things will truly play out. After all, I do get tired of pondering over the many things that could have been but never came to be. Who knows? Maybe my life partner will turn out to be the support system I’ve needed all this time. Maybe she’ll be able to understand me in ways other people haven’t been able to. Maybe my child, if I were to have one, will change me as a person. Perhaps they will make me an even better version of myself. The possibilities are endless. So yes, perhaps a family of my own would give me a reason to fight, a reason to consistently maintain a positive outlook on life. To say the least, this conversation and meeting my niece has opened up my heart and mind to other possibilities.       

            There’s no knowing for sure which path my life will take me at the end of this year, let alone ten years down the road. What I do know is that, over the past year of working and adjusting to the adult life, I’ve been able to salvage and maintain happiness from the littlest of things, whether it was something funny my colleague said or a good fight I saw on Premier Championship. Yes, there’ve certainly been the rough turns but that’s always to be expected. If there’s anything I’ve learned, there’s no such thing as smooth sailing all the way. There will always be road bumps and there will always be turbulence. The only thing in your control is how you choose to approach them. Expecting hardships is one thing, easy to do. Accepting them, however, is the hardest thing you may ever have to do. Once you learn to both expect and accept them, there is nothing left to worry about. Until then, just take what you can from all that has happened and turn it into something worth cherishing. I’m not religious or spiritual, but I do believe that everything that happens has its purpose. When you fully accept that, true happiness is possible.

Letter III: September 18, 2020

I didn’t expect for there to be a third part to all this. But then again, nothing is certain. So here I am once more. And chances are that we are far from the end. Like the previous two parts, I’m going to ask myself the same question. Is it difficult to maintain a positive outlook on life? Yes, it’s an uphill battle to try and see the good in life. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. For every cloud, there’s always a silver lining. And I still find that it’s the small things that make life worth appreciating.  

            So where do I begin? I’m currently working my third job since graduating college, my second job of the year 2020. I did end up leaving Asia Retail Group to work for Siam Fighting. My stint with the Siam Fighting company lasted all of six months. Yes, six months. Not even a year. I began working at Siam Fighting on February 3, 2020 before walking out of the office for the last time on August 28, 2020. Not once did I go to an event they hosted due to the severity of the COVID pandemic. Perhaps it was best I never got to go.

            Going into Siam Fighting, I noticed so many red flags with this so-called “organization”. Expecting the office to be a building of some kind, I was greeted with a four-story house. Siam Fighting was basically a home office where the bottom three floors were working space. “Okay, I guess it’s about the quality of the staff,” I thought to myself. Then came the second red flag, the HR guy. Handing in my documents, dude has me sit down for a conversation about how he was tasked with the honorable job of holding down the top rope for the fighters at events, how he served in the Thai army, and how he was the company owner’s brother-in-law. Um, okay?

            Three days into the job, my team and I had a meeting that finished late. So we didn’t get to cleaning up the room. Next day, HR guy calls us individually to talk. When it comes my turn, a colleague warns me, “Whatever he says, stay calm.” I think to myself, “This isn’t good.” As I go to his office, I carry my water bottle that I had just filled up with me. He looks at me and at it as I enter his office. When I sit, he asks, “New water bottle?” Before I answer, he continues, “You know you’re not respecting me by bringing your bottle into my office.” What the actual fuck? But he’s not done. He goes on about how our office was a mess and how we’d been noisy during our meeting (guess people aren’t allowed to have a good laugh). But what really pissed me off was when he said these words to me: “Don’t let your actions affect your father’s image.” Fuck you, man! Right then and there, I decided that this HR guy was my enemy. Whatever he did, friendly or hostile, I would hate him.

            I talked about this with my colleagues and it’s no surprise to them. Apparently, HR guy had always been this big of a douche. I guess he thinks just because the owner is married to his sister, it gives him absolute power. But the shenanigans with him don’t end there. Whenever people want to take a leave day, he’ll pry for answers. If someone wants to take a personal day, he’ll ask where they are going and what they are going to do. Now I’m no HR expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s none of his damn business. I could keep going on about this dude but it would take forever. In short, he’s an unqualified piece of shit who only got his job because of family connections.

            Next, the company owner. We’re talking about a guy who talks a big talk but doesn’t do a lot of walking, if you know what I mean. I remember the first time I met him, I was wearing a t-shirt from Premier Championship. Just so you know, I’m a huge Premier Championship fan. What I didn’t know: Siam Fighting considers Premier Championship to be a rival. Hearing this, I laugh a little. Almost immediately, he proceeds to talk shit about the organization. Something about how their TV ratings in Thailand were so low and that they were going to go under sooner or later. And this was just the beginning. Once I started working for him, he’d always find a reason to start a conversation about Premier Championship and it was always negative. For his part, he talked about doing a lot of big projects under the Siam Fighting brand that never came to fruition. Examples include a hotel, an energy drink, a restaurant and a night club. So I really think he needs to take a seat. From now on, I’ll never believe a single word he says. I’m done with him and all his talk.

            But like I said, there were the little things that made it better. For starters, my colleagues at Siam Fighting were about the same age as I was. You had Cheryl who graduated from college in Australia and had been working at the company for a year. There was Erin, who attended a local university and was also at Siam Fighting for a year. Honestly, I still think she was the most beautiful of all our colleagues. You have Janet, the youngest of us all, and the kid who always gave me a lift to the subway station. Bless that kid, she was always my closest confidant in that office. And last but not least, there was Naomi, an alumnus of my university but from the College of Arts. These were pleasant people to be around and made great gossip company.   

            Six months in Siam Fighting had never felt so long. For comparison, I worked at Asia Retail for 14 months and felt that they flew by faster. I was part of the newly-established “online team” composed of five people. But the owner wanted to us to do the work of twenty people. Every week or two, he would ask why the World Fight or Premier Championship social media pages were able to put up quality online content whereas we couldn’t. The answer is simple: They have a stacked team of staff who have a clear idea of what they’re doing and had all the expensive tools at their disposal. As for us, we were working in the dark with limited tools and getting contradictory instructions.

            A lifeline was thrown to me when my father approached me in late July 2020 about how his friend, the owner of Bovine Beverages, had offered a job after hearing of my woes at Siam Fighting. I was hesitant at first and thought about maybe staying until the first event, scheduled for September 19. But eventually, I chose to hand in my resignation effective on August 28. After a less-than-stellar job interview with the head of marketing, I was finally able to start working with Bovine on September 16, 2020. The people here seem nice and can lean towards funny when there’s no pressure. I know it won’t be smooth sailing and I hope things will get better from now on.   

            Now, to the biggest update I have this year: love life. You really never know what to expect in life. One year ago, I thought I would never see Paula again. I made a point that I never wanted to see that group of friends again. But guess what happened? I did see that group of friends again. And I got to see Paula again after 18 months. I didn’t expect it to happen but it did. And I sure didn’t expect for the following events to play out.

            So out of the blue, on July 13, 2020, Mel calls me while I’m at work. She asks if I’m interested in coming to a reunion dinner and drinks that evening. Everyone would be there, minus Flora. By now, you know what I’m going to say. At first, I make an excuse about having to work six days a week at Siam Fighting and that I was drained. Val actually chimes in on the call begging for me to come. I still insist that I was too tired and wouldn’t be able to make it. So they back off and it appears I won’t be going. But then I start second-guessing my decision. I call Mel back and ask her, “Look, I know it’s weird that I’m asking but… is Paula still single?” She tells me that Paula had always been single ever since talking to that guy from our third year in college. I continue our conversation, going on about how I still have unresolved feelings about Paula. Mel says if she were me, she wouldn’t want to leave things unresolved and would rather have some closure. At that moment, I decided I was going to go to that dinner.        

            So I’m sitting in the car with Janet, waiting to arrive at the subway. Traffic is unusually bad today and I’m just eager to get to the dinner. As we approach the entrance where I’m supposed to get off, I say to my colleague, “I think I’m about to do something stupid tonight.” With that, I boarded the subway train and was well on my way towards seeing someone I hadn’t seen in well over a year. When I got to the restaurant, none of my friends were to be seen. Turns out they were on the second floor. So I climbed a flight of stairs and I saw her. There she was, in all her beauty. Those 18 months had barely changed her. Everyone was busy conversing and it took me clearing my throat to finally get their attention.

            We get to catching up as I make myself comfortable next to Paula. For the first time in 18 months, I talk to her just like we were back in college. So many thoughts are rushing through my head in that moment. Do I keep my cool? Do I resolve the thing that’s been bothering me this whole time? I don’t have time to make a decision as the group decides to leave the restaurant and go to a bar for drinks. Guess getting things off my chest will have to wait.

            When we finally get settled at the bar, I sit silently with an occasional sip from my glass of water. The entire time, my eyes are fixated on Paula, who is sitting across from me. Sounds creepy, I know, but I was actually thinking about what to say or what to do next. Hell, I’d finally made some progress by agreeing to come to dinner with my college friends after a long absence. At this point, I was thinking it was now or never. I was most likely never going to come out with my friends again after this. So I got up from the table and went outside, took out my phone and texted Paula to come meet me outside because I had to talk to her.

            My heart was pumping rapidly in my chest. It really felt like one of those moments where my heart was about through burst right through. She texts back saying she’ll be right out. Now my heart races even more. This was it, no turning back. When she exits the front door and approaches me, I get to explaining my 18-month absence. I tell her how I felt bummed out when I found out she was talking to a guy in our third year and then to another guy during our graduation. Simply put, I was jealous. I said something along the lines of, “I know it’s been over a year and I owe you an explanation for disappearing. Truth is I really like you.” Understandably, she is stunned for a moment. But she is quick to respond with, “Oh, I see. But are you okay if we continued being friends?”

            See, that’s the thing. I don’t know what I was expecting. Real life isn’t a television drama where a guy tells a girl he likes her after ghosting her for over a year and the girl tells him she feels the same. No, it doesn’t work like that. So that was her answer. She didn’t feel towards me the way I felt towards her. I answered her by saying, “Of course, I disappeared for over a year, didn’t I?” It was a lie. Perhaps it was my way of saying, “Yeah, I’ll be your friend but just don’t expect to see me as usual.” At that moment, Mel, Val and Nora come out from the bar. Mel and Paula go to the bathroom while Val and Nora stay with me. Val asks me what happened and I tell her everything. She apologizes for having invited me out, not knowing this would’ve happened. It wasn’t her fault. No one would’ve known. Turns out Paula told Mel in the bathroom that I’d confessed to her but she really didn’t feel anything towards me. Like I said, real life isn’t a TV drama. She wasn’t in the bathroom saying, “I told him I wanted to be friends but I actually feel something more.”

            So maybe part of me hoped that she would reciprocate the feelings I had for her. But another part of me also knew to expect the other answer. This wasn’t the ideal world and I did disappear on her for 18 months. The fact that she even responded the way she did was more than I deserved, I suppose. But referring to my previous entry, I think I made my self-exile from my group of friends official that night. While I did say I was content to remain friends, I’ve turned down any further invitations from Mel. But Mel and Val were courteous to say that if I ever needed anything, if I needed someone to talk to, I could always give them a call.

            I’m just glad I got my feelings about Paula off my chest. Finally, I was able to erase one of those “what-ifs” from my life. And while it took 18 months, at least I was able to confess the feelings I had for her. Regardless of the outcome, I’m just satisfied I gathered the guts to take action. If I didn’t say something that night, heaven knows I would’ve taken it all the way to my grave. For so long, I wondered if she felt the same about me. It was a question that bothered me every night. I used to think about the day she came up to me after our graduation ceremony and told me about how she stopped talking to a photographer due to incompatibility. My counselor told me this maybe was a sign of her possibly showing interest in me. But being me, I never pursued the matter and let it sit for almost two years. Now, this conflict is finally resolved and I can finally put it behind me.      

            So yeah, I took a step I never thought I’d take. And while the results weren’t exactly what I’d hoped for, at least I got some form of closure. As cliché as this may sound, I can finally move on with my life. From staying at a job for six months to confessing feelings, you really don’t know what to expect from life. But it’s the little things that make you want to keep going; the little surprises that make you smile and appreciate the quality of being alive. The year 2020 has shown me that things can get really rough. But what truly matters is how you respond to it. If you get beaten down to your knees, do you stay down? Or do you get up and fight back? I should be the last person saying this, given that I chose to stay at Siam Fighting for six months, but I have to keep on fighting by unleashing the best version of myself at Bovine. This is how I fight the adversity that is 2020. As for love? I think I’ll give it a rest. I won’t go actively searching for it but if it’s close by, then perhaps I’ll give it a shot.  

Letter IV: June 2, 2022

Hello again, I’m back. We’re far from over, dear reader. After all, the only certain thing in life is that nothing is certain. And the only constant is change. So here I am once again. It’s crazy to believe that since my very first entry, it’s been close to four years. Now I’m 27 years old and getting closer to 30. It all feels so surreal now that I’m actually living it out. But that’s life for you… or for me, I guess.

For the Money

In my previous entry, I started working at my current place of employment on September 16, 2020. As am writing this, I have been working there for 1 year and 9 months. In the three jobs I’ve worked since graduating college, I can now say this is the place where I’ve worked the longest. Yay! Initially, I was paid the same monthly salary as my two previous places of employment. Honestly, I didn’t really care I was grateful that I had a place to work after leaving my old job on bad terms.

But then a year passed, I eventually gleaned new knowledge regarding from my new job. Before long, I finally had a clear purpose. That also meant doing more work. Of course, doing more work, I was expecting a bump up in my pay. One year after I started, my monthly salary stayed the same so I kept waiting. Until February 2022 came along. My boss, the son of the company owner, asks me one morning what my current salary was. I told him and he is surprised at the amount I am making. Let’s just say it is less than what he was expecting to hear. He goes on to tell me that he’ll make sure it goes up. And wouldn’t you know it, I find that on my next paycheck that my salary has skyrocketed by a substantial amount! Hey, I’m very grateful for this pay raise and I make sure to give my 100% at work every day.

I’m going to get into why I’m bringing up the topic of pay up. When I first started working at my current company, I was taken under the wing of some people who had started there a year before me. They were experienced in sales work and were workaholics to an extent. Anyway, I remember a conversation they had with me about how the company had so much potential and that the owner was a swell guy who was worth working for. The latter part I can confidently affirm. But one of them also goes on about how he’s never in it for the pay and goes on to bash people who come into work to collect paychecks. Back then, I paid it no heed. Fastforward to now, I do take some issue with what he said.

I call bullshit on him saying that he’s not working for the money. I don’t know the exact amount he was or is making but I’m certain that he gets paid more than twice the amount I make per month. So with that said, he’s more than financially stable to provide for himself and his family. But I want to draw up a hypothetical situation. Let’s say the company had to cut costs and everyone’s salary had to be halved, hypothetically, including his. Would he still have the same mindset? Would he still say he doesn’t do it for the money? I highly doubt it. What I’m highly confident about is that I come to work every day to get paid. Every payment period, I’m expecting to see a new amount in my bank account. Hate me if you want, but what I do, I do it for the money. Yes, I’m just here to collect a paycheck but I also make sure I do my best at work.

Back in the Game (Briefly)

Near the end of 2021, I decided to get back into the dating game again. After the bittersweet conclusion to the Paula saga back in July 2020, I took some time off to heal from some shall we say… emotional wounds. All it took was an Instagram advertisement from the MMA gym with whom I had a membership to get me off the bench. As it turned out, a staff member from the aforementioned gym was used as a model in the ad and I found myself attracted.

So I reached out to the gym’s manager, who I was already acquainted with, and asked for details. It was a sort of like me asking, “Could you introduce us?” So she acquiesced to my request and I visited the gym in November 2021 to meet this girl. One thing that immediately stands out to me is that she’s way taller than me. I’m 165 centimeters (5’5”) while this girl towers over me at approximately 175 centimeters (5’9”). As if the height difference wasn’t enough, she’s got all the makings of a magazine cover girl. Aesthetically, this girl is way out of my league. But for some reason, my self-confidence is unusually high and I’m determined to get her to like me. Looking back, I laugh at that version of myself.

I remember the first two times we met, I went to go see her two days in a row on the weekend. It was a total of 15 hours that I spent with her at the gym. In retrospect, I may have come off as a bit of a creep. Granted, I hadn’t hit on anyone for over 9 years by then. She was really nice to me in all the time we spent together. Although this may have been because I was a customer of the gym and she was an employee, it’s difficult to determine.

Both my self-esteem and anxiety were tested when it came to our texting exchanges, which were few and far between. I’ll put it this way: if I sent three texts, she would reply with one. And while I would reply to her in less than a minute, she would take up to 7 hours to respond to me. Needless to say, it really messed with my mind.

Still, I was determined to go on a date with her. And eventually, I scored a first date with her early in December. We went to grab some coffee on her day off from work. Much to my chagrin, we mostly conversed about work and the date lasted an underwhelming one hour. Nevertheless, I scheduled a second date with her for Christmas. I won’t say it was a disaster but like the first date, it failed to live up to my expectations. The date lasted only an hour; she had another scheduled appointment. I found out later that she’d made that appointment after agreeing to have dinner with me. I suppose she wanted to keep the second date short. It doesn’t matter. Over the course of the dinner, she dropped a bombshell: she wasn’t looking for a committed relationship any time soon. This was when I decided we simply weren’t meant to be. And that was when I decided to end our correspondence in terms of pursuing a relationship.

During the New Year’s holiday, I was noticeably miserable and my dad decides to give me a pep talk of sorts. At the time I didn’t pay attention to it but I remember hearing ‘King Solomon’ and ‘this too shall pass’. So later, I googled those things and found an old fable. Anyway, I came to realize that any situation, be it good or bad, can't last forever. And it was what gave me the strength to move on from my failed attempt at a new relationship. Since then, I like to think that I live by the words ‘this too shall pass’.

As I’m writing this, it would be the last time I ever saw her in person. There’s no hard feelings between us and it’s just a case of two people wanting different things. She occasionally texts me about my wellbeing and asks me when I’ll return to the gym.

Still at the start of 2022, my sister implored me to give dating apps a try once more. I’d experimented with them back in early 2020 but ended up getting ghosted by a girl whom I’d matched with. Still, I figured it wouldn’t hurt trying again. My cousin who’d been visiting from the US had also told me two simple words: “Have fun.” So I scrolled through a list of profiles and tapped whichever one stuck out to me. After several days, I received a reply, a match.

