Part 2: Continuation of Previous Entry, But Contents Irrelevant to the Title

Main Label: Technology

~ The "Lost Contacts" in Time of "Technology Advancement" ~
What do I mean by that? Well, I believe that this is something that most people may experience as well in this era of "technology advancement"... If you scan through your contact list, you will realized that you have... erm... maybe about 200 over contacts? Wow... more than you have in your Facebook huh? But the question is, how many contact numbers will you call a day? How many will you need in a day? You get what I mean? Even though we had whole lot of friends' contact numbers in this era of "everyone has at least one cell phone", we could still "lost contact" with one another. There are a lot of "redundant" contacts in our contact list... but still we cannot delete them away. Simply because that would mean the total, really "lost contact" liao...

People will often be so busy / caught up with stuff surround their environment, such as family, work, colleagues, some friends, we tend to neglect some other friends, i.e. people who are not in your direct / close environments... I used to have my secondary school friends called me and asked me out. But because I got "other stuff" to take care of, I rejected them. And eventually, they stopped asking me out... I felt bad, I felt left out. But what can I do?? It is usually that the timing that does not match... People usually will organize event or outing during weekend. But people only got Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. And to me, I gotta work on Saturday too and most of my friends are in Singapore. This means that it made the meeting of friends even more difficult. That's why I will say, one Sunday per week is not enough for me... I want to meet many friends! Haha...

In the past, one thing that I tried to do to "maintain friendship" via sms was to send mass sms to everyone in my contact list occasionally. But having the kind of technology level that time, I had problem sending... It would be interrupted when someone replied to you immediately while you're still sending to the half of your contact list... This would mean that you have to resend again... Sometimes that message maybe corrupted and people may receive "Alien" language or like incomplete message. And when you resent it again... and again... it turned out to be annoying and the original purpose had defeated. Another point... when you tried to send seasonal well wishes "on time". For example, after countdown for Christmas, you might want to send "Merry Christmas" to all of your friends and that's the time you would realize all other people think the same as you. So everybody would send to everybody sms-es and eventually it congested the network... duh... sianz... So in order to avoid the busy hour, some people will send the message earlier.

All and all, mass sms turns out to be a very much troublesome thing to do... It may takes like 30 minutes or more to finish sending the message to everyone in your contact list... And of course, this would really cost a lot... 200 contacts will mean 200 sms like that leh... So... I gave up this habit. But the most disappointed reason for sending mass sms-es is when you receive a simple, 3-letter, rude-felt reply of "wru?" Grr... I really think that this is so rude lor...

You should have written politely like, "I'm sorry, I do not have this number of yours. May I know who is this? This is Wei Lieh / Adrian, the Creative Mind / JB Shaoyeah" something like that mah... or: "I lost my phone recently, so I don't have your number. May I know who is this?" "wru?" is way to "friendly" ya! Lost of cell phones are a common thing now. However, some replies were actually from absolute strangers! That makes you wonder... "How come my friend didn't update with me his/her new contact?" "Maybe he/she lost his/her phone and applied a new line?" "So all the while I have been keeping this stranger's mobile phone number?" "Damn! I should have deleted it away!" “早知道就把它洗掉！” "How long does this redundant number has been staying in my phone for nothing?"

And that leads to the ultimate doubts... "Do I have more such numbers in my phone?" "Wait a minute, is the Steven (just an illustrated name) in my contacts the Steven I know?" "If I call this number, looking for Minnie (another illustrated name), will I get a rude response of "WRONG NUMBER!" *Hanged off!* ?" "Do the numbers that I have really the phone numbers of people I know?" "This number didn't reply to me after I had sent a few sms-es, call also no answer, like didn't switch on like that... so should I delete it away?" And also, you don't know whether the other party has your latest phone number or not.

~ My Experiences with the "Constant Change of Phone Number" ~
In my case, my personal experiences, I also happened to change phone numbers quite often. And I realize that this is quite annoyed. There was this time I got a new Singapore prepaid line but not long after, I found out another way of saving $$$. So I gotta change another phone line. The story goes like this... Not long after I got my prepaid line. A friend of mine was subscribing a new line in order to get the phone he wanted. Because it was cheaper by purchasing the phone he wanted via a new line. At the same time, he would still wanna keep his existing contact number because it was still in contracts. So he was paying an additional phone bill monthly without actually using the new line. Since in such a condition, I "volunteered" / "proposed" to help to use his line instead. Of which, he agreed. To further assure him, I told him that if I used / spent more than he usually pays, I would pay him back the "over-use" amount. I only need the Singapore line when I am in Singapore, so the usage could hardly cross over the basic amount. And that's how I got my existing Singapore phone line number... However, after his contracts with this line is over, I think I gotta change phone number again... haha...

