First Impressions Are Something But Not Everything
Before I met CS Lim, I would click naturally and immediately with the people that eventually became my close friends; our conversations, though the first, would feel familiar, comforting and engaging. Friendships bloom easily in such soil. He was the first amongst my friends to whom I took an instant and potent dislike to when we first met. We stayed in halls in our first year of university in England. I stayed in the block furthest away from the carpark; the best thing about it was the tennis courts were close by. His block was on the other side of the carpark; it was a three to four minute walk from mine. In our first week there, the tutors of the halls arranged an introductory session for the international students one evening. There were a few international students in our halls. I think there were about twenty of us – Singaporeans, Malaysians, Dutch, Africans, Greek and a couple of Norwegian beauties – in the room. When I arrived the room buzzed with light, polite chatter. Everybody was standing and chatting casually about except for a short, stocky, spectacled Chinese guy with a coconut haircut who was going about the room in an efficient manner. His voice rose above the common chatter. He would introduce himself, shake hands, ask a few perfunctory question, spend two or three minutes talking about himself before moving on to the next person. I disliked him the moment I saw him. There was a calculatedness, callousness and brusqueness about his manner that irked me. My impressions were confirmed when he finally came my way. I received the same treatment. In that, he was fair. He came, we met, and he left. If I didn’t like him when I saw him, I loathed him after I met him. Bloody kiasu and callous Singaporean, was my first impression of him. After that, I took care to avoid him. That, however, proved difficult since I sometimes sat with the other Malaysians and Singaporeans whom he joined. Although they were not fond of him, they tolerated him. At our lunch or dinner conversations, he frequently found opportunity to boast about his many and varied accomplishments, the money he spent, and the places he had been to. If you played the piano, he had three diplomas in music after completing his Grade 8, performed public piano recitals, and gave music lessons. If you were into martial arts, he had a black belt in Taekwondo. If you were doing a law degree, well, he was doing that on top of studying for his ACCA exams and trading commodities on the side. If you were rich, he was richer. Everything was competition to him. It was tedious. One lunch time, I erred in talking about tennis. I did not know he, too, loved playing tennis. When he heard that, he immediately demanded a game. “We have to play,” he declared. Since I fancied myself a decent player, having represented my secondary school for a few district tournaments, I thought I could beat him. So, I accepted the invitation. We agreed to play the next morning. It was a typical English morning when we met on the tennis court: overcast, cold, windy and a little wet after a light drizzle earlier that morning. I wore shorts with a shirt, sweater, a jacket because it was that cold and windy. CS Lim was wearing just a shorts and a short sleeved t-shirt. I would come to discover later that was his outfit whether it was the blaze of summer or the dead of winter. Our halls courts were tar courts; slippery when wet, rough when you fell down. I was not comfortable with the surface because the ball tended to slide. I was used to hardcourts and top spin. If he played flat shots, he would have destroyed me. Thankfully once we warmed up it was clear we had similar strokes – a versatile single backhand and a heavy top spin forehand. I thought I had an advantage with my height, reach and serve. The uppermost thought in my mind was that I was not going to lose to this bastard and would kill myself for every shot. I served first and won the first game easily. Back then, I had a big serve that could win my service games easily. I overwhelmed him in my first few service games. His serve was much better than I expected considering his height. Although it was not powerful, his serves were well-placed and quick. I was not troubled with it though. Once the game got going it was obvious we were baseline counterpunchers that only volleyed when forced to. As the set wore on, his service returns came back better and better. He adapted fast. I had no more easy games on my serve. He was returning them with interest. Each point quickly descended into furious rallies. Each point was hard fought; no quarter was expected or given; each shot was chased down and retrieved; neither of us dropped serve. Each set was close and a seeming Kinabalu to surmount. I don’t know when it happened. But somewhere towards the end of the set, we dropped the false friendly banter and stopped acknowledging each other’s impressively won point. To hell with all that! I was not going to lose to him and he had no plans to lose to me, either. Even when the drizzle turned to rain, we continued to slug it out. It did not occur to us to stop. We had seemingly endless rounds of game tie-breakers because neither relented. On we played; in chasing the ball, we slipped and fell, crashed into the fence on one side, slammed into wall on the other. A draw was not on the cards. At that moment, nothing else mattered except not losing. The battle of wills had us facing off with a set tie-breaker at 6-6. Finally, finally, I lost. I don’t remember how it