This girl was a senior in college who was still going to classes online. I’m surprised by her fondness of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture in our first conversation. After just one day of talking on the app, she suggests we start texting each other. I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl so talkative about a wide variety of topics. We could talk about history, architecture and even sports. At that point, I thought there was so much potential with her. She was super friendly in our conversations, asking me about my day and sending me pictures about what she was having for lunch and dinner. It seemed as though the pieces would fall into place.

But then, life had to throw me another curveball. And this was one I was least expecting. First, the year before, she had contracted the COVID virus that had crippled the world beginning in 2020. So naturally, since she’d gotten better, I assumed she’d gotten her vaccinations. This was where things got weird. She told me she hadn’t gotten her shots. I asked her why, silently assuming she had an underlying condition that prevented her from getting the jab. What she said next would leave me speechless. She had refused to get vaccinated after seeing her friends suffer from hair loss after getting their jabs. Yeah, that was her reasoning. I understand now that vaccinations are a personal choice and everyone has their own right on whether to get vaccinated or not.

And so I realized that she probably was not the girl for me, despite her overwhelming friendliness and our mutual interests. She seemed to check nearly all the boxes. Nearly. Just when I thought things were going so well…

We continued to text although I was no longer entertaining the thought of pursuing a relationship with her. About a month in, she asks me how I feel about her. Honestly, I wasn’t sure mostly because we hadn’t met in person. And that was on me because I wasn’t willing to meet her unless she got vaccinated. So I told her I couldn’t give her an answer. She then tells me I shouldn’t like her because someone else has already told her that they liked her. At that moment, I feel like I’ve been freed. Then I tell her to go with it and we stop texting.

She did text me again once asking how I was doing a little over a month ago. She seemed to be doing well with the guy she’s going out with. I told her that I thought there was some potential between the two of us, although she said that I was difficult to get through to; as if I’d built a wall around myself. Perhaps that’s the case with me. And all I can say to that is that maybe I haven’t found the right person willing to spend time to break down that wall around me.

Either way, despite how things ended with both girls, I’m glad they happened the way they did. Because the experiences have helped me grow emotionally. And as the old fable says, ‘this too shall pass’. And hopefully one day, I find that girl because I now realize that, while I cherish the single solitary life, I also yearn for love.

Letter V: August 13, 2023

So it’s been over a year since Part IV and so many things have happened since then, both bad and good. While I was pretty good at my initial job at Bovine Beverage, I admit that sometimes it got a little too much for me to handle. My original department supervised over 200 staff members who worked in the field and it was my job to submit their requests to enter online data regarding partner stores yada-yada. But yeah, sometimes it got a bit overwhelming. So in April 2022, my family goes on a long holiday to Hawaii. I’d never been there my entire life and this was my first time travelling overseas since COVID hit. Nevertheless, I was in paradise once we landed. I’d never felt happier, enjoying every moment I was in the Rainbow State. But of course, it all had to come to an end.

But I was a different person once we landed in Bangkok. For some reason, I’d developed an extreme irrational fear of COVID. I don’t know why but for some reason, I was afraid to catch it. While other people were wearing just face masks, I was wearing a face mask and a face shield. Looking back, it was definitely overkill and I was definitely paranoid. Perhaps I was scared because the greatest fear of them all is the fear of the unknown. And at the time, I didn’t know what it was like to get COVID. My colleagues were also aware of my ever-growing paranoia and while they joked about it, they were also kind enough to ease my fears at the same time. If someone in our department had so much as a cough or sore throat, they’d keep their distance from me. Nevertheless, I continued doing my work in my department up until November 2022. By then, I had been considering resigning from Bovine and exploring other options. But the problem was… I didn’t have any other options yet. I honestly just planned on quitting and taking an extended break.

But then, one of the company executives informs me that I’m being transferred to a new department. To this day, I have no clue what it does but from what I can gather, it was basically a centralized department where all the subdepartments of the sales channels in the company meet. I regret saying yes at her proposition. But it wasn’t like I could decline either. About less than two months in, one of the younger guys working in the department takes me aside and lets me help him work on a more digital-based project instead. It has to do with enhancing the B2B aspect of the company. He believes it’s better than having me sit for the entire office day in long-ass meetings. And at first, it seems to go well. My job mainly consists of approving artwork and captions that will be published on texting apps. Truth be told, I’m working close to 15 minutes a day. And before I know it, I’m one step closer to becoming the thing I swore not to become: a nepo baby who only got the job because of his father’s connections.

At that same time, my mind is strolling down a rather dark path. Perhaps it’s the long time I’ve spent at Bovine Beverages finally wearing down on me. Not only do I talk about offing myself to my family, but I also entertain the idea of erasing certain individuals at the office. Sometimes, I feel so angry that I want to act out on certain people at the office who I perceive to be bullies, regardless of whether or not they have families to support. Doesn’t matter to me, I just wanted to know what it felt like to take a life. And it might as well be a life I deemed worthless. So many thoughts swirled in my mind: from detonating an explosive on the top floor (where all the executives worked) to using a firearm on all floors of the office building. I was in a very dark and twisted place in my mind. It was a combination of lacking direction and the imbalance of chemicals in my brain that perhaps causes this. That was when my dad and sister intervened. They had me go see a psychologist who, after hearing what I had to say, put me on a good old dose of Lexapro. I can say I’ve been feeling much better since then and those thoughts are locked away.

So my birthday rolls around and my friends from college, especially Mel and Val, are very eager to host a dinner for me. So I got Val to schedule a date one week after my actual birthday at a nearby Western restaurant and the guest list includes my sister, Mel, Flora, Val, and Madison. My friends gift me with a custom t-shirt consisting of pictures of me and my Labrador, which I really loved. But I was starting to feel a little strange that night. A sore throat was flaring up but I chalked it up to the McDonald’s french fries I had for lunch. I went to bed that night, expecting to wake up feeling a little better. Instead, I woke up feeling a lot worse. My head and body were aching, my throat wasn’t feeling any better. At first, due to the dark clouds outside, I thought it was a result of the drastic weather change. So I rest on the living room couch and try sleep it off. An hour later, I don’t feel any better. So something tells me to go to my room and take an ATK test. I do a saliva test to make absolutely sure. In less than 5 minutes, I am absolutely shocked when I see two lines appear, indicating a positive COVID test. For over two years, I had evaded the virus but it had finally caught up with me. Game over.

I call my sister to let her know I had caught COVID. She sends me all the proper medication and tells me to isolate for 5 days. Bless her soul. I also key in my sick leave days at the office because of this. But much to my dismay, my requests for a sick leave are disapproved. When I call HR for an explanation, it turns out that the company had a new policy where you needed a doctor’s note for COVID to get approved for sick leave. When I tried telling them that I had all the necessary medication and seeing a doctor would not be necessary, they shot me down and said I needed a note no matter what. I was fuming at that point but had no choice. So I took a motorbike taxi to a nearby clinic to procure a note to finally get those damn sick days approved. I felt bad for exposing those motorbike taxis to the virus.

Afterwards, I lay in my bed still angry with HR. I had so many bad words swirling in my head. Eventually, I got my laptop and opened Adobe Illustrator. From there, I got to designing a t-shirt that basically cursed HR. The funny part? That t-shirt actually got made. Along with 9 other t-shirts. So that turned out to be a productive session where I designed 10 custom t-shirts for myself. The reason I mention this incident is because it was the beginning of my inspiration of starting a clothing line.

When my isolation ended and I returned to work, I had a new perspective. I was no longer paranoid and I was more lively. I found myself starting the podcast I’d long talked about wanting to start since 2020. For a long time, I pondered what my podcast would be about. But the answer was right in front of me. My passion was and had always been combat sports. So I started a podcast about combat sports. Using the smartphone my dad had gotten for my birthday, a pair of discount headphones, and a tripod I found in the street market, I’d built myself my first podcast setup. And on June 17, 2023, I recorded the first episode to my podcast. A second episode followed the next day. Since then, I’ve upgraded my setup with a new microphone.

But there were still issues at work. From 15 minutes of work a day, I felt that it had gone down to 5 minutes a day. There were many instances where I was sleeping at the office. Like I said, I’d become the very thing I hated: the nepo kid who got in because of his dad’s good graces. With the podcast, at least I was able to fill my free time editing videos. Also, with the clothing venture, I could experiment with different designs and colors. But then, the company issued another policy. No outside work was to be done on company property. This was when I made what will soon be a life-changing decision. Near the end of July 2023, I approached the head of the sales department and asked him the steps I needed to take if I wanted to resign. I told him I was ready to leave and commit to my podcast on a fulltime basis. If I had to choose between the podcast or my 9-to-5, I would choose the podcast. And I would make sure that I would expand my content so that I could continue to draw in more audiences. Before I knew it, I’d filled out the resignation forms and I’m due to come in for my last day of work on August 28, 2023.

One day, out of the blue, I decided to invite my friends over to my renovated home for dinner. I wanted them to see my new place and to meet my dog. Of the four people invited, three accepted the invitation: Mel, Val, and Paula. Flora already had a prior engagement. Deep down, I wanted to meet Paula again after not seeing her for three years. Paula said in the group chat that she would probably be late. So I meet up with Mel and Val first and we have dinner at my house. This is where the fun begins. It turns out that both Mel and Val are no longer as close to Paula as they were before. “It’s not that I hate her,” Val said, “It’s that I’m disappointed in her.” When I ask her to elaborate, it turns out that Paula had some difficulty finding a job to her liking after getting her master’s in the UK. So she asked Val to refer her to Val’s new workplace. When the place offered her the same salary as Val, Paula asked Val to get the company to bump the number up. It took a while but I assumed they got the number to Paula’s liking. But then Paula wasn’t happy with the vacation days she got. Having worked in Thailand for 5 years now, I’ve learned not to expect many vacation days, especially in your first year. Paula still asked Val to ask her employers if there was any way they could increase the number of vacation days. When there was no way around it, Paula unashamedly asked Val to ask her employers that if she were to decline their offer, would they still make it available if she were to come back? The entire time, Paula was sweet-talking Val as if they were the best of friends. Now spoiler alert, Paula found another job that checked all her boxes. And afterwards, she disappeared on both Val and Mel.

Now I’d long gotten over Paula in terms of love but I was curious and asked Mel about her status. Mel told me that Paula did in fact have a boyfriend. He was five years younger and was the son of a local politician in the eastern region of the country. The two had met while she was studying for her master’s in the UK. What’s crazier is that she started dating him two weeks after he’d broken up with his girlfriend, which makes me wonder how she’d had her eyes on him. Now, this next part I don’t know if Val said this just to get me riled up but she told me that some time after I confessed my feelings to Paula, Paula said to her that there was just no way she would’ve ever chosen me. Knowing her true nature now, I guess I dodged a bullet. And I hope she finds the happiness she’s looking for.

And I just want to say it again, the greatest fear of all is the fear of the unknown. I’m afraid of life after quitting my 9-to-5. Or rather, I’m afraid of what to expect. For five years, I’ve worked in the 9-to-5, clocking in at 9 AM and then clocking out at 6 PM. After August, it’s going to be a whole different world for me. I’ll be setting the rules and the work hours from now on. Truth be told, I never thought my dream of working as a YouTuber would come true. But to be fair, my channel has yet to become monetizable. But I do love what I do on YouTube, whether it’s the podcast or covering fight events on-site. It’s kind of like what I would’ve gotten to do at Siam Fighting but with my own rules and no boundaries holding back. So despite my fear, there is also a lot of excitement and I am looking forward to what comes next.

Letter VI: September 23, 2023

Greetings dear reader, we meet again. So it’s been just a little over one month since my last entry. It’s been almost a month since I quit my 9-to-5 at Bovine Beverages to do my own thing. I’ve really been enjoying the podcast. Sure, I have yet to generate any income and the channel has yet to become eligible for monetization. But it still doesn’t make doing this any less fun. Since starting the podcast in June 17, 2023, my YouTube channel has 35 videos.

During the time period leading up to me quitting my 9-to-5, I went to a press conference promoting a blockbuster fight event set to take place in November of 2023. This was where I met up with some old acquaintances I hadn’t seen in nearly two years. Furthermore, I decided to spoil myself by buying tickets to this event and booking a reservation at the hotel where it would take place. It would be where both work and vacation converged. Furthermore, on September of 2023, I was able to invite a guest onto my podcast for the first time, which had long been a dream of mine. So yes, being my own boss has been working out well so far. The only thing I have left to worry about now is money.

I have no animosity whatsoever towards Bovine Beverages but I feel like quitting my job at the company was one of the best decisions I’ve made. For the first time, I’m truly chasing my dream and doing something I’m very passionate about. I figured I had a knack of doing online content-related work since working at Siam Fighting but so many boundaries held me back. And now, I’m finally creating my own content and publishing it online, whether it’s on YouTube or social media.

Now, the question I used to always ask myself when writing these letters: am I still introverted? I’m surprised at how much I’ve changed since recovering from COVID. From making excuses as to why I won’t be able to go to dinner with friends, I’m now always eager to meet up with my friends. And these aren’t just my college friends, but people I’ve met at different points of my life. Whether during summer internship or former colleagues, I’ve found that I’ve been getting back in touch with many people and telling them that we should catch up. To be honest, I really like this version of myself.

I guess all that time spent in isolation and lying in bed left me with a lot to think about. In particular, I thought about the many things I wanted to do in this life. One of those things included the podcast. But there were also other things like re-establishing ties with past acquaintances. For most of my life, I’ve met many people but let them slip away into obscurity as I’ve moved from one point in my life to another. And that’s just a part of me I didn’t like. It was the heavily introverted side of me. Perhaps I can go as far as to say that part of me is almost completely gone now.

As I’ve gotten back in touch with many friends, I’ve realized so many things have also changed. Several people in my university class have gotten married. I think two already have kids. But none of them are my close friends. That was until I recently met up with Madison for dinner. In my first entry, Madison was my very first crush in college. But she didn’t reciprocate my feelings and we’ve ended up being good friends since then. So as it turns out, Madison is scheduled to marry her boyfriend of six years some time within the next year. This has made me realize how far I’ve fallen behind in terms of love and romantic relationships.

In my class, a lot of people have paired up and are on the verge of getting married. Then you have me, the single black sheep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m sad. But hearing that Madison, one of my closer friends in college, was getting married. It sounded so surreal. At the same time, I couldn’t be happier for her. Because if there’s anyone in my college who deserves a happy ending, it’s Madison.

Now, this announcement was made during a dinner that also included my sister and a mutual friend of ours named Janice. Janice was actually a co-MC who won the same competition as Madison back in our freshman year of college. She studied Psychology at our university and was an alumnus of my school in Bangkok. Furthermore, she met my sister at a leadership program in Thailand, which Madison and myself also attended. Long story short, Janice ended up becoming a close friend of Madison and my sister.

I can’t say this enough: Janice is a very sweet, kind and beautiful young woman. Much so that my sister is fond of her and has gone as far as to encourage me to try and hit on her. But of course, she has made it clear that I do need to make some improvements to myself first. Sure, I’ve come a long way from where I was before. But I still have some more to go before I’m in any condition to flirt with Janice. And I couldn’t agree more with my sister. A lot of times, I think Janice is too good for me.

But what I often ask myself is: “Do I like Janice?” To answer it simply, yes. I do like Janice. But do I like her to the point of wanting to ask her out and potentially begin a relationship? I honestly don’t know the answer to that yet. While I have said before that I’ve tried not to seek out love, I’ve been finding myself yearning for it as well. It’s so contradictory, right? And with a girl like Janice… it just makes this whole thing more difficult. One, she’s my friend. Two, she’s my sister’s friend.

I’m not entirely sure if I want to remain just friends with her or try and take things to the next level with Janice. My sister has certainly encouraged me to try. Because I’ll be honest, girls like Janice are one in a million. And no, I’m not saying this because I’m blinded by love so I’m spouting cheesy lines. I really have yet to meet another girl like her. I guess that’s why my sister sees so much in Janice and I can understand why my sister likes her.

Yet at the same time, I wonder how low Janice would be sinking if she came down to my level? I don’t know, I’m not sure how I’d rate myself. I’ve given it a start, trying to text Janice frequently. But I know that’s far from enough and I’ll have to keep making an effort to show I care. I’ll have to do so much more. As to whether I truly I like Janice that much… I have yet to find out on my own. If she does reciprocate my actions, it’d be great. If not, that’s fine too. In the event that Janice and I do end up together, I’d be the luckiest guy on Planet Earth!

But I just want to repeat something I said in a previous entry, the greatest fear of all is the fear of the unknown. And I don’t want to be afraid not knowing how things would play out between Janice and me. Which is why I’m trying to reach out to Janice more than I usually would, despite there being a high chance of rejection or simply no reciprocation from her side. But you know what? That would be better than if I had done nothing at all. And so from this point onward, I’ll just try my best with Janice. Because we only have one life and I intend to make the most out of it.‍

Letter V: September 8, 2026

Yes, I know. Three years since the last entry. To say the least, very long time. And I’ve probably said this before, but A LOT has happened in those three years. For starters, I’m past the 30 mark (31 to be exact). The podcast dream is long dead. After over a year of unemployment disguised as being my own boss (e.g. the podcast), I returned to 9-to-5 work in March 2025, making a steady income. And I suppose that’s what I miss most about working a regular job: having stability.

And the place I returned to work? Asia Retail Group, the first company I worked after graduating college. The people in my first department were… less than warm. But that’s fine, in retrospect. Nobody stepped on each other’s toes. And everyone treats their colleagues differently. The good news is that… shit got done. After a year, I got transferred to a different department in March 2026, where I can safely say that the people are much warmer, kinder, and a hell of a lot funnier.

Fate of the Podcast

Like I said, the podcast is dead and buried. Perhaps so is my passion for combat sports. I traded that in for baseball. Funny how life plays out. Anyway, the podcast looked doomed froim the start. I hadn’t done any actual market research. I just bought some recording equipment and used my cellphone as a camera. I burned through more money than I ever could’ve thought of making from the podcast. Most of it came from event tickets, transportation, and accomodation. In retrospect, quitting my 9-to-5 was a relatively bad decision. I like to consider it a tuition fee for a hard life lesson.

So why did the podcast die? Well, I had ambitious plans for 2024: travel across the country, explore renowned combat sports gyms, record content that showed me training and interviewing prominent figures of the scene. But that all changed.

December 23, 2023. I was in Spain traveling with my family. Suddenly I seized up in the middle of my hotel room. I fell. Marble floor. Woke up with a hematoma and, I later discovered, a broken collarbone. I returned to Thailand on January 2024 to get surgery. The collarbone was repaired but recovery required time. My 2024 plans were derailed, as a result.