I was aware that it would be such a nuisance to give another update to people not long after I had just updated them my new line. So I thought that I would kind of "delay" this process later... Then there was this one friend I knew from church, erm... to make story easy to tell, and not to say anything bad about this person -- he had a little attitude problem or insecure in certain manner. He MSN-ed me about his new contacts and asked for mine. I told me I was about to change a new line, so I would give him my latest contact number after I got it. In my mind, this was not a top priority task to do now, because I was intending to delay this process too... So I went about doing other tasks and leaving this behind.

Like few weeks later, I still hadn't told everyone about my change of phone number except to a few who I usually or most-frequently would contact to. At that time, we "met" in MSN again, and this friend was asking me for my number again. I wasn't in good mood that time because of many stuff to deal with, I guessed my tone wasn't good too... I replied to him, "I still haven't got the time to do the update yet." In my mind, I was planning the update to be a mass one, of which is time-consuming. However I believed that he perceived the other way round... He was very much pissed off and got upset / angry with me. He said he would deleted my MSN account and we shall never talked again. And the last words he said was, "I deleted you in my MSN liao, bye!" I was shocked and there's nothing much I could do with an angry person. All I could reply to him was, "no matter what, I would not delete you from my MSN account." But everything was too late...

Although I expected that people could not understand the way I handled stuff or tasks at hand, especially in this case, I would still fail to anticipate the reaction of this friend. Well, I thought I could carry on with my story telling him the reasons behind all this, but before I could do that, he was already pissed off and thinking that I do not treasure this friendship with him. "How much time will it take just to give me your number?" He must be thinking in this way... But I was thinking of doing something like "once and for all" thing like that, i.e. to mass sms everybody...

But anyway... something about friendship... I am not standing here saying that I'm a prideful person who don't need friends! Anyone who would have known me inside out, deep-deeply understand me about my character and personality, would know that a friend like me, has no criteria in accepting friends... "All are welcome!" that's what I would say. And sometimes that's how... I got to know some weird people... Haha... Because of distance, time and situations, I may not be ready for you as a friend, I'm sorry about that. But when I am available, I will be my best to be there for you... Frankly speaking, about that friend of mine, I would say that he needs a friend like me more than I need a friend like him. He suffered "more lost" than I did. Well, my words could be cruel and sound prideful and ignorant. But of course it is not. If you still think in that way. All I can say is that, I'm sorry that my word can mislead you in that way...

So in the end... I didn't initiate to MSN him even when I saw him online... And in my impression, I think I e-mailed to everyone about my change of phone number instead of sms-es. Because, e-mailing is free of charge! Haha...

Come back to my story about me keep changing phone numbers. I do have people failed to contact me with my new line... And I got sms-ed friend via a number that was no longer valid as well... All of such leads to many misunderstanding and miscommunication... Felt bad... I do have a few stories regarding these misunderstanding and miscommunication. For example, there was once that my friend, Mini Minnie canceled a gathering and informed me via sms, and sms-ed to my old number. In the end, I met up with PeiO and only to realize that the rest of them not coming... So we ended up having our very private "dating" together. And later my sis also joined in! Haha...

Now really, my contact list must be in an absolute mess and confusion. And at the same time, people who had my contact number may not be the exact number that could reach me. :( And "no choice", gotta still keep every number inside my contact list...

Other than phone numbers, another similar case goes to the e-mail addresses too... Some people keep changing e-mail addresses without telling you. And some people after being told about change of e-mail address, forgot or lazy to update it. All and all, we do have some redundant e-mail contact list too... Last time I sent e-mailsss to people and if the addresses bounced back few times, then I would delete those contacts already...

Well... all and all, this is what I meant by "Lost Contacts in the Lost World of Technology Advancement". Was supposed to carry on with my CNY stories about the reunion with a close friend of mine, but ended up talking about this story of mobile phones and e-mails. Nevertheless, this phenomena played a part in the reunion story I am telling. But really nowadays, cell phones, e-mails and MSN play an interesting part in communication and people's network that seemed minimal and unimportant but still, it is the key to everybody's interesting stories... Many movies has already involved all this in their story plots and eventually became a common thing now in movies.

Dear all friends, I love you all. I'm sorry if you still keeping my redundant or outdated numbers. Please do not let this as a hindrance for our friendship. Even if my real numbers do not stay in your mobile phone memories, but please be told that you will still be part of my heart, spirit and memory. If you don't have my number, you can still reach me here in my blog, or MSN, or Facebook, or Friendster, or twitter... Ahaha...