Suprised?

I enjoy going to Friendster, Facebook and Multiply because in a way, I get a glimpse of other people’s lives. I especially love looking at the photos and the blog entries. I know it can easily be perceived as “nakiki-usyoso” (tama kaya yung term ko?) but my aim isn’t to gather info for the purposes of snooping around or for chismis. I just really find it fascinating to discover what has happened to the people I know. In a way, it makes me happy and proud when I see my friends become such accomplished people. I love seeing people get married and have families of their own, I love seeing pictures of where they’ve been, the people they’ve met and how much they’ve changed (or stayed the same) in all the years that have gone by.

I guess part of the fascination comes from remembering how they were back then and discovering who they are now. It just so typical for us to see others a certain way when we’re young and then we all grow up to be so different from that. I believe that we are, in most ways, the same people we were in grade school or high school but that we’ve learned so much more about others and ourselves since then. Our experiences have molded our personalities, attitude and outlook in life… some experiences have left us scarred while some have polished us to become better people. Some of us even grow up to be so different from how we were before!

Admit it, you have (in one way or another) formed an opinion about certain individuals. Even to the point of creating a mental picture of what you think they’ll be like a few years from now. Do people tend to turn out the way you expect them to? Or do people always surprise you? In my case, people always surprise me. The shy guy ends being the popular and outgoing person. The people who I thought would prefer to marry later in life actually end up marrying first (and vice versa). Look at me, I never thought I’d leave the country and I did. I never thought I’d actually take up a course with a lot of Math and analysis and yet that’s exactly what I did in college. Which leads me to wonder… did I live up to what others expected of me? I always wonder how others saw me when I was young and I always wonder if they are disappointed or just plain surprised at how I am now. Do they wonder if I am the same person they knew back then? Do they think I grew up beautiful or ugly? Do they look at my profile, my blog, and my photos and go… “ya, I thought so…” or do they go, “wow… I didn’t expect that…”?

Isn’t it interesting how we start off one way and end up seemingly different?