Being at home not being able to do much, I found myself slowly losing passion for the thing I’d poured so much of myself into. I stopped recording videos, stopped uploading, stopped touching anything that had to do with the podcast altogether. By August 2024, all channels related to it were completely inactive.

What If…

So during the early stages of returning to work, I frequented an arcade where they had a virtual baseball simulator. For context, I’d taken a liking to baseball in late 2024 after recovering from collarbone surgery. The arcade manager, a young woman named Kara, was a very friendly person. I remember my second week at work, I was practicing catching and clocked by a 70 mile-per-hour fastball right in the face. Kara quickly went to get some ice to help with the swelling. And I just thought, “Damn, customer service here is great!” And then there was the time I got hit in the arm by a ball going 80 miles per hour that left a bruise. Kara got some Counterpain and applied it to the injured area. At the time, I thought she was a very kind and gentle person.

Around the same time, I found out that Kara and I had a mutual acquaintance: Pat, my former supervisor during my first stint at Asia Retail Group. At some point, Pat advised me to try pursue Kara, an idea I initially brushed off as ridiculous. But, as I went to the arcade almost every day, I saw Kara every day. And somehow, we got to talking. A lot. That’s when I think the attraction grew. I started talking with her more than playing at the arcade.

Then one day, I mustered the courage to ask her on a date. Or perhaps she asked me out. I don’t remember now, to be honest. Either way, it was the first time in 3 years I’d gone on a date. It was simple: dinner and a movie. Afterwards, we continued seeing each other regularly while we at work, with me coming to visit her at the arcade during my lunch break.

And for the first time in years, I thought maybe, just maybe, Kara was the one. But that’s the thing about life. You never what it has in store for you. She became more distant after barely a month. She turned down gestures like holding hands. And eventually, one night, I texted her asking where we stood. Her reply pretty much told me it was the end. That she didn’t feel we were a match in energy, and that she considered me a friend. So that was it, the end of the short saga between Kara and me.

Was I hurt? Not really. But I felt it was a bit of a shame. Because honestly, I thought we had something going there. Or perhaps it was just a naive part of me that believed it was going to go anywhere. Either way, things ended with Kara. Quietly. ‍

On Janice

During that time, Janice had left to study for her master’s in 2024. She came back in mid-2026, during which we celebrated her return, in addition to Madison’s pregnancy. It’s crazy how time flies. Madison, who was my very first crush in college, got married, and finally became a mother.

But Janice, she was still very much single. And my sister was still very much pushing for me to pursue her. But at this stage of my life, I discovered that the energy-or the attraction-just wasn’t there. Even if I felt something, anything at all, I didn’t feel anything coming from her end. And I decided it’d be better if I didn’t waste both of our time by trying to chase something that wasn’t there. Is Janice a good person? Yes. Do I think she’s girlfriend material? Yes. But do I feel attracted to her in that inexplicable way? Strangely… no. And because of that, I think it’s best if I didn’t pursue her at all.

In Love with Work

And right now, for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel attracted to anyone in particular. If there’s one thing I could name I’m in love with, it’d be my passion projects. Not work, but a project I created that has since taken up my weekends.

W‍hat started as a casual gathering for people to play catch in the park has now grown into a full-fledged baseball community. A regular gathering sees 25+ people. It’s not a moneymaker by any stretch of the imagine, but it’s fulfilling. For one Saturday morning, people of all backgrounds get to come together and enjoy baseball in a relaxed setting.

My dad once told me something about giving back and contributing to society. I don’t think he pictured it this way, but this is how I see myself contributing to society. And I think that if it all ended tomorrow, I’d be happy with what I’ve done. ‍

An Open Letter to Myself, Pt. VI

Note: All names have been changed for anonymity.

Greetings dear reader, we meet again. So it’s been just a little over one month since my last entry. It’s been almost a month since I quit my 9-to-5 at Bovine Beverages to do my own thing. I’ve really been enjoying the podcast. Sure, I have yet to generate any income and the channel has yet to become eligible for monetization. But it still doesn’t make doing this any less fun. Since starting the podcast in June 17, 2023, my YouTube channel has 35 videos.

During the time period leading up to me quitting my 9-to-5, I went to a press conference promoting a blockbuster fight event set to take place in November of 2023. This was where I met up with some old acquaintances I hadn’t seen in nearly two years. Furthermore, I decided to spoil myself by buying tickets to this event and booking a reservation at the hotel where it would take place. It would be where both work and vacation converged. Furthermore, on September of 2023, I was able to invite a guest onto my podcast for the first time, which had long been a dream of mine. So yes, being my own boss has been working out well so far. The only thing I have left to worry about now is money.

I have no animosity whatsoever towards Bovine Beverages but I feel like quitting my job at the company was one of the best decisions I’ve made. For the first time, I’m truly chasing my dream and doing something I’m very passionate about. I figured I had a knack of doing online content-related work since working at Siam Fighting but so many boundaries held me back. And now, I’m finally creating my own content and publishing it online, whether it’s on YouTube or social media.

Now, the question I used to always ask myself when writing these letters: am I still introverted? I’m surprised at how much I’ve changed since recovering from COVID. From making excuses as to why I won’t be able to go to dinner with friends, I’m now always eager to meet up with my friends. And these aren’t just my college friends, but people I’ve met at different points of my life. Whether during summer internship or former colleagues, I’ve found that I’ve been getting back in touch with many people and telling them that we should catch up. To be honest, I really like this version of myself.

I guess all that time spent in isolation and lying in bed left me with a lot to think about. In particular, I thought about the many things I wanted to do in this life. One of those things included the podcast. But there were also other things like re-establishing ties with past acquaintances. For most of my life, I’ve met many people but let them slip away into obscurity as I’ve moved from one point in my life to another. And that’s just a part of me I didn’t like. It was the heavily introverted side of me. Perhaps I can go as far as to say that part of me is almost completely gone now.

As I’ve gotten back in touch with many friends, I’ve realized so many things have also changed. Several people in my university class have gotten married. I think two already have kids. But none of them are my close friends. That was until I recently met up with Madison for dinner. In my first entry, Madison was my very first crush in college. But she didn’t reciprocate my feelings and we’ve ended up being good friends since then. So as it turns out, Madison is scheduled to marry her boyfriend of six years some time within the next year. This has made me realize how far I’ve fallen behind in terms of love and romantic relationships.

In my class, a lot of people have paired up and are on the verge of getting married. Then you have me, the single black sheep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m sad. But hearing that Madison, one of my closer friends in college, was getting married. It sounded so surreal. At the same time, I couldn’t be happier for her. Because if there’s anyone in my college who deserves a happy ending, it’s Madison.

Now, this announcement was made during a dinner that also included my sister and a mutual friend of ours named Janice. Janice was actually a co-MC who won the same competition as Madison back in our freshman year of college. She studied Psychology at our university and was an alumnus of my school in Bangkok. Furthermore, she met my sister at a leadership program in Thailand, which Madison and myself also attended. Long story short, Janice ended up becoming a close friend of Madison and my sister.

I can’t say this enough: Janice is a very sweet, kind and beautiful young woman. Much so that my sister is fond of her and has gone as far as to encourage me to try and hit on her. But of course, she has made it clear that I do need to make some improvements to myself first. Sure, I’ve come a long way from where I was before. But I still have some more to go before I’m in any condition to flirt with Janice. And I couldn’t agree more with my sister. A lot of times, I think Janice is too good for me.

But what I often ask myself is: “Do I like Janice?” To answer it simply, yes. I do like Janice. But do I like her to the point of wanting to ask her out and potentially begin a relationship? I honestly don’t know the answer to that yet. While I have said before that I’ve tried not to seek out love, I’ve been finding myself yearning for it as well. It’s so contradictory, right? And with a girl like Janice… it just makes this whole thing more difficult. One, she’s my friend. Two, she’s my sister’s friend.

I’m not entirely sure if I want to remain just friends with her or try and take things to the next level with Janice. My sister has certainly encouraged me to try. Because I’ll be honest, girls like Janice are one in a million. And no, I’m not saying this because I’m blinded by love so I’m spouting cheesy lines. I really have yet to meet another girl like her. I guess that’s why my sister sees so much in Janice and I can understand why my sister likes her.

Yet at the same time, I wonder how low Janice would be sinking if she came down to my level? I don’t know, I’m not sure how I’d rate myself. I’ve given it a start, trying to text Janice frequently. But I know that’s far from enough and I’ll have to keep making an effort to show I care. I’ll have to do so much more. As to whether I truly I like Janice that much… I have yet to find out on my own. If she does reciprocate my actions, it’d be great. If not, that’s fine too. In the event that Janice and I do end up together, I’d be the luckiest guy on Planet Earth!

But I just want to repeat something I said in a previous entry, the greatest fear of all is the fear of the unknown. And I don’t want to be afraid not knowing how things would play out between Janice and me. Which is why I’m trying to reach out to Janice more than I usually would, despite there being a high chance of rejection or simply no reciprocation from her side. But you know what? That would be better than if I had done nothing at all. And so from this point onward, I’ll just try my best with Janice. Because we only have one life and I intend to make the most out of it.

An Open Letter to Myself, A Confidential Compilation (August 2023)

Note: All names have been changed for anonymity.

Letter I: July 23, 2018

For most (if not all) of my life, I’ve struggled to maintain a positive outlook on things. I never really belonged with any group of people when starting school and, as a result, I didn’t make many friends. Perhaps I was one of those people who had few but very close friends as opposed to one of those who had many but just not as close. I was more or less an outcast. But that was only the beginning.

Because I couldn’t find myself a group to stick with, from kindergarten through high school, I found myself thinking that I didn’t belong anywhere. And because of that, I stopped seeking out the company of others. That was when I earned myself the label of introvert. Yes, I had a few select friends to hang out with or talk with, but most of the time I preferred to keep to myself. I think that took a turn when I started the first of my final two years of high school in Hong Kong.

  Junior year at HKHS marked as a turning point in my life. Owing to my lack of confidence and generally low self-esteem, I wasn’t really the type to draw the attention of people. Simply put, I could’ve easily disappeared into a crowd of 5 people (yes, 5) if I wished. I was nobody. But by the age of 17, I’d somehow captivated the attention of a 16-year-old Hong Kong student by the name of Clara. We met at the school orientation in September 2012 and started out as friends. Clara and I would continually exchange text messages when we weren’t together. We were close enough that she’d invited me to her 17th birthday party on November 17, 2012.

I didn’t make it to the birthday party. Why? On the night of November 15, I’d suffered my first seizure. I found myself waking up in the school’s infirmary, dizzy and confused. They were in the process of getting me into an ambulance. I was set to stay the night at the nearby hospital to be kept under observation. The following morning, outside of a phone call from my dorm neighbor, the first message I received was from Clara, asking how I was doing after having heard of last night’s debacle. Looking back, I’m glad she was concerned for me. But then again, later in the day, a lot of people from school posted on my social media wishing me to ‘get well soon’ and ‘feel better’. I would like to take this moment to thank them all.

Anyway, I was able to join with the party group after I was discharged from the hospital on November 17. I hugged Clara for the first time that same day after I shared a story about my grief on the passing of my Labrador and close friend. Truth be told, that was probably the first time I felt something for her. In this case, I mean something more than friendship. Funnily enough, on November 21, she asked me: “I want to know how you feel about me.” Now at this point, I know how I’m feeling but I just didn’t know the words to use. That was when I sought out the help of my then-roommate Izmail. I guess you could say that had it not been for Izmail, Clara and I would probably never have dated.

So yeah, Clara and I began a relationship. But there was only so much we could do since we were confined to boarding school and its bogus rules. December 1st of 2012 was the first time we officially went out. We hung out in the city, caught a movie, and finished our night at Times Square Hong Kong, where I was to take a cab back to school. Five and a half years later, I still look back fondly on our first kiss.

Clara and I were together from November 21, 2012 up until June 27, 2014 (although I guess she decided to break up with me before, can’t give an exact date on that). At first, I felt sad. Little did I know it would be the first step to my first bout of depression over our breakup. Sometimes it got to the point of me being unable to get out of bed or going to bed as early as 6 PM. In addition, I also lost control of my eating habits. At night, I’d sneak out to the nearby convenience store to buy bags of chips, bottles of sodas and occasionally some beer. I’d be stuffing my face at midnight or 1 in the morning.  

Later on, when I started university, the depression was joined by resentment. Eventually, it developed into a trifecta of depression, resentment and anger. Before that, I’d tried in vain to talk Clara into getting back with me only to be met with harsh words of rejection. To add to that, she also began talking about another guy at her university. That was when I became vengeful. One night on November 2014, I snapped and opted to break off all contact with her. Every social media platform, I erased every trace of her from my life. Later on, on April 2018, I made amends with Clara and you could say we’re back on good terms.

At university, I’d made myself some friends, surprisingly enough. With certainty I will say that my first friend at college was Brie the anime enthusiast and cosplayer. However, the current status of our friendship is in question. Regardless, the most prominent people in my first set of friends would most definitely be Mel and Flora. Mel had enrolled as 16-year-old college freshman out of high school. Even though she was 16, she was the designated driver among us (and yes, she did this without a license). Flora was about my age, having graduated from a school in Singapore, having studied there for almost half of her life. Others I will mention include Leon the Frenchman and Nick the cat-lover. Later on in my sophomore year, I would also befriend Paula, Nora and Val.

Naturally, having broken up with Clara after high school, I’d done some searching when I arrived at college. I’ve said it before and I won’t hesitate to say it again, Madison was my first crush in college. From her competence to the sound of her voice, I was actually crazy about her. My mistake? Advertising to pretty much everyone in the faculty my feelings. That was a lesson I later learned: Don’t always be so trusting of the ones around you. But I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her face-to-face. Sure, I’d given a few gestures (a rose for her after she’d won a competition to become the university’s MC), but that just wasn’t enough. My lack of confidence held me back. While she found out, followed by a crazy maelstrom of emotions (all of which were on my part), we have remained on good terms and I’m happy to say we’re still friends.   

But by then, I was also dealing with other issues. Months prior, my mom had been diagnosed with cancer for the fourth time. Still, she was fighting with my dad and sister by her side. Where was I? Too preoccupied with sulking in my own sorrow. Much so that I forgot that there were other people who needed me. In retrospect, I should’ve been there for her. In the last several weeks of my mom’s life, it took so much out of me having to watch her wither away. On the morning of February 24, 2015, at approximately 5:10 AM, my mom finally left. I was broken down, devastated. But of course, life goes on. We mourned her loss and we moved on.

During this time period, I was significantly struggling with my weight, despite having a personal trainer. I remember stepping on the scale on my first day at the gym to see 81.0 kg on the screen. I was clearly overweight with a fat percentage of 28%. I also remember telling my trainer that my target weight was 60 kg, no matter how long it took. But in the beginning, I was going in the wrong direction. By the end of my freshman year, after having paid a visit to Hong Kong for the first time in a year, I had peaked at a ghastly 85 kg. After being continuously teased and mocked by family friends for my physical stature, I decided that it was now or never.

I hit the gym five days a week, avoided high-carb and high-fat foods, and pretty much ate the equivalent of two meals a day: smoothie for breakfast, regular lunch, and protein bar for dinner. No matter how bad I’d want a double bacon cheeseburger, I would always remind myself that it wasn’t worth the weight gain. The protein bar diet did pay some dividends. Having begun my diet on August 2015 at approximately 84 kg, I was 71 kg by August 2016. People really did notice the progress I’d made and I thought that it was as low I could go. Boy, was I wrong indeed. Today, I refer to this period as “Phase 1”.  

Having shed 14 kg, I felt that I was allowed to resume my regular diet. Okay, I didn’t exactly go back to eating cheeseburgers or Chinese takeout every night but I did eat regular-sized portions for three meals a day. What I didn’t take into consideration was the quality of the foods I was eating. Because of that, I gained as much as 4 kg heading into 2017. Despite being cautious of what I ate during my internship at a newspaper from June to August 2017, this time was when I gained most of my weight. Beginning in February 2018, I began what I now refer to as “Phase 2” of my weight loss goal. I’d gone to my cousin’s wedding struggling to breathe in size 34 trousers. That same day, the scale had read 75.0 when I stepped onto it. I resumed my two-meal-a-day plan with some changes. This time, I would eat strictly two meals, breakfast and lunch only. As of July 2018, I weigh in at 59 kg. I can say that I’ve achieved my target weight, even if it took three years. Now I find myself able to wear size 30-32 pants. These past few months were perhaps the first time in my life where people have actually told me to eat more and that I was getting too skinny. Now whether or not they mean it, I don’t know. But it sure does feel good to hear it from others.

When the “I Have a Crush on Madison” ship had left port, I set my sights on another friend, Val. I was able to convince myself that I was in love with this girl, despite having known her for a total of three months by then. Her significant other, whom she is now back with, was (and still is) a full-blown tomboy. Still, I told myself that Val was the one. Long story short, I had a crush on her for half of 2016 before she went on exchange in South Korea in our junior year. Then it was just pretty much coming to an end. Whatever happened then, I’m just glad with the way things are now between us.  

During the first semester of my junior year in October 2016, I suffered another seizure. Apparently, this particular one warranted a prescription of Valium from my doctor. Ignoring the instructions, I took a pill every night before bedtime. As the Diazepam accumulated within me, I realized I was in another depression. At the time, I didn’t know that my medication was the cause of it. But boy, the depression really came at a bad time. Mel was dating this guy she’d met while working one summer at an ice-cream shop and Paula was talking with some guy from the accounting faculty. I was hit with the strong feeling of abandonment. Eventually though, after I ceased taking Valium, all of it began to fade away and I was feeling fine by the time 2017 rolled around.

In the first semester of my senior year, however, I realized that depression wasn’t far behind me. Around September 2017, Mel (having already broken up with the ice-cream shop guy) had begun to realize her orientation and decided to reciprocate the feelings Flora has had for her since our sophomore year. The day she told me, she was dropping me off at the gym. To be honest, I was completely taken by surprise. Simultaneously, I completely felt down. I did everything my PT instructed but I didn’t say a word. That same day, after seeing an ad on social media, I signed up for HarmonyHeal so that I had someone to voice my feelings to. After all, before this, Mel had been my one true confidant. But that part was over, forever changed. Mel found out about how I was feeling and it left her briefly conflicted. Before long, the two had started a relationship, meaning Mel and Flora. And whenever the two had a falling out, Mel would come in my direction seeking solace. At the time, I thought I was just the person to pick up the broken pieces between the two, the fucking crutch to lean on when everyone else had turned their backs on her. Looking back on it, I wasn’t sad because I had a crush on Mel, I was sad because of the change that was to come. And she only came to me because she trusted me. There’s no easy way to say this but our friendship has forever changed because of everything that’s happened. Not much I can do but make the most out of how things have turned out.

