Genuine Happiness

When I thought about the idea of blogging, I told my boyfriend about it and he agreed it would be a good idea for me to start blogging over again. In the beginning, this blog was only meant to be about my overseas transition and the challenges I go through being in a foreign country. It all changed when I wrote a piece on interracial relationship titled ‘It’s not the Race, it’s the Attitude”. From there (mostly due to the comments), I started blogging more about my relationship and my opinions on matters of the heart (also due to the requests). I’m no expert but I do believe that a person’s experience should be shared as we all know that two stories are not the same, however it could be similar and perhaps something most people have also gone through – at least once – in their lifetime.

Most of my friends and even strangers I met through an interrelationship forum knew of my relationship – how I met my boyfriend and how it has now transformed into an undeviating relationship with me moving here and all that. Some friends have been truly happy with the outcome of my relationship after years of struggle.

However, there are people that love to rain on your parade especially when you’re in a very stable, happy relationship. Why is that? I have been hurt before (like many others) and I have lost interest in love (a couple of times) as well but at the time, whenever my friends shared with me about their happiness – I was always genuinely happy for them. Note that this happens when it comes to career, material things etc, not just relationships.

I had received remarks such as “oh you just wait and see, it’s not going to work out”, “he’s going to leave you for another woman” and such – seriously, was that necessary? If you can’t be happy for someone then that just tells me that there is something wrong with you – mentally and emotionally or as my late mother used to say “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. These remarks mostly came from women, in fact they never came from my guy-friends. So I wonder – is it just a women thing? Are women that competitive or bitter that they would rather see their own kind fail in their relationship?

I do believe that my close friends (very small amount of them) are genuinely happy for me – everything good that is happening in my life. If things turned bad, I know they’d feel bad and not think that I deserved it or that it was just bound to happen. I know for a fact that I won’t hear “I told you so!” from them. I know them well enough to know that they’d hurt as well, just like I would be hurt to see them unhappy.

Frankly speaking, I’m not bothered anymore by these remarks. Nevertheless, I thought it would be a good piece to blog about. One of the positive things I have learned since I got here is that I have grown to become immune to negative remarks from other people. It just doesn’t bother me anymore because for me, these negative people are just that – negative and bitter. I’m not even bothered by the stares from other women. They can’t find their own happiness thus they feel the only way to be happy is to rain on one’s parade. It does not make me angry, it just makes me feel very sad for them.

Have you ever come across these people in your life? How did you deal with them?