A lesson

Written 28 Sep on my phone and edited 7 Oct to post.

This week, I learnt a valuable lesson. 

Context first. I have a few good friends with whom I text regularly, usually over random and/or mundane stuff in our lives and news and funny stuff etc. These include tak glam pictures of ourselves coz funny or hey, look at my new black facial sheet mask!

One of these friends - let’s call him X - made a couple of WhatsApp stickers using my headshots. One was me in a period costume headdress as I was playing with an app - quite funny. One was a photo of me taken over tea one day - I purposely made a funny face. Ugly but I love that funny expression. Oh that's the current headshot on this blog :)

A few days ago, can’t remember what we were saying but he asked me to send him a new ugly photo to make into a sticker. I was like, you think I’m crazy? I left it at that. 

Yesterday, I was on my phone with my face mask on. X sent me a link to Instagram. I knew I would need glasses to read the text so I replied to say I couldn’t read coz no glasses. And I attached a photo of myself with face mask on, setting it to view once only so my ugly shot won’t be in cyberspace forever. 

But shortly, I found that photo in a sticker in a group chat among another good friend, X and me!

I messaged X directly to ask how come he could do that when I set it to view once. He said secret. Then I told him it was very mean of him to do that coz I meant to only say why I couldn’t wear glasses, not for him to make into a sticker. 

When he replied that it wasn’t clear, I stopped replying. How can it not be clear when I set it to view once??

I was very pissed with him. I questioned our friendship in my head:

• With a friend like this, who needs enemies?!
• Is he still a friend when he does such things? Depends - he has clearly taken it for granted that it’s ok to play tricks on good friends. I have three boys who think it’s ok to play tricks on each other but they are kids...
• Has he been a good friend otherwise? Yes. We supported each other through difficult times, and share a common interests.
• Is it worth ending a friendship over this? No, given the above. 

I also asked myself - what specifically was I angry about? Actually I’m happy enough with myself. See my blog headshot - I don’t mind looking ugly. But I mind when people take things out of context and without permission. That is not right. 

There was another photo incident with another good friend many years ago. Let’s call her Y. 

It was the time of film cameras so we didn’t get to preview photos and delete unwanted ones straightaway. One day, we placed her camera on timer mode to take a wefie. When the photos came back from the shop some days later, we found that the wefie showed a bit of my underwear as my shorts were opening towards the camera. 

Horrified, I asked Y to throw that away but she refused. I was upset with her. But we remained friends. 

Years on, I was at her place browsing old photos when I saw that photo again, this time pasted in a big album. Does that mean anyone browsing her albums can see me exposed?? I asked her to throw it away again but again, nope. Then at least please just cover it up. I “no eye see” already. We never spoke of that photo again. 

Not that I had forgotten about it. I once went round the table to take photos of my friends at a dinner gathering. Again it was a film camera. One shot came back exposing a friend as she was wearing a loose blouse and bending forward. I dumped that photo without hesitation and no one else set eyes on it. Coz I know what it’s like. Even if I did not have such an experience, I would have dumped it anyway coz it’s a mistake in the first place. 

Anyway, the lesson. Or lessons. 

Don’t trust technology to protect me 100%. 

More importantly, look after myself more. It’s also my fault to allow these to happen. I should have protected myself and check my attire before taking the wefie. I should not have itchy fingers - why did I send candid photos of myself to friends, view once or not?!

Recognise that anyone - family, good friends - can take me for granted. I find it hard to say “don’t trust anyone” coz how to live when there’s no trust? So I need to recognise this in order to own the responsibility to protect myself. Or maybe just "don’t take it for granted that people will be kind"...

Told JY about this without mentioning names and her response was that she couldn't imagine me scolding a friend. Guess that says something about me too. I must stand up for myself!

So anyway, I scolded X. He apologised.