For a time during our final semester of senior year, I turned my attention to Paula. I just wanted to be away from Mel and Flora, even Val (who related well to the two). I’ll admit I was never as close to Paula and Nora as I had been with Mel and Flora; but I would’ve preferred to be with the former as opposed to the latter. Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed being in the company of Paula. My most favorite memory of her has to do with Hong Kong and JoyWorld. From time to time, I’ll go on my social media and look at the pictures I took with her during our 2017 trip to Hong Kong. I won’t lie, at some point I may have also been smitten with Paula. I’ve written pieces about her, not that she knows they’re about her. I have sent only one piece of prose to her; but that’s just one of many. Our paths have diverged now that we’ve finished university. I don’t know how many more times I’ll see her but I do know that I’m damn grateful for her presence in my life. No matter what happens between us, she will always be a great friend I’ve had the pleasure of having.

Which is why I’m talking in the first place. I’ve been a negative person for most of my life; just ask my dad, my sister, and my friends. I seem to find the dark even in the brightest of things. There’s always this urge to always dig up some dirt. They got married? Huh, she’s probably in for the money. They’re doing community work? Huh, publicity will get you places. You know what I mean. In the meantime, I would always complain about how things didn’t turn out a certain way.

For sure, there are many things in my life (and I’m sure in others’ lives) that didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to. You know how they say you’re in control of your own destiny? I beg to differ. While part of it may be true, you’re not always in control of the happenings around you. Example? Unreciprocated feelings. I could swim halfway across the world (in reality, I can’t) to prove my love only to find that the other party isn’t willing to do the same. You see, while I may be able to control my own feelings, I have no control over the feelings of another person. And ultimately, things play out differently.

Sometimes I wonder if one course action would’ve made the difference. Did I make a mistake in not calling? What if I’d told her how I felt instead of keeping quiet? My life has mostly been built up of “what-ifs” and “why-nots”. There are endless possibilities when you stop to think about it. I’ve come to realize that I’ve spent too much time wishing for certain things in life. Life is a far cry from perfect but there is still so much to love about it. Sometimes you just can’t force a certain outcome in life and you just have to roll along with it. Over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate every little thing out of every single situation. Furthermore, I’ve learned to live with every outcome. In my opinion, I believe life is about finding small things in every aspect that you learn to appreciate and just ultimately trying to make the most out of every possible situation life takes you, regardless of how much or how little you like it. Essentially, I can appreciate what I do have instead of focusing on what I don’t. When you learn to do this, you can ultimately achieve some degree of happiness in the end.     

Letter II: September 11, 2019

Who am I kidding? Eventually, we all knew there was going to be a second part, and a part three and a part four. Because this story–my life–has yet to come to its conclusion. Asking myself the same question, I still do struggle to maintain a positive outlook on life. However, what I have changed over the past few months is tell myself that everything that’s happened–good or bad–has all been for the best. It’s like I said before, make the most out of every possible situation life takes you and appreciating the small things. To me, that is how you can find happiness.

            Am I still an outcast, an introvert? Yes, but perhaps not as much as I was before I started work. So I began working my first job on October 1, 2018, having finally graduated from college. I landed in the Content team of the Marketing Communications department of the Asia Retail Group, who’ve been responsible for running three of my childhood malls. My responsibilities are primarily writing content to post on the shopping malls’ official websites and social media pages. So I’m something of a copywriter. Additionally, I’ve conducted some interviews with several brand owners. My official title says I’m a “Content Creation Officer” (CCO). It sounds pretty cool, I guess.

            I remember saying that I wanted to work here between 1 or 3 years before moving on. But that was when I’d just started back in late 2018. To be honest, I don’t exactly love my job. Every day when I go to work at 9 AM, I always look forward to 6 PM, which is when I finish. Tuesdays and Thursdays are fun because those are gym days. Initially, I went to the gym only on the weekends. Eventually, my trainer pushed me to go during the weekdays as well. Now, I’ve also come to value my weekends so much more. It is my colleagues who make the job tolerable and even enjoyable at times. In our down time, we share a bunch of laughs and I just feel like it exudes so much positive energy. It may feel like a long shot to say this, but it sometimes feels like some of my colleagues are my family.

            There’s my boss, Amy, a former magazine chief editor who has a knack for seeing the potential in everyone, including myself. Coming into the office initially writing only in English, I’ve been able to start writing Thai-language content with her tutelage. Then there’s Pat, my boss’s second-in-command and longtime best friend. I look up to her as a mother/older sister figure. And if there’s anyone I respect most in this office, it’s Pat. She’s helped me in both the work and personal aspects of my life, especially after hearing of my romantic woes. To say the least, I’ve learned a lot from her. Next, you have Wanda. What once was an older brother figure to me has now become an aunt-like figure with a preference for girls. I guess you could say she’s the closest person to a dude in the office next to myself. Aside from helping me get on my feet upon my arrival at the office, she’s also given me her fair share of ‘guy advice’. And last but not least, there’s Bonnie and Kara. Bonnie mostly works with the tourist department and speaks fluent Chinese. She’s also an expert with the best spots to eat in Bangkok, among other places. Kara is the graphic designer on our team. She’s wicked talented with Adobe Illustrator and is a great artist. One of these days, I’m thinking about having her design a new tattoo for me (when she has time, of course). They’ve all made my working experience a very pleasant one. To sum it up, both Pat and Wanda have taught me valuable lessons–both good and bad–that I won’t forget any time soon. And if they are willing to accept, I am happy to call them my new friends.

            On to the progress of my weight, things have turned out far better than I’ve expected. When I was filling out forms for my job application, I’d written down my weight as 58 kg. Believe it or not, my weight had dipped as low as 53 kg in my first couple of months at my workplace. It was at that point that people were beginning to say that I was seriously looking too skinny and sickly. My weight loss plan had worked out too well. So when I finally opted to go to the gym for an extra two days during the weekdays, the main goal was to put on muscle. I began drinking whey protein as well. The last time I measured, I had up to 84% muscle mass and 11% fat mass, not bad in my opinion. At this point, I look to build more muscle in my arms and upper body so that it can optimize the appearance of a tattoo. Yes, that’s right, I’m working out for the purpose of getting a tattoo. Now, as of September 9, 2019, I weigh in at 56.5 kg and wear size 29 jeans.

            Additionally, at my second gym, I began taking up kickboxing classes as well. I was getting tired of just lifting weights and doing abdominal workouts; I was looking for a new challenge. Now, the last time I’d exercised through boxing was 10 years ago. And I pretty much chickened out after developing blisters on my knuckles. This time, I wasn’t going to back down so easily. I bought myself a pair of 4-oz MMA gloves, hand wraps, boardshorts, and ankle supports from the fight gear shop near my college campus to prepare myself. In my first time back, I foolishly sparred without hand wraps, leaving my knuckles bleeding and virtually scarred. I also brought a compression clothing set to help stabilize myself for the heavy-duty workouts that were to come. It all paid off. This time around, I really enjoyed my cardio kickboxing sessions, connecting on my combinations and relentlessly throwing my roundhouse kicks. My favorite part of the kickboxing workout was perhaps the Boxmaster. After purchasing a pair of 10oz boxing gloves, I’ve been able to spar at my optimal strength and fully enjoy my kickboxing sessions, despite how physically demanding they can be. I’ve devoted all my Thursdays to kickboxing and have even nicknamed them “Muay Thai Thursdays” or MTT.  

            My re-ignited love for kickboxing stemmed from my rediscovered passion for combat sports. In sixth grade, I loved pro wrestling and Worldwide Wrestling. But when I found out wrestling wasn’t real, I grew out of it and set my sights on boxing in eighth grade. I had idolized a number of boxers for the longest time, putting up a poster of one of them in my dorm room during my freshman year of high school. After boxing, there was kickboxing and Muay Thai. I would watch videos of legendary Thai fighters competing at World Kick on YouTube. This all happened while I was at high school in the United States. When I discovered American football, though, I was sidetracked and combat sports went on the shelf for quite a long time.

            That was until I found Premier Championship, Southeast Asia’s first major MMA organization. Now, I’d seen the World Fight Championship several times but never really liked the World Fight Championship because of its trash-talking aspect. Its stars had ruined mixed martial arts, in my opinion. You had to talk so much shit just to sell tickets and make more money. But Premier Championship was just different. It taught different values: honor, respect, humility and sportsmanship. And its CEO held the belief that Asia, the birthplace of martial arts, should embrace one of its most important cultural treasures. Additionally, it also hosted kickboxing and Muay Thai matches, which I found to be very appealing. So I began following Premier on a regular basis, watching every major event on Friday evenings via livestream. I also started watching weekend Muay Thai programs that included Extreme Muay Thai and Champion Muay Thai, shows which had been around for a while but I had only recently discovered. But it didn’t end there; I subscribed to World Fight Library, where I was able to access events in MMA and kickboxing. Watching fight sports essentially became a new part of my lifestyle. That was how I discovered my love for martial arts and, ultimately, combat sports.

            The reason why I bring this up is because Premier Championship may have affected my plans for the future. Being at Asia Retail for a year, I can’t help but say that I’m slowly feeling the effects of occupational burnout. I know, one year shouldn’t warrant something like this. But it’s happened and I no longer feel the drive to put up my best performance here any longer. I couldn’t even if I tried. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to learn new things while working at Asia Retail. After completing my one year at this current job, I’m seriously considering the possibility of moving on. A few months earlier, my dad had gotten in touch with a friend who happens to be part of the board of a Muay Thai organization called Siam Fighting. I’ve seen many of their events before, having started to regularly watch their events, and they aren’t short on talent. It’s certainly a far cry from Premier Championship but if I do take a job in Siam Fighting, it may just be my first step towards achieving my dream of being able to work in Premier Championship. A stepping stone, if you will. And at least, I’ll be able to work in the realm of something I truly love: combat sports.    

            Now, on to the recurring issue, my love life. Months after graduation, I have refused to see Paula. I have successfully avoided her for a total of 1 year. There’s no point in denying it, no matter how much I try, she still has an effect on me after all this time. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought this but she has continued to haunt my dreams. I tell myself every time that I’ve moved on from her, that a relationship between us would be impossible. I’ve come to accept that as well. I’ve done my best to sever our ties and burn our bridges. What I can’t deny is that she has been one of my favorite people to have been present in my life. But for now, it’s better if I didn’t see her. While I know it’s not the healthiest solution, I believe it’s all for the best.

            But in cutting her out of my life, I’ve also inadvertently cut out other friends as well. Not only is this unhealthy, but this type of behavior is self-destructive. Day by day, week by week, month by month… I’m slowly losing friends I’d once made during my days at university. But being me, it honestly doesn’t faze me much. As an introvert, I can handle being alone. Hell, I even value being alone over being in the company of people, even if they’re pleasant. During my sister’s graduation from college for her master’s, I even made it a point to avoid Paula and my college friends, double-checking the graduation schedules to make sure that my sister’s graduation day didn’t fall on the same day as my faculty’s (which was where Paula my friends would show up). Slowly but certainly, old parts of me die each day with this continued pattern of self-destruction.         

            What’s made things easier is the fact that Mel and Flora are both overseas, with Mel studying for her master’s in London and Flora working her job in Singapore. With that said, reunions will be more scarce. Believe me when I say the last thing I want is a reunion. Whenever the group asks if we want to meet up, I’m the first to say I can’t make it and I’ll make up an excuse to not show up. If you ask me now if I ever want to see these friends of mine again, I would probably say, “No.” To tell you the truth, I could honestly live without them. Have they wronged me in any way? Absolutely not. But one of them has somehow managed to play a significant role on my heart. And because of that, I can’t afford to see her face or even speak to her. In an ideal world, it’s best if we never saw each other or heard from each other again. The final nail in the coffin was when I permanently left our friend group chat in order to avoid any conversations or talks of meeting up. The last time I ever spoke with Paula? Through a phone call back in December 2018 before I was headed for the airport to take a flight to Tokyo.     

            However, from my encounters with Paula, I’ve learned not to expect things when it comes to love. Having transitioned from university life to office life, I’ve somehow managed to not attempt to seek out love. Why? Because there’s too much heartache and too much false hope to be found. Now, I have no expectations. Without expectations, there’s no need to have any hope. I can’t explain how relieving it feels to be free of such an emotional burden. I have been told by my colleagues, including Pat and Wanda, that there will come a time that I will long for the company of friends and yearn for a life partner but I will say that now isn’t the time. Right now, I’m savoring every moment of solitude and freedom that I have.

            But I’m going to bring up the other side of the argument. Yes, my colleagues are right. Damn them for being right. A time will come where I will begin yearning for a girlfriend–a life partner–once again. Hell, a time may even come when I want to start a family and have kids. One weekend, I got to meet my niece on my mother’s side. In my mind I couldn’t help but think how she was the most precious and adorable thing I’d ever seen. It also got me thinking that having a family wasn’t the most terrible thing in the world. Then I was also reminded by a conversation I’d had with Pat. It went something along the lines of whenever she felt like giving up, her family–her daughter–was her reason to keep on working. However, I still have certain fears and doubts. I’m afraid that if I were to get married, it would end in separation. I’m afraid that if I had a child, they would go down the same path that I have.

            But it is these “what-ifs” that will ultimately prevent me from finding out how things will truly play out. After all, I do get tired of pondering over the many things that could have been but never came to be. Who knows? Maybe my life partner will turn out to be the support system I’ve needed all this time. Maybe she’ll be able to understand me in ways other people haven’t been able to. Maybe my child, if I were to have one, will change me as a person. Perhaps they will make me an even better version of myself. The possibilities are endless. So yes, perhaps a family of my own would give me a reason to fight, a reason to consistently maintain a positive outlook on life. To say the least, this conversation and meeting my niece has opened up my heart and mind to other possibilities.       

            There’s no knowing for sure which path my life will take me at the end of this year, let alone ten years down the road. What I do know is that, over the past year of working and adjusting to the adult life, I’ve been able to salvage and maintain happiness from the littlest of things, whether it was something funny my colleague said or a good fight I saw on Premier Championship. Yes, there’ve certainly been the rough turns but that’s always to be expected. If there’s anything I’ve learned, there’s no such thing as smooth sailing all the way. There will always be road bumps and there will always be turbulence. The only thing in your control is how you choose to approach them. Expecting hardships is one thing, easy to do. Accepting them, however, is the hardest thing you may ever have to do. Once you learn to both expect and accept them, there is nothing left to worry about. Until then, just take what you can from all that has happened and turn it into something worth cherishing. I’m not religious or spiritual, but I do believe that everything that happens has its purpose. When you fully accept that, true happiness is possible.

Letter III: September 18, 2020

I didn’t expect for there to be a third part to all this. But then again, nothing is certain. So here I am once more. And chances are that we are far from the end. Like the previous two parts, I’m going to ask myself the same question. Is it difficult to maintain a positive outlook on life? Yes, it’s an uphill battle to try and see the good in life. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. For every cloud, there’s always a silver lining. And I still find that it’s the small things that make life worth appreciating.  

            So where do I begin? I’m currently working my third job since graduating college, my second job of the year 2020. I did end up leaving Asia Retail Group to work for Siam Fighting. My stint with the Siam Fighting company lasted all of six months. Yes, six months. Not even a year. I began working at Siam Fighting on February 3, 2020 before walking out of the office for the last time on August 28, 2020. Not once did I go to an event they hosted due to the severity of the COVID pandemic. Perhaps it was best I never got to go.

            Going into Siam Fighting, I noticed so many red flags with this so-called “organization”. Expecting the office to be a building of some kind, I was greeted with a four-story house. Siam Fighting was basically a home office where the bottom three floors were working space. “Okay, I guess it’s about the quality of the staff,” I thought to myself. Then came the second red flag, the HR guy. Handing in my documents, dude has me sit down for a conversation about how he was tasked with the honorable job of holding down the top rope for the fighters at events, how he served in the Thai army, and how he was the company owner’s brother-in-law. Um, okay?

            Three days into the job, my team and I had a meeting that finished late. So we didn’t get to cleaning up the room. Next day, HR guy calls us individually to talk. When it comes my turn, a colleague warns me, “Whatever he says, stay calm.” I think to myself, “This isn’t good.” As I go to his office, I carry my water bottle that I had just filled up with me. He looks at me and at it as I enter his office. When I sit, he asks, “New water bottle?” Before I answer, he continues, “You know you’re not respecting me by bringing your bottle into my office.” What the actual fuck? But he’s not done. He goes on about how our office was a mess and how we’d been noisy during our meeting (guess people aren’t allowed to have a good laugh). But what really pissed me off was when he said these words to me: “Don’t let your actions affect your father’s image.” Fuck you, man! Right then and there, I decided that this HR guy was my enemy. Whatever he did, friendly or hostile, I would hate him.

            I talked about this with my colleagues and it’s no surprise to them. Apparently, HR guy had always been this big of a douche. I guess he thinks just because the owner is married to his sister, it gives him absolute power. But the shenanigans with him don’t end there. Whenever people want to take a leave day, he’ll pry for answers. If someone wants to take a personal day, he’ll ask where they are going and what they are going to do. Now I’m no HR expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s none of his damn business. I could keep going on about this dude but it would take forever. In short, he’s an unqualified piece of shit who only got his job because of family connections.

            Next, the company owner. We’re talking about a guy who talks a big talk but doesn’t do a lot of walking, if you know what I mean. I remember the first time I met him, I was wearing a t-shirt from Premier Championship. Just so you know, I’m a huge Premier Championship fan. What I didn’t know: Siam Fighting considers Premier Championship to be a rival. Hearing this, I laugh a little. Almost immediately, he proceeds to talk shit about the organization. Something about how their TV ratings in Thailand were so low and that they were going to go under sooner or later. And this was just the beginning. Once I started working for him, he’d always find a reason to start a conversation about Premier Championship and it was always negative. For his part, he talked about doing a lot of big projects under the Siam Fighting brand that never came to fruition. Examples include a hotel, an energy drink, a restaurant and a night club. So I really think he needs to take a seat. From now on, I’ll never believe a single word he says. I’m done with him and all his talk.

