Extremes

There is a peculiar thing that happens whenever you want to make amends for past mistakes done. Suddenly, you find yourself swinging to the other extreme.

If you had just broken up with a serious and melancholy partner, you would be on the hunt for someone who crack you up with jokes every other second and laugh at almost every word you say.

If you vomitted after stuffing yourself silly with your favourite dish - shark's fin soup - at someone's wedding dinner, you would swear off shark's fins for ever and ever, amen.

If you had lost a friend before you had a chance to say goodbye, you would want to get in touch with long-lost pals - even the ones who had hurt you so thoughtlessly before. For who knows, they may have changed.

Obviously (shark's fin aside), swinging from one extreme to another can be hazardous for your health - emotionally and mentally speaking. Some people are just not meant to be close to you - that's a fact of life. You can't, for the life of you, figure out why they act the way they do. You find it almost impossible to conduct a serious talk with them about the issues that bug you because they:

• Go on the defensive


• Start attacking you instead


• Pretend to be blur


• Wiggle their way out of the talk

So you do what you must. You accept the situation, be as civil as you can possibly be and part on the best of terms as it can possibly get. You forgive, you let go, you move on. And you have no regrets because you know you've tried your best in a friendship that was doomed from the start.

Days, weeks and months down the road, you hear of them again. Someone talking about being hurt by them the same way. And while you feel sad for them that they still have not changed for the better, you also feel thankful because you have made the choice to let go when you did.