            But like I said, there were the little things that made it better. For starters, my colleagues at Siam Fighting were about the same age as I was. You had Cheryl who graduated from college in Australia and had been working at the company for a year. There was Erin, who attended a local university and was also at Siam Fighting for a year. Honestly, I still think she was the most beautiful of all our colleagues. You have Janet, the youngest of us all, and the kid who always gave me a lift to the subway station. Bless that kid, she was always my closest confidant in that office. And last but not least, there was Naomi, an alumnus of my university but from the College of Arts. These were pleasant people to be around and made great gossip company.   

            Six months in Siam Fighting had never felt so long. For comparison, I worked at Asia Retail for 14 months and felt that they flew by faster. I was part of the newly-established “online team” composed of five people. But the owner wanted to us to do the work of twenty people. Every week or two, he would ask why the World Fight or Premier Championship social media pages were able to put up quality online content whereas we couldn’t. The answer is simple: They have a stacked team of staff who have a clear idea of what they’re doing and had all the expensive tools at their disposal. As for us, we were working in the dark with limited tools and getting contradictory instructions.

            A lifeline was thrown to me when my father approached me in late July 2020 about how his friend, the owner of Bovine Beverages, had offered a job after hearing of my woes at Siam Fighting. I was hesitant at first and thought about maybe staying until the first event, scheduled for September 19. But eventually, I chose to hand in my resignation effective on August 28. After a less-than-stellar job interview with the head of marketing, I was finally able to start working with Bovine on September 16, 2020. The people here seem nice and can lean towards funny when there’s no pressure. I know it won’t be smooth sailing and I hope things will get better from now on.   

            Now, to the biggest update I have this year: love life. You really never know what to expect in life. One year ago, I thought I would never see Paula again. I made a point that I never wanted to see that group of friends again. But guess what happened? I did see that group of friends again. And I got to see Paula again after 18 months. I didn’t expect it to happen but it did. And I sure didn’t expect for the following events to play out.

            So out of the blue, on July 13, 2020, Mel calls me while I’m at work. She asks if I’m interested in coming to a reunion dinner and drinks that evening. Everyone would be there, minus Flora. By now, you know what I’m going to say. At first, I make an excuse about having to work six days a week at Siam Fighting and that I was drained. Val actually chimes in on the call begging for me to come. I still insist that I was too tired and wouldn’t be able to make it. So they back off and it appears I won’t be going. But then I start second-guessing my decision. I call Mel back and ask her, “Look, I know it’s weird that I’m asking but… is Paula still single?” She tells me that Paula had always been single ever since talking to that guy from our third year in college. I continue our conversation, going on about how I still have unresolved feelings about Paula. Mel says if she were me, she wouldn’t want to leave things unresolved and would rather have some closure. At that moment, I decided I was going to go to that dinner.        

            So I’m sitting in the car with Janet, waiting to arrive at the subway. Traffic is unusually bad today and I’m just eager to get to the dinner. As we approach the entrance where I’m supposed to get off, I say to my colleague, “I think I’m about to do something stupid tonight.” With that, I boarded the subway train and was well on my way towards seeing someone I hadn’t seen in well over a year. When I got to the restaurant, none of my friends were to be seen. Turns out they were on the second floor. So I climbed a flight of stairs and I saw her. There she was, in all her beauty. Those 18 months had barely changed her. Everyone was busy conversing and it took me clearing my throat to finally get their attention.

            We get to catching up as I make myself comfortable next to Paula. For the first time in 18 months, I talk to her just like we were back in college. So many thoughts are rushing through my head in that moment. Do I keep my cool? Do I resolve the thing that’s been bothering me this whole time? I don’t have time to make a decision as the group decides to leave the restaurant and go to a bar for drinks. Guess getting things off my chest will have to wait.

            When we finally get settled at the bar, I sit silently with an occasional sip from my glass of water. The entire time, my eyes are fixated on Paula, who is sitting across from me. Sounds creepy, I know, but I was actually thinking about what to say or what to do next. Hell, I’d finally made some progress by agreeing to come to dinner with my college friends after a long absence. At this point, I was thinking it was now or never. I was most likely never going to come out with my friends again after this. So I got up from the table and went outside, took out my phone and texted Paula to come meet me outside because I had to talk to her.

            My heart was pumping rapidly in my chest. It really felt like one of those moments where my heart was about through burst right through. She texts back saying she’ll be right out. Now my heart races even more. This was it, no turning back. When she exits the front door and approaches me, I get to explaining my 18-month absence. I tell her how I felt bummed out when I found out she was talking to a guy in our third year and then to another guy during our graduation. Simply put, I was jealous. I said something along the lines of, “I know it’s been over a year and I owe you an explanation for disappearing. Truth is I really like you.” Understandably, she is stunned for a moment. But she is quick to respond with, “Oh, I see. But are you okay if we continued being friends?”

            See, that’s the thing. I don’t know what I was expecting. Real life isn’t a television drama where a guy tells a girl he likes her after ghosting her for over a year and the girl tells him she feels the same. No, it doesn’t work like that. So that was her answer. She didn’t feel towards me the way I felt towards her. I answered her by saying, “Of course, I disappeared for over a year, didn’t I?” It was a lie. Perhaps it was my way of saying, “Yeah, I’ll be your friend but just don’t expect to see me as usual.” At that moment, Mel, Val and Nora come out from the bar. Mel and Paula go to the bathroom while Val and Nora stay with me. Val asks me what happened and I tell her everything. She apologizes for having invited me out, not knowing this would’ve happened. It wasn’t her fault. No one would’ve known. Turns out Paula told Mel in the bathroom that I’d confessed to her but she really didn’t feel anything towards me. Like I said, real life isn’t a TV drama. She wasn’t in the bathroom saying, “I told him I wanted to be friends but I actually feel something more.”

            So maybe part of me hoped that she would reciprocate the feelings I had for her. But another part of me also knew to expect the other answer. This wasn’t the ideal world and I did disappear on her for 18 months. The fact that she even responded the way she did was more than I deserved, I suppose. But referring to my previous entry, I think I made my self-exile from my group of friends official that night. While I did say I was content to remain friends, I’ve turned down any further invitations from Mel. But Mel and Val were courteous to say that if I ever needed anything, if I needed someone to talk to, I could always give them a call.

            I’m just glad I got my feelings about Paula off my chest. Finally, I was able to erase one of those “what-ifs” from my life. And while it took 18 months, at least I was able to confess the feelings I had for her. Regardless of the outcome, I’m just satisfied I gathered the guts to take action. If I didn’t say something that night, heaven knows I would’ve taken it all the way to my grave. For so long, I wondered if she felt the same about me. It was a question that bothered me every night. I used to think about the day she came up to me after our graduation ceremony and told me about how she stopped talking to a photographer due to incompatibility. My counselor told me this maybe was a sign of her possibly showing interest in me. But being me, I never pursued the matter and let it sit for almost two years. Now, this conflict is finally resolved and I can finally put it behind me.      

            So yeah, I took a step I never thought I’d take. And while the results weren’t exactly what I’d hoped for, at least I got some form of closure. As cliché as this may sound, I can finally move on with my life. From staying at a job for six months to confessing feelings, you really don’t know what to expect from life. But it’s the little things that make you want to keep going; the little surprises that make you smile and appreciate the quality of being alive. The year 2020 has shown me that things can get really rough. But what truly matters is how you respond to it. If you get beaten down to your knees, do you stay down? Or do you get up and fight back? I should be the last person saying this, given that I chose to stay at Siam Fighting for six months, but I have to keep on fighting by unleashing the best version of myself at Bovine. This is how I fight the adversity that is 2020. As for love? I think I’ll give it a rest. I won’t go actively searching for it but if it’s close by, then perhaps I’ll give it a shot.  

Letter IV: June 2, 2022

Hello again, I’m back. We’re far from over, dear reader. After all, the only certain thing in life is that nothing is certain. And the only constant is change. So here I am once again. It’s crazy to believe that since my very first entry, it’s been close to four years. Now I’m 27 years old and getting closer to 30. It all feels so surreal now that I’m actually living it out. But that’s life for you… or for me, I guess.

For the Money

In my previous entry, I started working at my current place of employment on September 16, 2020. As am writing this, I have been working there for 1 year and 9 months. In the three jobs I’ve worked since graduating college, I can now say this is the place where I’ve worked the longest. Yay! Initially, I was paid the same monthly salary as my two previous places of employment. Honestly, I didn’t really care I was grateful that I had a place to work after leaving my old job on bad terms.

But then a year passed, I eventually gleaned new knowledge regarding from my new job. Before long, I finally had a clear purpose. That also meant doing more work. Of course, doing more work, I was expecting a bump up in my pay. One year after I started, my monthly salary stayed the same so I kept waiting. Until February 2022 came along. My boss, the son of the company owner, asks me one morning what my current salary was. I told him and he is surprised at the amount I am making. Let’s just say it is less than what he was expecting to hear. He goes on to tell me that he’ll make sure it goes up. And wouldn’t you know it, I find that on my next paycheck that my salary has skyrocketed by a substantial amount! Hey, I’m very grateful for this pay raise and I make sure to give my 100% at work every day.

I’m going to get into why I’m bringing up the topic of pay up. When I first started working at my current company, I was taken under the wing of some people who had started there a year before me. They were experienced in sales work and were workaholics to an extent. Anyway, I remember a conversation they had with me about how the company had so much potential and that the owner was a swell guy who was worth working for. The latter part I can confidently affirm. But one of them also goes on about how he’s never in it for the pay and goes on to bash people who come into work to collect paychecks. Back then, I paid it no heed. Fastforward to now, I do take some issue with what he said.

I call bullshit on him saying that he’s not working for the money. I don’t know the exact amount he was or is making but I’m certain that he gets paid more than twice the amount I make per month. So with that said, he’s more than financially stable to provide for himself and his family. But I want to draw up a hypothetical situation. Let’s say the company had to cut costs and everyone’s salary had to be halved, hypothetically, including his. Would he still have the same mindset? Would he still say he doesn’t do it for the money? I highly doubt it. What I’m highly confident about is that I come to work every day to get paid. Every payment period, I’m expecting to see a new amount in my bank account. Hate me if you want, but what I do, I do it for the money. Yes, I’m just here to collect a paycheck but I also make sure I do my best at work.

Back in the Game (Briefly)

Near the end of 2021, I decided to get back into the dating game again. After the bittersweet conclusion to the Paula saga back in July 2020, I took some time off to heal from some shall we say… emotional wounds. All it took was an Instagram advertisement from the MMA gym with whom I had a membership to get me off the bench. As it turned out, a staff member from the aforementioned gym was used as a model in the ad and I found myself attracted.

So I reached out to the gym’s manager, who I was already acquainted with, and asked for details. It was a sort of like me asking, “Could you introduce us?” So she acquiesced to my request and I visited the gym in November 2021 to meet this girl. One thing that immediately stands out to me is that she’s way taller than me. I’m 165 centimeters (5’5”) while this girl towers over me at approximately 175 centimeters (5’9”). As if the height difference wasn’t enough, she’s got all the makings of a magazine cover girl. Aesthetically, this girl is way out of my league. But for some reason, my self-confidence is unusually high and I’m determined to get her to like me. Looking back, I laugh at that version of myself.

I remember the first two times we met, I went to go see her two days in a row on the weekend. It was a total of 15 hours that I spent with her at the gym. In retrospect, I may have come off as a bit of a creep. Granted, I hadn’t hit on anyone for over 9 years by then. She was really nice to me in all the time we spent together. Although this may have been because I was a customer of the gym and she was an employee, it’s difficult to determine.

Both my self-esteem and anxiety were tested when it came to our texting exchanges, which were few and far between. I’ll put it this way: if I sent three texts, she would reply with one. And while I would reply to her in less than a minute, she would take up to 7 hours to respond to me. Needless to say, it really messed with my mind.

Still, I was determined to go on a date with her. And eventually, I scored a first date with her early in December. We went to grab some coffee on her day off from work. Much to my chagrin, we mostly conversed about work and the date lasted an underwhelming one hour. Nevertheless, I scheduled a second date with her for Christmas. I won’t say it was a disaster but like the first date, it failed to live up to my expectations. The date lasted only an hour; she had another scheduled appointment. I found out later that she’d made that appointment after agreeing to have dinner with me. I suppose she wanted to keep the second date short. It doesn’t matter. Over the course of the dinner, she dropped a bombshell: she wasn’t looking for a committed relationship any time soon. This was when I decided we simply weren’t meant to be. And that was when I decided to end our correspondence in terms of pursuing a relationship.

During the New Year’s holiday, I was noticeably miserable and my dad decides to give me a pep talk of sorts. At the time I didn’t pay attention to it but I remember hearing ‘King Solomon’ and ‘this too shall pass’. So later, I googled those things and found an old fable. Anyway, I came to realize that any situation, be it good or bad, can't last forever. And it was what gave me the strength to move on from my failed attempt at a new relationship. Since then, I like to think that I live by the words ‘this too shall pass’.

As I’m writing this, it would be the last time I ever saw her in person. There’s no hard feelings between us and it’s just a case of two people wanting different things. She occasionally texts me about my wellbeing and asks me when I’ll return to the gym.

Still at the start of 2022, my sister implored me to give dating apps a try once more. I’d experimented with them back in early 2020 but ended up getting ghosted by a girl whom I’d matched with. Still, I figured it wouldn’t hurt trying again. My cousin who’d been visiting from the US had also told me two simple words: “Have fun.” So I scrolled through a list of profiles and tapped whichever one stuck out to me. After several days, I received a reply, a match.

This girl was a senior in college who was still going to classes online. I’m surprised by her fondness of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture in our first conversation. After just one day of talking on the app, she suggests we start texting each other. I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl so talkative about a wide variety of topics. We could talk about history, architecture and even sports. At that point, I thought there was so much potential with her. She was super friendly in our conversations, asking me about my day and sending me pictures about what she was having for lunch and dinner. It seemed as though the pieces would fall into place.

But then, life had to throw me another curveball. And this was one I was least expecting. First, the year before, she had contracted the COVID virus that had crippled the world beginning in 2020. So naturally, since she’d gotten better, I assumed she’d gotten her vaccinations. This was where things got weird. She told me she hadn’t gotten her shots. I asked her why, silently assuming she had an underlying condition that prevented her from getting the jab. What she said next would leave me speechless. She had refused to get vaccinated after seeing her friends suffer from hair loss after getting their jabs. Yeah, that was her reasoning. I understand now that vaccinations are a personal choice and everyone has their own right on whether to get vaccinated or not.

And so I realized that she probably was not the girl for me, despite her overwhelming friendliness and our mutual interests. She seemed to check nearly all the boxes. Nearly. Just when I thought things were going so well…

We continued to text although I was no longer entertaining the thought of pursuing a relationship with her. About a month in, she asks me how I feel about her. Honestly, I wasn’t sure mostly because we hadn’t met in person. And that was on me because I wasn’t willing to meet her unless she got vaccinated. So I told her I couldn’t give her an answer. She then tells me I shouldn’t like her because someone else has already told her that they liked her. At that moment, I feel like I’ve been freed. Then I tell her to go with it and we stop texting.

She did text me again once asking how I was doing a little over a month ago. She seemed to be doing well with the guy she’s going out with. I told her that I thought there was some potential between the two of us, although she said that I was difficult to get through to; as if I’d built a wall around myself. Perhaps that’s the case with me. And all I can say to that is that maybe I haven’t found the right person willing to spend time to break down that wall around me.

Either way, despite how things ended with both girls, I’m glad they happened the way they did. Because the experiences have helped me grow emotionally. And as the old fable says, ‘this too shall pass’. And hopefully one day, I find that girl because I now realize that, while I cherish the single solitary life, I also yearn for love.

Letter V: August 13, 2023

So it’s been over a year since Part IV and so many things have happened since then, both bad and good. While I was pretty good at my initial job at Bovine Beverage, I admit that sometimes it got a little too much for me to handle. My original department supervised over 200 staff members who worked in the field and it was my job to submit their requests to enter online data regarding partner stores yada-yada. But yeah, sometimes it got a bit overwhelming. So in April 2022, my family goes on a long holiday to Hawaii. I’d never been there my entire life and this was my first time travelling overseas since COVID hit. Nevertheless, I was in paradise once we landed. I’d never felt happier, enjoying every moment I was in the Rainbow State. But of course, it all had to come to an end.

But I was a different person once we landed in Bangkok. For some reason, I’d developed an extreme irrational fear of COVID. I don’t know why but for some reason, I was afraid to catch it. While other people were wearing just face masks, I was wearing a face mask and a face shield. Looking back, it was definitely overkill and I was definitely paranoid. Perhaps I was scared because the greatest fear of them all is the fear of the unknown. And at the time, I didn’t know what it was like to get COVID. My colleagues were also aware of my ever-growing paranoia and while they joked about it, they were also kind enough to ease my fears at the same time. If someone in our department had so much as a cough or sore throat, they’d keep their distance from me. Nevertheless, I continued doing my work in my department up until November 2022. By then, I had been considering resigning from Bovine and exploring other options. But the problem was… I didn’t have any other options yet. I honestly just planned on quitting and taking an extended break.

But then, one of the company executives informs me that I’m being transferred to a new department. To this day, I have no clue what it does but from what I can gather, it was basically a centralized department where all the subdepartments of the sales channels in the company meet. I regret saying yes at her proposition. But it wasn’t like I could decline either. About less than two months in, one of the younger guys working in the department takes me aside and lets me help him work on a more digital-based project instead. It has to do with enhancing the B2B aspect of the company. He believes it’s better than having me sit for the entire office day in long-ass meetings. And at first, it seems to go well. My job mainly consists of approving artwork and captions that will be published on texting apps. Truth be told, I’m working close to 15 minutes a day. And before I know it, I’m one step closer to becoming the thing I swore not to become: a nepo baby who only got the job because of his father’s connections.

At that same time, my mind is strolling down a rather dark path. Perhaps it’s the long time I’ve spent at Bovine Beverages finally wearing down on me. Not only do I talk about offing myself to my family, but I also entertain the idea of erasing certain individuals at the office. Sometimes, I feel so angry that I want to act out on certain people at the office who I perceive to be bullies, regardless of whether or not they have families to support. Doesn’t matter to me, I just wanted to know what it felt like to take a life. And it might as well be a life I deemed worthless. So many thoughts swirled in my mind: from detonating an explosive on the top floor (where all the executives worked) to using a firearm on all floors of the office building. I was in a very dark and twisted place in my mind. It was a combination of lacking direction and the imbalance of chemicals in my brain that perhaps causes this. That was when my dad and sister intervened. They had me go see a psychologist who, after hearing what I had to say, put me on a good old dose of Lexapro. I can say I’ve been feeling much better since then and those thoughts are locked away.

So my birthday rolls around and my friends from college, especially Mel and Val, are very eager to host a dinner for me. So I got Val to schedule a date one week after my actual birthday at a nearby Western restaurant and the guest list includes my sister, Mel, Flora, Val, and Madison. My friends gift me with a custom t-shirt consisting of pictures of me and my Labrador, which I really loved. But I was starting to feel a little strange that night. A sore throat was flaring up but I chalked it up to the McDonald’s french fries I had for lunch. I went to bed that night, expecting to wake up feeling a little better. Instead, I woke up feeling a lot worse. My head and body were aching, my throat wasn’t feeling any better. At first, due to the dark clouds outside, I thought it was a result of the drastic weather change. So I rest on the living room couch and try sleep it off. An hour later, I don’t feel any better. So something tells me to go to my room and take an ATK test. I do a saliva test to make absolutely sure. In less than 5 minutes, I am absolutely shocked when I see two lines appear, indicating a positive COVID test. For over two years, I had evaded the virus but it had finally caught up with me. Game over.

I call my sister to let her know I had caught COVID. She sends me all the proper medication and tells me to isolate for 5 days. Bless her soul. I also key in my sick leave days at the office because of this. But much to my dismay, my requests for a sick leave are disapproved. When I call HR for an explanation, it turns out that the company had a new policy where you needed a doctor’s note for COVID to get approved for sick leave. When I tried telling them that I had all the necessary medication and seeing a doctor would not be necessary, they shot me down and said I needed a note no matter what. I was fuming at that point but had no choice. So I took a motorbike taxi to a nearby clinic to procure a note to finally get those damn sick days approved. I felt bad for exposing those motorbike taxis to the virus.

Afterwards, I lay in my bed still angry with HR. I had so many bad words swirling in my head. Eventually, I got my laptop and opened Adobe Illustrator. From there, I got to designing a t-shirt that basically cursed HR. The funny part? That t-shirt actually got made. Along with 9 other t-shirts. So that turned out to be a productive session where I designed 10 custom t-shirts for myself. The reason I mention this incident is because it was the beginning of my inspiration of starting a clothing line.

When my isolation ended and I returned to work, I had a new perspective. I was no longer paranoid and I was more lively. I found myself starting the podcast I’d long talked about wanting to start since 2020. For a long time, I pondered what my podcast would be about. But the answer was right in front of me. My passion was and had always been combat sports. So I started a podcast about combat sports. Using the smartphone my dad had gotten for my birthday, a pair of discount headphones, and a tripod I found in the street market, I’d built myself my first podcast setup. And on June 17, 2023, I recorded the first episode to my podcast. A second episode followed the next day. Since then, I’ve upgraded my setup with a new microphone.

But there were still issues at work. From 15 minutes of work a day, I felt that it had gone down to 5 minutes a day. There were many instances where I was sleeping at the office. Like I said, I’d become the very thing I hated: the nepo kid who got in because of his dad’s good graces. With the podcast, at least I was able to fill my free time editing videos. Also, with the clothing venture, I could experiment with different designs and colors. But then, the company issued another policy. No outside work was to be done on company property. This was when I made what will soon be a life-changing decision. Near the end of July 2023, I approached the head of the sales department and asked him the steps I needed to take if I wanted to resign. I told him I was ready to leave and commit to my podcast on a fulltime basis. If I had to choose between the podcast or my 9-to-5, I would choose the podcast. And I would make sure that I would expand my content so that I could continue to draw in more audiences. Before I knew it, I’d filled out the resignation forms and I’m due to come in for my last day of work on August 28, 2023.

One day, out of the blue, I decided to invite my friends over to my renovated home for dinner. I wanted them to see my new place and to meet my dog. Of the four people invited, three accepted the invitation: Mel, Val, and Paula. Flora already had a prior engagement. Deep down, I wanted to meet Paula again after not seeing her for three years. Paula said in the group chat that she would probably be late. So I meet up with Mel and Val first and we have dinner at my house. This is where the fun begins. It turns out that both Mel and Val are no longer as close to Paula as they were before. “It’s not that I hate her,” Val said, “It’s that I’m disappointed in her.” When I ask her to elaborate, it turns out that Paula had some difficulty finding a job to her liking after getting her master’s in the UK. So she asked Val to refer her to Val’s new workplace. When the place offered her the same salary as Val, Paula asked Val to get the company to bump the number up. It took a while but I assumed they got the number to Paula’s liking. But then Paula wasn’t happy with the vacation days she got. Having worked in Thailand for 5 years now, I’ve learned not to expect many vacation days, especially in your first year. Paula still asked Val to ask her employers if there was any way they could increase the number of vacation days. When there was no way around it, Paula unashamedly asked Val to ask her employers that if she were to decline their offer, would they still make it available if she were to come back? The entire time, Paula was sweet-talking Val as if they were the best of friends. Now spoiler alert, Paula found another job that checked all her boxes. And afterward, she disappeared on both Val and Mel.

Now I’d long gotten over Paula in terms of love but I was curious and asked Mel about her status. Mel told me that Paula did in fact have a boyfriend. He was five years younger and was the son of a local politician in the eastern region of the country. The two had met while she was studying for her master’s in the UK. What’s crazier is that she started dating him two weeks after he’d broken up with his girlfriend, which makes me wonder how she’d had her eyes on him. Now, this next part I don’t know if Val said this just to get me riled up but she told me that some time after I confessed my feelings to Paula, Paula said to her that there was just no way she would’ve ever chosen me. Knowing her true nature now, I guess I dodged a bullet. And I hope she finds the happiness she’s looking for.

And I just want to say it again, the greatest fear of all is the fear of the unknown. I’m afraid of life after quitting my 9-to-5. Or rather, I’m afraid of what to expect. For five years, I’ve worked in the 9-to-5, clocking in at 9 AM and then clocking out at 6 PM. After August, it’s going to be a whole different world for me. I’ll be setting the rules and the work hours from now on. Truth be told, I never thought my dream of working as a YouTuber would come true. But to be fair, my channel has yet to become monetizable. But I do love what I do on YouTube, whether it’s the podcast or covering fight events on-site. It’s kind of like what I would’ve gotten to do at Siam Fighting but with my own rules and no boundaries holding back. So despite my fear, there is also a lot of excitement and I am looking forward to what comes next.

Stuck

I stop and realize I’m back where I was this entire time. Strange. After all those twists and turns, I figure I would’ve been somewhere else by now. Except… I don’t know where exactly. I just wasn’t expecting to be back at the same place.

So I start walking. No… I start running, hoping that the speed will carry me to someplace new. Hoping that I will get away from here. And as I close my eyes, I’m already picturing my new destination. Green grass and bright blue skies. No more will I have to deal with this darkness. The same darkness that has been dragging me down.

But my hopes are dashed when my open my eyes. It can’t be. The endless dark void greets me once more. How is this possible? Running this whole time… it was all for nothing? A fruitless attempt at escape. Yet, there is more to my shortcomings.

The walls start closing in around me. And despite my best attempts to push them back, their crushing force is simply too much. I can no longer fully extend my arms in any direction. The rumbling comes again and, this time, the ceiling bears down towards me as try in vain to push it back up. It is no use. It is time I call these five walls home. I sit down in this new space, resigning myself to my fate.

No matter how far or how fast I run, I end up in the same place: the dark, endless void. And eventually, it becomes a prison that will not allow me to go anywhere. I cannot escape. I am stuck.

Starting Over, Time and Time Again

Perhaps one of my all-time favorite films is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The cinematography, the writing, Peter Jackson’s ability to bring Tolkien’s books to the big screen… nothing will ever compare in this lifetime. But the older I get, the more certain quotes stick out to me. “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.” More recently, I’ve been asking myself this very same question.

Job 1: Relaxing in Retail

Though I haven’t reached the age of 30, I’ve fallen over more times than I can count. Whether if it’s in my personal or professional life. Or maybe perhaps both aspects of my life are intertwined. After all, setbacks at work can eventually have an effect on my personal life. In the span of 4 years since graduating college, I’ve already worked at 3 companies. My first job after college was in the online content department of a retail company. In all due honesty, it was a rather comfortable job and I have nothing but good things to say. The hours were fair, the commute was easy, and the workload was decent. Still, I was at a stage of my life where I wanted to work in a field that I was actually passionate about. That’s when I heard about a certain sporting event company that was always looking to hire.

Job 2: Crawling Away from Combat Sports

You see, for as long as I can remember, I always loved combat sports. And this company seemed to check all the boxes (at the time). I thought that working there would be my dream job and I could see myself working there for many years to come. My job would be to help bolster the company’s visibility to a more global level, which meant helping manage the social media platforms. So after 14 months with my first company, I finally set out to start a new journey with the sporting event company. However, in less than two weeks, my vision of this being the company of dreams were crushed. Aside from the long commute, the people there were high on the toxicity spectrum. Then there were expectations that we had to hand in million-dollar work while working on a hundred-dollar budget, so to speak. Any proposals my colleagues and I had were brushed aside without so much of a second thought. And within two months, I felt the shitty work environment begin to take its toll on my mental health. The bad people were only getting worse and the job I was promised was not at all what it was. Basically, I was a glorified web page administrator. I couldn’t believe I took a paycut to work in what I thought would be my dream job. Instead, it was a con to work for a company that would never grow. Three months in, my morale was completely drained. I regretted my decision of leaving my first job and felt that I would’ve better off staying there. The work was tiring me out so much that, already an introvert, I began going out to see friends even less. After six months, I felt completely defeated. That was until my dad offered me a job through his friend. I finally had an out.

Job 3: Food & Beverage Burns Me Out

Of course, I took the offer immediately. But then I realized there would be lot of picking up of broken pieces to be done. Ultimately, I’d have to start from scratch. It was a food and beverage company. I honestly didn’t know the first thing about that. But I’d already taken the job; there was no backing out now. I remember completely fucking up my job interview with the then-head of marketing; I suppose that’s why I’m not working in that department. Nevertheless, I was in a new company. It was a fresh start. I started getting better again. I would go out to see friends and catch up on things now that I was in a better headspace. Before I knew it, I was learning new things and was making myself useful to a certain extent. For a time, I felt that this new company was the perfect balance between my first company and second company. After I surpassed the 14-month mark, I began to think that maybe this could be the job for me. But then things aren’t always as they seem.

When I entered 2022, I was also given a raise. But what that entailed was a bit more work. You see, in my department, we oversee over 250 people who work in the field. And let me tell you something, each of these 250 people can sometimes be a pain in the ass to deal with. And after nearly two years of dealing with said people, I began to realize how soul-sucking my job was. I suppose in exchange for greater pay, I was giving away bits of my soul. Even on Saturdays, I felt like I was a doctor who was on call whenever these field guys came calling. And I started to wonder, “Where the fuck did my weekend go?” The cycle was once again repeating itself. When I did have free time on the weekends, I’d be clueless as to watch on Netflix, Disney, or Prime. I’d forget what my favorite channels on YouTube were. This was how much my work was once again beginning to affect me. And so when I reached the two-year anniversary of my third job, I’ve begun contemplating what to do next. Finishing out 2022 is certain. But I’m not so keen about sticking around for 2023.

Final Thoughts

Leaving will most definitely mean having start all over again. I’m quite sure that even if I go to another company that I perceive as being “better”, I’ll probably end up getting stuck in the same vicious cycle where I get drained of my morale and my soul gets sucked out of me. Lately, I’ve been thinking about doing something on my own. A podcast? A YouTube channel? A little bit of both? Honestly, I don’t have much confidence on those endeavors succeeding but I do feel like I need a long break from routine office work. As long as I have yet to discover my passion, I think I need to get away from office work and try some things out. And though I have to start over again, I don’t think I’m in a rush.

I Will Never Forgive

There’s a saying by Mahatma Gandhi that goes, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” Gandhi, you were wise and inspirational and all that but… forget you! How can you call people unwilling to forgive others weak?! Sorry, I’m stepping out of line here but I think this saying is a little unwarranted. Forgive and forget. That’s usually how it goes. But it can be difficult for some people to do so, myself included. Sometimes I can forgive but I won’t forget. Then there’s those times where I just can’t bring myself to forgive. Today, I talk about one individual in particular: HR guy.

I’ll be referencing my time at my second place of employment a lot here. Because it was a living nightmare the entire time I worked there. And why was it a nightmare? The people, of course! There were a lot of things they did and said that were enough to make me want to commit homicide. For example, talking about my father! So how does leaving a little mess in the office have anything to do with my father?! I remember the HR guy crossing his arms and saying to my face, “Don’t let your actions reflect poorly on your father.” We had just known each other for less than a week. And he has the audacity to talk to a stranger about their parent! To me, he crossed a line. Punching him in the face wearing brass knuckles and stomping him on the head would’ve been better than what he deserved. That day, he revealed to me what a sorry, pathetic excuse of a pile of shit he was.

Then there was his abuse of authority. His constant need to intimidate every employee in the office. People were basically reluctant to take leave days, thanks to this motherfucker. I remember a story from a younger colleague where she was scheduled to take a leave day due to family matters. As luck would have it, a number of people would be gone on that particular day, including me. I was the first one to hand in my leave day form and she was the second. She also made sure to inform the others in the office that she would be away that day. But HR guy calls her to his office and rips into her, complaining so many people were taking leave days. They were within their rights! Then he was talking about how he also had to go to a parent-teacher conference that same day. I honestly don’t see how that concerns anyone else at the office. You see, this piece of shit fucks off whenever he pleases but makes a big deal whenever someone else wants to take a vacation day. He is by far the biggest workplace hypocrite I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.

I suppose I took issue with him and his brother-in-law owner having us to come into the office during the early phases of the pandemic. Now, we were talking pre-testing and pre-vaccines. Everyone was essentially vulnerable. Sure, a majority of the employees lived within walking distance of the office. But then there were a select few who lived far away and had to rely on public transportation to commute to work. Didn’t matter, we were required to come to work as usual. I recall an incident where my colleague discovered that her boyfriend’s grandfather had been infected. I don’t know how the interactions but ultimately, she was forced to quarantine at home at the request of HR guy himself. After about a week, HR guy tears into her for not coming to work. Excuse me? You were the one who insisted on the quarantine and for your information, she has been working from home to the best of her abilities. On the other hand, you’re HR in name only. You possess no skills of an office worker whatsoever. The only reason you work here is because, well… the company owner fucked your sister! So for him to call out people for “not doing work”, it’s kind of ironic. In the meantime, the others are struggling to meet deadlines. As far as I’m concerned, he’s getting paid to do nothing.

All that being said, I was relieved when I handed in my resignation after six months with the company. While I told him I was leaving due to health concerns, deep down he was part of the reason. As I sat in the office listening to his “advice” about taking care of myself, I could only think, “I hope for my sake and yours that I never see you ever again.”

And I mean this because if I ever see him again, I don’t think I can guarantee his safety. I’m not talking about challenging him to a fist fight. It’s going to be on sight; it may probably even be an ambush if the opportunity presents itself. When it all comes down, it’s not about being fair or honorable. If I’m pissed enough, I’ll resort to whatever means necessary, even if most people consider it dirty. So if I could sucker-punch, curb-stomp, soccer-kick, or eye-gouge him, believe me when I say I’d be more than happy. I also wouldn’t rule the use of weapons. I used to like switchblades but lately, I’ve had a thing for boxcutters.

So in conclusion, I will never forgive HR guy for what he put me through during my six months working at my previous company. Sure, I can also place some of the blame on his brother-in-law but the guy’s not as big of a cunt (it’s a debatable point). But the things he did and said to me are beyond forgivable and given the chance, nothing would satisfy me more than to inflict pain upon him.

An Open Letter to Myself, Pt. IV

Hello again, I’m back. We’re far from over, dear reader. After all, the only certain thing in life is that nothing is certain. And the only constant is change. So here I am once again. It’s crazy to believe that since my very first entry, it’s been close to four years. Now I’m 27 years old and getting closer to 30. It all feels so surreal now that I’m actually living it out. But that’s life for you… or for me, I guess.

For the Money

In my previous entry, I started working at my current place of employment on September 16, 2020. As am writing this, I have been working there for 1 year and 9 months. In the three jobs I’ve worked since graduating college, I can now say this is the place where I’ve worked the longest. Yay! Initially, I was paid the same monthly salary as my two previous places of employment. Honestly, I didn’t really care I was grateful that I had a place to work after leaving my old job on bad terms.

But then a year passed, I eventually gleaned new knowledge regarding from my new job. Before long, I finally had a clear purpose. That also meant doing more work. Of course, doing more work, I was expecting a bump up in my pay. One year after I started, my monthly salary stayed the same so I kept waiting. Until February 2022 came along. My boss, son of the company owner, asks me one morning what my current salary was. I told him and he is surprised at the amount I am making. Let’s just say it is less than what he was expecting to hear. He goes on to tell me that he’ll make sure it goes up. And wouldn’t you know it, I find that on my next paycheck that my salary has skyrocketed by a substantial amount! Hey, I’m very grateful for this pay raise and I make sure to give my 100% at work every day.

I’m going to get into why I’m bringing up the topic of pay up. When I first started working at my current company, I was taken under the wing of some people who had started there a year before me. They were experienced in sales work and were workaholics to an extent. Anyway, I remember a conversation they had with me about how the company had so much potential and that the owner was a swell guy who was worth working for. The latter part I can confidently affirm. But one of them also goes on about how he’s never in it for the pay and goes on to bash people who come into work to collect paychecks. Back then, I paid it no heed. Fastforward to now, I take some issue with what he said.

I call bullshit on him saying that he’s not working for the money. I don’t know the exact amount he was or is making but I’m certain that he gets paid more than twice the amount I make per month. So with that said, he’s more than financially stable to provide for himself and his family. But I want to draw up a hypothetical situation. Let’s say the company had to cut costs and everyone’s salary had to be halved, including his. Would he still have the same mindset? Would he still say he doesn’t do it for the money? I highly doubt it. What I’m highly confident about is that I come to work every day to get paid. Every payment period, I’m expecting to see a new amount in my bank account. Hate me if you want, but what I do, I do it for the money. Yes, I’m just here to collect a paycheck but I also make sure I do my best at work.

Back in the Game (Briefly)

Near the end of 2021, I decided to get back into the dating game again. After the bittersweet conclusion to the Palita saga back in July 2020, I took some time off to heal from some shall we say… emotional wounds. All it took was Instagram advertisement from the MMA gym with whom I had a membership to get me off the bench. As it turned out, a staff member from the aforementioned gym was used as a model in the ad and I found myself attracted.

So I reached out to the gym’s manager, who I was already acquainted with, and asked for details. It was a sort of like me asking, “Could you introduce us?” So she acquiesced to my request and I visited the gym in November 2021 to meet this girl. One thing that immediately stands out to me is that she’s way taller than me. I’m 165 centimeters (5’5”) while this girl towers over me at approximately 175 centimeters (5’9”). As if the height difference wasn’t enough, she’s got all the makings of a magazine cover girl. Aesthetically, this girl is way out of my league. But for some reason, my self-confidence is unusually high and I’m determined to get her to like me. Looking back, I laugh at that version of myself.

I remember the first two times we met, I went to go see her two days in a row on the weekend. It was a total of 15 hours that I spent with her at the gym. In retrospect, I may have come off as a bit of a creep. Granted, I hadn’t hit on anyone for over 9 years by then. She was really nice to me in all the time we spent together. Although this may have been because I was a customer of the gym and she was an employee, it’s difficult to determine.

Both my self-esteem and anxiety were tested when it came to our texting exchanges, which were few and far between. I’ll put it this way: if I sent three texts, she would reply with one. And while I would reply to her in less than a minute, she would take up to 7 hours to respond to me. Needless to say, it really messed with my mind.

Still, I was determined to go on a date with her. And eventually, I scored a first date with her early in December. We went to grab some coffee on her day off from work. Much to my chagrin, we mostly conversed about work and the date lasted an underwhelming one hour. Nevertheless, I scheduled a second date with her for Christmas. I won’t say it was a disaster but like the first date, it failed to live up to my expectations. The date lasted only an hour; she had another scheduled appointment. I found out later that she’d made that appointment after agreeing to have dinner with me. I suppose she wanted to keep the second date short. It doesn’t matter. Over the course of the dinner, she dropped a bombshell: she wasn’t looking for a committed relationship any time soon. This was when I decided we simply weren’t meant to be. And that was when I decided to end our correspondence in terms of pursuing a relationship.

During the New Year’s holiday, I was noticeably miserable and my dad decides to give me a pep talk of sorts. At the time I didn’t pay attention to it but I remember hearing ‘King Solomon’ and ‘this too shall pass’. So later, I googled those two things and found an old fable. Anyway, I came to realize that any situation, be it good or bad, can't last forever. And it was what gave me the strength to move on from my failed attempt at a new relationship. Since then, I like to think that I live by the words ‘this too shall pass’.

As I’m writing this, it would be the last time I ever saw her in person. There’s no hard feelings between us and it’s just a case of two people wanting different things. She occasionally texts me about my wellbeing and asks when I’ll return to the gym.

Still at the start of 2022, my sister implored me to give dating apps a try once more. I’d experimented with them back in early 2020 but ended up getting ghosted by a girl I’d matched with. Still, I figured it wouldn’t hurt trying again. My cousin who’d been visiting from the US had also told me two simple words: “Have fun.” So I scrolled through a list of profiles and tapped whichever one stuck out to me. After several days, I received a reply, a match.

This girl was a senior in college who was still going to classes via Zoom. I’m surprised by her fondness of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture in our first conversation. After just one day of talking on the app, she suggests we change to talking on LINE (Thailand’s equivalent of WhatsApp). I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl so talkative about a wide variety of topics. We could talk about history, architecture and even sports. At that point, I thought there was so much potential with her. She was super friendly in our conversations, asking me about my day and sending me pictures about what she was having for lunch and dinner. It seemed as though the pieces would fall into place.

But then, life had to throw me another curveball. And this was one I was least expecting. First, the year before, she had contracted the virus that had crippled the world beginning in 2020. So naturally, since she’d gotten better, I assumed she’d gotten her vaccinations. This was where things got weird. She told me she hadn’t gotten her shots. I asked her why, silently assuming she had an underlying condition that prevented her from getting the jab. What she said next would leave me speechless. She had refused to get vaccinated after seeing her friends suffer from hair loss after getting their jabs. Yeah, that was her reasoning.

And so I realized that she probably was not the girl for me, despite her overwhelming friendliness and our mutual interests. She seemed to check nearly all the boxes. Nearly. Just when I thought things were going well…

We continued to text although I was no longer entertaining the thought of pursuing a relationship with her. About a month in, she asks me how I feel about her. Honestly, I wasn’t sure mostly because we hadn’t met in person. And that was on me because I wasn’t willing to meet her unless she got vaccinated. So I told her I couldn’t give her an answer. She then tells me I shouldn’t like her because someone else has already told her that they liked her. At that moment, I feel like I’ve been freed. Then I tell her to go with it and we stop texting.

She did text me again once asking how I was doing a little over a month ago. She seemed to be doing well with the guy she’s going out with. I told her that I thought there was some potential between the two of us, although she said that I was difficult to get through to; as if I’d built a wall around myself. Perhaps that’s the case with me. And all I can say to that is that maybe I haven’t found the right person willing to spend time to break down that wall around me.

Either way, despite how things ended with both girls, I’m glad they happened the way they did. Because the experiences have helped me grow emotionally. And as the old fable said, ‘this too shall pass’. And hopefully one day, I find that girl because I now realize that, while I cherish the single solitary life, I also yearn for love.

Reminisce: The High School Years, Hong Kong

I like to reflect upon my time abroad, both in the United States and Hong Kong. High school was definitely a memorable period in my life and it was made all the more unforgettable due the fact it was spent overseas. In 2009, I began my freshman year of high school in the United States. In 2012, I moved to a new school in Hong Kong and graduated in 2014. In my late 20’s, it’s nice to occasionally reminisce about my teenage years. More specifically, it’s nice to be reminded about Hong Kong, a place that I hold dear to my heart.

Harrow Hong Kong

I moved to Hong Kong in September 2012, where I was to begin my studies at the newly opened Harrow International School Hong Kong. I would part of the first graduating class. Boarding school as usual, though it would be much closer to home. During breaks, it would only be a two-hour flight. To me, it was an improvement from the 22 total hours of flight time between New York and Bangkok.

As we leave the city and head out for the school, I notice that the campus is unusually far out. I’d never heard of the New Territories of Hong Kong, let alone Tuen Mun. But these would become names I would eventually come to memorize. It’s almost 45 minutes before the taxi cab finally arrives at the school. The campus is surprisingly an amazing sight to behold. Unlike my previous school, it’s got a modern look to it. But then again, it had just completed construction. I’m even more impressed when we get to the residential halls. Airconditioned rooms! To say the least, it was a stark contrast to what I had in the United States: two people per room, no airconditioning, and communal bathrooms. I would’ve happily called my new living quarters a five-star hotel. I suppose those were the benefits of being a senior.

In short, high school in Hong Kong got off to a good start. I was taking four AS classes that year: Math, Further Math, Economics, and Physics. Looking back, I had absolutely no business taking Physics. I enjoyed Economics the most because the teacher was a fun guy. In reality, I was a subpar student in the British curriculum. Coming from the US, I hadn’t even been an AP student. So when I came into British system in Hong Kong, it was the equivalent of getting thrown to the sharks. I’m not proud of my academics in high school but they did not influence who I’ve become, so I can look past them all.

The Chloe Chronicles

Now, my favorite topic: love life. At that point, at just 17 years old, I had given up on relationships. Here’s the thing, I was a loner and an introvert. How could I have possibly thought I would get a girlfriend with my demeanor and attitude, right? I was, however, proven wrong during senior orientation. Now, aside from my dorm neighbor Clarence, I had also befriended two of my Economics classmates: Crystal and Kristy. They were actually a trio that was complete with another girl Chloe. At the orientation, Chloe seemed to take an interest in me. Or rather, she was extra friendly with me. I took this well and from that day on, Clarence and I became friends with the CCK trio.

Over the weeks, Chloe and I grew closer, despite not being in any of each other’s classes. However, I like to think Clarence and I were close with CCK. Eventually, on November 2012, Chloe invited all of us to her birthday party. To me, it was great not only because I would be attending a social gathering but also because I would be leaving the dorm. Unfortunately, I never made it to the party due to a medical mishap. An epileptic seizure forced me to spend the night at a nearby hospital for observation.

When I woke up the next morning, apart from a phone call from Clarence checking on me, the first message I got was from Chloe. She asked what happened and how I was feeling. I hope she was genuinely worried for me at the time. At the time, it really felt like she was. And seeing those messages made me smile. I know I was caught in what may have been a life-threatening situation but the concern she showed afterwards really warmed my heart.

Despite missing the party, I was discharged in time to catch up with the crew at a shopping mall. There, I got to talking about my fondness for dogs with Chloe. She revealed that she too was a dog lover and owned one as well. I then talked about how I lost my dog a few years prior. That was when she pulled a move I didn’t quite expect. She pulled me in for a consoling hug. Unsure of what to do, I decided to reciprocate the gesture and wrapped my arms around her as well. Not going to lie, I really felt my heartbeat pick up the pace in that moment. I will never know for sure but I often pinpoint this moment as when I developed feelings beyond friendship toward her.

In the following days, Chloe and I continued to frequently converse through WhatsApp. In all my life, I don’t think I’ve texted someone so often before or since. I was beginning to reevaluate my friendship with her. By now, I was slowly realizing that I liked her. At dinner, I made it a point to sit directly across from her so I could look at her. And afterwards, we would walk together and talk until we had to go up to our dorms for roll call. The entire time, I had no idea what she was thinking.

Things began to unravel one Wednesday night. It was November 21, 2012, the entire dorm was watching “The Other Guys” but I couldn’t be bothered to join. Instead, I was preoccupied with conversing with Chloe on WhatsApp. Things were going the usual direction until she sent me a hint in the form of Black Veil Brides’ “Rebel Love Song”. Being me, I didn’t get this first hint. And we continued conversing. Then she texted a set of words that caught me off guard, “I want to know how you feel about me.” I was dumbstruck, speechless. This was a situation I’d never been in. At first, I tell her that I’d been having feelings beyond friendship toward her. She responds with not wanting to be friends anymore. This is when I start to freak out. In a panic, I sought out help from my other dorm neighbor Ilkay. He calmly instructs me on how to respond and well… Chloe and I became official that night. Thanks, Ilkay.

After a little more texting, we started a phone call that lasted late into the night. Again, I’d never talked on the phone this long before or since. The curse was finally broken. Having thought I would be single for the rest of my life, I had finally changed my destiny. Was I overjoyed? Absolutely. I was over the moon. I was finally being appreciated as more than a friend.

It took some time for me to adjust to this new arrangement but, eventually, I grew into our new relationship. But if I could mark a turning point in our relationship, it would have to be December 1, 2012. I had left the dorm to spend the weekend afternoon with Chloe. It was a regular date consisting of lunch, a movie and then dinner. But it was what happened after that changed everything. Looking back, it sort of happened in synchronization. As I waited in line to get a taxi cab, we hugged before closing the distance between each other with a kiss. I was stunned once more but was struck by a jolt of joy. It was from then on that I became more confident in expressing myself. I began holding her hand in public with the utmost confidence, I would plant kisses on her cheek even when she didn’t ask me to, and we’d steal kisses in the various stairways of the school. Yeah, you could say the two of us were somewhat trigger-happy with our PDA. In retrospect, I sometimes cringe thinking about how we were both young and having fun. But I take back nothing.

Because after all, if it weren’t for Chloe, I probably would’ve remained a virgin until now. But she happened and life had plans for me. From my first kiss on December 1, 2012, life was going to make sure I’d lose my virginity to this girl, and she to me. At that point, we’d been dating for close to a year. We were in our final year of high school at Harrow and Chloe was celebrating her 18th birthday. Soon, she would be the legal age of consent and to celebrate this milestone, she opted to give me her virginity. On November 23, 2013, we purchased some contraceptives and booked a room at a love hotel for two hours. By now, you’re probably thinking, ‘Just like that? On her birthday?’ It’s crazy that it all happened so fast. Before we knew it, neither of us were no longer virgins.

But in retrospect, I don’t think I cherished my relationship with Chloe as much as I should have. There was so much more I could’ve done–so much more I could’ve said–but didn’t do. And just like that 19 months flew by and we were at the doorstep of graduation. I know I should’ve seen it coming but at the time I didn’t want to accept it. We were inevitably going to break up since she’d be attending college in Scotland while I’d be returning to Thailand. And as sad as it sounds, our relationship ended on rather bad terms. She pretty much told me we were over right before our graduation ceremony so the timing was less than ideal. What was meant to be a joyful day for me and my family pretty much went to hell.

Then there was the farewell party arranged by some staff where all the graduates (myself included) would attend. I don’t remember how long they’d planned it but I do recall I’d been looking forward to it before Chloe made our breakup official. So that night, I really wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. It was all made worse by the seating plan that had Chloe and I sit together. Then Mrs. Morris, our dean, had us take a photo together, probably assuming we were still dating. We were hesitant but went through with it. After the party, the whole class made plans to go out clubbing in Lan Kwai Fong, the party hub of Hong Kong, to finish out the night. Initially, I thought about going. But Chloe told it’d be better that I didn’t. And just like that, I turned away and headed straight back to my hotel while the others (including Chloe) headed for the lights of LKF. I was miserable the entire MTR (Hong Kong subway) ride back and slowly walked along the near-empty city street that led back to the hotel. The only word I could use to describe my feelings inside at the time is ‘empty’. That was it, the end of Chloe and me.

Comeback

For a time, after high school graduation, I did my best to avoid thinking about my time in Hong Kong. This was probably due to Chloe. After all, she played a big part in my experience over there. But after graduating in 2014, I would find myself returning to Hong Kong for the first time in early 2016. It was with two of my friends from college. At first, we only explored the metropolitan areas and shopping hubs; tourist attractions, if you will. But eventually, after running out of things to do, I decided to drop by at Harrow International School. While I didn’t necessarily love the place, a deep part of me missed it.

And one day, the three of us hopped in a cab and headed for Tuen Mun. Four hundred Hong Kong dollars of cab fare later, I found myself stumbling upon a familiar sight. After stepping through the gates, I got to see a number of my close friends once again. After over a year of dwelling on painful memories, I welcomed the pleasant company that I so missed after graduating from Harrow. And I was reminded that my time here wasn’t all bad. I visited the dorms, the dining hall and took a walk around the soccer field, seeing a number of familiar faces in the process. All in all, it felt good to be back.

That night, I decided to walk the same city streets that I took when I was turned away from the afterparty the night of my graduation. The experience itself was bittersweet but left a smile on my face. I then realized that perhaps reliving that painful experience was a good thing. Because then I could also find the good in things that I originally thought were all bad.

And since then, every time I’ve visited Hong Kong, I try and find a time to walk the streets at night simply doing nothing. Just because every once in a while, it’s good to reminisce on certain things. Even if they’ve long come to pass.

An Overdue Second Chance

November 4, 2021… that’s probably when I decided to give love a second try. Before then, I suppose I’d all but given up hope at a life with someone who meant… well, a girlfriend. But as they say, nothing is set in stone. Just when I’d resigned myself to my fate, a social media advertisement from the MMA gym with which I have a membership catches my eye. An exceptionally attractive young woman graces the poster and I am immediately captivated. Do I know her? No. But it occurs to me that I really want to know her.

I reach out to the gym’s sales rep/manager, with whom I’m already acquainted with. After some inquiries, I find out that the woman on the ad is actually the gym’s new receptionist. She’s fresh out of college and—best of all—single. Despite not having met her, I let it be known that I want to win the receptionist over. Yes, for the first time in seven years, I’m actually looking to pursue a relationship. But this time, I would have to take a different approach. Things wouldn’t be as easy as they were in high school. Still, I had moved on after a bittersweet rejection over a year ago.

It began when I started following her on Instagram. To say the least, she is a sight for sore eyes. Seeing her through photos, I’m all the more eager to meet her in person. Our correspondence actually began on October 29, with me reacting to her Instagram Stories and her replying with emojis. In the beginning, they were small exchanges. Then she finally sent me a text for the first time on November 12, asking if I would be coming to the gym next week, to which I say yes. My heart lights up with joy upon seeing her message to me, even though I know to not think too much of it. We converse for a few minutes before I end the conversation saying that I looked forward to meeting her.

November 20 - November 21: First Meeting

So November 20 arrives and I return to the gym. Upon seeing her in person for the first time, I am at a loss for words. She looks more beautiful than in her photos. And her smile… my, that smile sent a warmth channeling through my heart. That day, while I didn’t come in for a training session, I spent a total of 9 hours at the gym, most of which were at the reception talking to her as much as I could. I found out she was 23 years old, came from the Chiang Rai province up north, had a preference for coffee, and that her job at gym was her second job.

I returned the next day for a training session, briefly meeting her to pick up a locker key and dropping it off. That was the first half. She messaged me that afternoon asking me if I was mad at her. I was caught off-guard at this. What would make her think such a thing? I asked her why she would think that. When I got no response, I hailed a ride back to gym and ended up spending another 6 hours there, clearing the air between us. Looking back, maybe it was a little too much on my part. But I guess sometimes we do crazy things when we feel strange things for people.

November 26 - November 28: I Like You

The following week, I begin to grow nervous. After spending over a combined 15 hours at the gym just to spend time with her, was she beginning to think I was a weirdo? Was she annoyed by me? While we intermittently exchanged texts, I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that maybe I’d done something wrong. Things would come to a head on November 26, 2021.

After confirming my booking for a 10 AM session and her telling me that she was coming into work at 12 PM, I decided to put all my cards on the table. I asked her two questions:

1. Whether or not she had a boyfriend.

2. If I was allowed to hit on her.

I realize it was a bold move and I may have rushed it. After all, we’d only been seeing each other for a week. But given my previous experiences, I was afraid taking things slow—in my case, too slow—would lead to my opportunity slipping away. She would tell me she didn’t have a boyfriend but said didn’t know how to answer the second question. That was when a colleague of mine read our conversation and said, “You idiot! Put yourself in the girl’s situation. How do you think people would react if a girl said, ‘Yeah, you can hit on me.’?! And her answer to your first question should already have answered the second question!” That’s when I realized he was making a point.

Before I could respond to her, she asks me why I liked her. I sent a message telling her I had no clear answer for her question. The only thing I knew was that every time I heard her voice or saw her smile, my heart would feel so warm in a way that couldn’t be explained. That text went unread for 7 hours, the entire time I was nearly overcome with anxiety. I would awake during the middle of the night to find that she had read and responded to my message saying that she was feeling shy after reading my response. It was enough to make me go back to sleep smiling.

Ultimately, I had let her know that I really liked her and was interested in pursuing something more than friendship. So I go in the next day to train, although she’s not due to come in an hour after I finish. I finish up my jiu-jitsu training, take a shower, and wait an hour before she finally arrives. I can’t explain to you the feeling I have once she steps through those doors. Once she gets settled down, I proceed to send some flirtatious texts even though she’s sitting right across from me. Perhaps it’s my shyness that prevents me from saying things out loud in front of the other people in the room with us. But at least, I want to let her know that I’m for real. I say things like, “How can I see that beautiful smile when you’ve got that mask on?” and “I’m going to be real honest, so beautiful!” For the latter, she jokingly responds, “Who do you mean?” With a smile, I text back, “You, of course!” It really does make my day. Apart from that, she also voices her frustrations about the little problems that come with her job. I’m willing to listen and ready to give helpful insight.

As I’m on my ride back home, she later texts me, apologizing for venting out to me. I respond that it’s no problem and that I’m always ready to listen to her. She then continues by saying that she still doesn’t understand what I see in her, saying that we were both at different levels. At that moment, I immediately responded with, “I believe in attraction over levels.” That and how she made my time spent at the gym more enjoyable, as well as how I wanted to make every moment I spent with her worth cherishing. I suppose it’s enough to soothe her.

On Sunday, I decided to ask her about something that had been bugging me. “Have I ever made you feel uncomfortable?” I texted her. She said no and asked me why I would ever think that. I mentioned the first day we met, where I’d spent 9 hours pretty much standing with her almost the entire time. I then said that making her uncomfortable was the last thing I ever wanted. She assures me that she has never felt uncomfortable and so I’m relieved.

November 29: Anxiety & Heartache

I forgot how anxious I could be when someone I really cared about wouldn’t answer my texts for an extended period of time. I guess the last time I felt like this was around my freshman year of college, 7 years ago. It was the period after my breakup with my first and—to date—only girlfriend. When we first met, I knew she had a habit of not reading messages right away and sometimes not responding to messages after reading them. Yet, with all that in mind, it still felt awful when it happened to me. She texted me one Monday noon and we talked for only two minutes before she stopped responding after less than ten messages between us. Several hours later, even after my texts had appeared as ‘Read’, she still hadn’t responded. This was where the feeling of heartache began creeping in. I knew it was a habit of hers, yet I couldn’t get rid of the dreadful feeling in my heart. After nearly four hours, I would send her another text asking her about work. She responded and I sent her a message cheering her on. It was read but went unanswered for three hours. While she later texted me an apology, it took her an hour to reply to my response.

I guess I’m writing this to document how I feel about this girl who I’ve only met three times and have known for a month. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way about someone. For the first time in seven years, I truly want to experience love again. I know it won’t come easy and I’m going to have to work for it. The worst part of it is the heartache. Knowing the type of person I am, I’m bound to get hurt in several ways. I really don’t know how things will play out. But come hell or high water, I’m willing to go the distance and take my chances in hopes that maybe—just maybe—I can start a relationship with this wonderful receptionist.

December Onwards

I suppose the month of December is when more feelings of doubt begin creeping in. I begin to feel that maybe this this girl just isn’t meant for me. Maybe. I just had a strange feeling whenever I spoke to her. There were times where my texts would go unanswered, even answered, for days at a time. This did well to aggravate my anxiety. Was this some kind of test? Or did she simply not reciprocate my feelings towards her. I wasn’t sure yet.

Nevertheless, I was adamant on pursuing a relationship with her. I wanted to at least try to ask her out on a date. Hell, at that point in time, my last date was 9 years ago. So that was exactly what I did. We had a date scheduled for December 8, 2021. But a few days before we were supposed to meet, I began to feel a lot of self-doubt. How could I possibly think that I could end up in long-term relationship with this girl? So much doubt was gnawing at me that I was considering calling off the date or just going through with it and abruptly ending things. That was until a pep talk from my dad, of all people, instilled me with just enough confidence to give this thing some effort.

We finally met for coffee. She had an iced espresso while I had myself the usual americano. It was a rather quick date, lasting all of one hour. I had scheduled the date for her day off from work, yet it had been so short. And for most of our time in each other’s company, we mostly talked about work. Listen, I enjoyed spending time with her outside of the gym and work. But work hadn’t been the ideal topic of conversation. Honestly, I didn’t learn much about her after that first date. It was still enough for me to try and give it one more shot.

By then, I was living with the reality that I wasn’t the only fish in her pond. After all, a girl with her looks would certainly have a lot of eyes on her. This actually dealt a lot of damage to my morale and self-confidence, the latter of which was pretty low to begin with. But being already damaged, I decided to push ahead and try for a second date with her. I also knew by then that a long-term relationship probably wasn’t on the horizon. But I wanted to cherish my time with her as much as possible. So I chose a special day for our second meeting: Christmas. I asked her if she’d be available to meet me for dinner that day. She said if she could give me her answer later. I figured, “No problem.”

Before then, I traveled to Pattaya after receiving an invitation from the gym to attend a bare-knuckle fighting event they were co-hosting. Of course, she would also be there work as a staff member. It was also the reason why I chose to attend. That and the fact that I love combat sports, duh! And that was when I decided to ask her again, “Will you go to dinner with me this Christmas?” This time, she said yes. But not before mentioning that she’d asked for permission from the gym manager aka her superior. It was at this time I was getting a sense that something fishy was going on. Like maybe the manager was pulling this girl’s strings whenever I was around. Perhaps it was she who dictated her every move when I’d asked her out on her first, and now second date. By now, I should’ve probably seen the red flags. Maybe I did but chose to ignore them. What mattered to me was that she had agreed to dinner on Christmas with me.

Let’s just say there were a few hitches in the date. Traffic was bad, and this was considering the fact that we both took public transportation. I ended up barely arriving on time for the dinner reservation while she ended up arriving late. Either way, our dinner went rather smoothly. We wound up talking about other things that didn’t pertain to our work, which came as quite a relief on my side. But it was at dinner where I also learned something important about her: she had no plans about being in a committed relationship. And right then and there, all my hopes and dreams about this girl were dashed. She then told me she was on a tight schedule. As it turned out, she had another appointment after dinner. So our dinner was cut to just an hour. Come to find out later, she had made this appointment, after agreeing to coming to dinner with me.

And that was the last time I met up with her. Things were silent between us after Christmas and I only sent her a total of one text message on New Year’s Eve. It was during that time when I realized that perhaps she simply just wasn’t meant for me. In fact, both of us were simply not meant for each other. We both wanted different things in our lives and our lifestyles were completely contrasting. From the looks of it, I don’t think neither of us were willing to make any changes in order to accomodate each other, which was fine. After all, we are free to live our own lives. And so I decided to end my pursuit once and for all when 2022 began. No text was sent, no phone call was made… I just simply walked away and ended any correspondence between us.

Epilogue

Looking back on all that’s happened, it all came down to incompatibility. She was fond of the night life and was highly outgoing. On the other hand, I was introverted and had no business partying at night. It was a life that I had put behind me, mostly due to my underlying condition. Then there was the fact that I pushed too hard for something to happen between us. And it blew up in my face. She simply wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. I could understand that; she was 23 at the time and wanted to enjoy her own life. We couldn’t give each other what we were looking for. After all I’ve been through in a span of just over one month, there’s no hard feelings and I wish her only the best in life. I hope that she finds what she’s looking for.

But whatever the case, I’m glad I decided to try my hand in pursuing love once again after several years of standing on the sidelines. After all, it had done me no good of playing the role of bystander. Standing idle and waiting for something magical to happen wasn’t the best idea. And when I decided to make my move on the receptionist girl, I felt for the first time that maybe not all hope was lost. Sure, it didn’t play out the way I’d hoped. But it showed me that there was so much out there in the world waiting to be discovered, whether if it’s experiences or people. This ordeal has given me the strength to continue searching, no matter how long it takes. Because ultimately, we deserve the things we crave. And for me, I suppose it is love that I crave.

The Different Styles of Kickboxing

Where I’m from, Muay Thai is the national sport. It’s become so popular that people from all around the world have traveled to Thailand to learn the art and compete at a high level. But to most Thais, Muay Thai is synonymous to all forms of kickboxing, which isn’t the case.

First, what is Muay Thai? The Thai word muay literally means boxing or combat. And then of course, we have Thai. Put these two together, you get Thai boxing. Essentially, Muay Thai is Thailand’s form of boxing. Makes sense; in Europe and the US, you have Western boxing where all you use are your fists. But then what about the other forms of boxing?

One of the most internationally recognized forms of kickboxing is probably K-1 rules aka Dutch kickboxing. To Thai audiences, K-1 rules is basically Muay Thai minus the elbows and clinching. The casual Muay Thai fan in Thailand would say these rules were designed to put Thai fighters at a disadvantage. Again, this isn’t true. The K-1 rules are a combination of karate, boxing and Muay Thai. Personally, I prefer K-1 rules over Muay Thai. Saying this in Thailand as a Thai national would be martial arts blasphemy.

But then there are the national kickboxing styles Thailand’s neighboring countries: Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. So let’s get started, shall we?

1. Kun Khmer (Cambodia)

When I worked at Thai Fight, I noticed that aside from Thais, a large portion of the Facebook following consisted of Cambodian nationals. Now, this may be due to the fact that the company held an event in Cambodia back in 2017, raising awareness of the organization in the country. Since the company’s founding in 2010, a handful of Cambodian fighters have also competed at Thai Fight. All of them come from a Kun Khmer background. On the surface, Kun Khmer is almost identical to Muay Thai. Traditional fights last five rounds, each round spanning three minutes. I’ve watched several Kun Khmer fights on YouTube and have noticed one striking difference from Muay Thai: there’s not much of a feeling out process in the early rounds. Also, while fighters still kick, they tend to rely more on elbow strikes. In Muay Thai, the use of elbows is usually dependent on a fighter’s style. But Kun Khmer is an elbow-heavy martial art. Next to that, you have the background music. While the instruments and tempo is relatively similar to Muay Thai’s sarama, Kun Khmer’s vung phleng pradall emphasizes it’s own oboe called the sralai. There’s an ongoing rivalry between Muay Thai and Kun Khmer, where Muay Thai fighters go over to Cambodia to compete and Kun Khmer fighters come over to Thailand to showcase their skills. All in all, it doesn’t take much for a Muay Thai fighter to adapt to Kun Khmer rules just as it doesn’t take much for a Kun Khmer to adapt to Muay Thai rules.

1. Muay Lao (Laos)

At first glance, Muay Lao is very much the same as Muay Thai. Perhaps the only difference is the background music. Relative to Muay Thai, the music of Muay Lao is rather lively. However, Muay Lao isn’t as popular in Laos as Kun Khmer is in Cambodia or Muay Thai is in Thailand. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Muay Lao fighters get paid marginally less than Muay Thai fighters, making it impossible for Muay Lao to be a full-time profession. Competitions are few and far between, usually held at the semi-professional level. To put it lightly, it’s not as big a national pastime. But there have been a handful of Laotian nationals who’ve come over to test their skills in Muay Thai competitions in Thailand, experiencing mixed results.

1. Lethwei (Myanmar)

And last but not least, we have perhaps the biggest and baddest of them all: Lethwei. Instead of gloves, fighters don gauze wrappings, essentially competing bare-knuckle. Headbutts are permitted, making this the Art of 9 Limbs. Perhaps my most favorite aspect of Lethwei, however, is the fact that the only way you can win is to knock your opponent out. If both fighters remain standing after 5 rounds, the fight is automatically ruled a draw. This is what makes Lethwei such a brutal sport and the perfect embodiment of hand-to-hand combat. I’m no historian but I would assume that at one point in time, all the ASEAN forms of kickboxing were interchangeable with Lethwei. Many Burmese Lethwei fighters are known for their chin and their ability to withstand punishment. I feel that it’s what separates them from the other kickboxers in Southeast Asia. They are true warriors. Many fighters from neighboring countries have gone over to Myanmar to try their hand in Lethwei, with many being unable to withstand the punishment of the sport and getting knocked out before 5 rounds have elapsed. Still, I applaud any fighter who dares to dip their toes in the deep waters of Lethwei.

So there you have, it the styles of kickboxing in Southeast Asia. While Muay Thai is in my heart, I do have a soft spot for Lethwei. Which one do you like?

Walking Away From ONE Championship

Since the beginning of 2019, I was a huge fan of ONE Championship. “What is ONE Championship?” some of you might ask. Well, think UFC but marketed mainly towards a Southeast Asian audience. I preferred ONE over the UFC due their promoting of traditional martial arts values: honor, humility, respect, integrity etc. That and their lack of trash-talking to promote fights. For the past two years, I backed the organization every way I could. I bought every piece of ONE merchandise (clothing, accessories etc.) that caught my eye, liked every ONE social media post, and never missed ONE Championship event broadcast. The third part was probably a ritual I stuck to and was very proud of at the time. It was true… from February 2019 up until the date I'm writing this, I’d never missed a live broadcast of a ONE event. In fact, I saw my first ONE live event on August 16, 2019: ONE: Dreams of Gold. Were it not for COVID-19, I suppose the organization would’ve continued hosting events throughout the ASEAN region and I would’ve tried to catch another event or two in Thailand.

Horrible Judging

But since the beginning of September, I feel that I can no longer support ONE Championship the way I have for the past two years. They have messed up too many times. And I am done trying stand up for their mistakes as a fan. While the signs were there from the very beginning, things came to a head for me only this year. In combat sports, it’s not surprising when judges get the scoring wrong. But in the case of ONE Championship, it happens too often. And I’m talking blatant judging errors in which fighters who obviously won the fight ended up getting robbed. So far in 2021, I’ve personally witnessed 3 judging screw-ups in ONE events.

This is a huge number in mixed martial arts organization standards. And it’s not a good look for ONE Championship. Sure, ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong has publicly stated he would schedule a rematch for one of those fights. But nothing’s actually come to fruition. In any case, there’s just too much botched judging that ruins the reputation and credibility of the self-proclaimed “Home of Martial Arts”.

I decided to end my loyalty when a fighter representing a gym that the company I worked at sponsored was robbed of a victory in a tournament match. Considering the fight had high stakes, it was only fair that her fight was reviewed. This had happened before. Famed kickboxer Giorgio Petrosyan had a split decision loss overturned to a no-contest before getting a rematch in the semifinals of a ONE kickboxing tournament back in 2019. However, this fighter would not get the desired result when she filed her appeal and the loss stuck. That was the day I lost faith in ONE Championship.

Fighter Favoritism

In the first year I became a ONE Championship fan, I noticed that the organization promoted only a handful of fighters. And yes, these fighters happened to be the world champions. In the beginning, these fighters appeared dominant and unstoppable. I wondered to myself, “Why aren’t these guys getting more recognition?” Then in 2020, these champions lost their titles and looked like mere mortals. Looking back to their fights prior to their title losses, they had been fighting journeymen or opponents past their primes. Eventually, these fighters were destined to lose.

But there are still some of these fighters who are still world champions. One of them happens to hold the title in which the tournament was being held for. Initially, the champion was supposed to face the fighter from gym being sponsored by my place of employment. But then she was sidelined by a–get this–pregnancy. So the title fight was off and a Grand Prix tournament was held in place to determine a number-one contender. Were this any other fighter, one of two things would have happened:

1. The champion would’ve been stripped of the title. The title would be contested for by the number-one and number-two contenders.

2. The number-one and number-two contenders in the division would fight for an interim title while the champion went through the pregnancy. The interim champion would then face the main champion for undisputed status.

   But this never happened. And we’ll never know the real reason why. But I would safely assume that ONE Championship is protecting the world champion for as long as possible. As for the pregnancy… let’s just say it came at a convenient time.

Another thing that sticks out to me is that the aforementioned world champion, as well as her younger brother, have spent their entire MMA careers fighting in ONE Championship. It makes me wonder how they would fare in other promotions and if what sort of treatment they would receive. At first, I didn’t mind that there was a degree of bias for certain fighters. But once got to a point where the bias affected the outcome of a high-stakes fight, I decided to turn my back on the promotion I had once been loyal to.

Lack of Respect and Integrity

Despite being relatively unknown in the mainstream MMA community, ONE Championship has really imprinted on its fanbase with its preaching of the martial values: honor, humility, respect, and integrity. For the entire time the organization has been in its existence, these values have been ONE’s selling point. But through the marketing and PR, I’ve come to see that they don’t practice what they preach. ONE does not respect its fighters. Professional fighters need to fight more than once a year–at least 2 to 3 times–in order to make a healthy income. In ONE Championship, the average fighter usually fights once a year. I’ve actually seen some fighters go 2-3 years without a fight. It’s insane!

And of course, ONE Championship lacks integrity. In the three years I’ve spent watching every ONE event, there has been the sketchy fight where I thought the decision should’ve gone the other way. Looking back, it was a blatant robbery on ONE’s part. One of the rules in the organization that annoys me the most are that, “there are no draws in ONE Championship”. In combat sports, especially in MMA or kickboxing, a draw is bound to happen. So every time I hear them announce a split decision or majority decision, the fight should have actually ended in a draw. And one fighter is about to get robbed of a potential victory.

Final Thoughts

I feel that three years has been a long time of being a loyal fan of ONE Championship but I believe that now is the best time to walk away from ONE. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop watching their shows. Every now and then, you could catch a good MMA fight, Muay Thai fight or kickboxing match on ONE Championship. As a whole, however, I can no longer support the organization. There are better promotions to watch: UFC, Bellator, ACA, AMC Fight Nights, M-1 Global, BKFC, BKB, Glory, K-1, RISE… the list goes on! Perhaps I was looking at this the wrong way. Maybe I should just enjoy the fights and not dedicate myself to one promotion.

And so now I’ve decided to not exclusively follow one fixed promotion but instead watch fights from any organization that I can access. Given that I love all sorts of combat sports–MMA, kickboxing, Muay Thai, bare-knuckle boxing–there’s a plethora of promotions and events at the tip of my fingers, thanks to my subscriptions to UFC Fight Pass and FITE TV. Hell, there’s thousands of free fights on YouTube too. In the end, walking away from ONE Championship isn’t the end of the world. Rather, it’s the start of a new chapter for me.