#reason

In September 2013, I met a boy called Budi (not his real name). He told me he was 22 but he was probably about 20. I don't know why people here lie about their age so often but I didn't care anyway. We went for a few meals together. He was very cute and sweet. I know boys probably don't like to be called cute but he was really cute. He had a baby face. The problem is he personality was kind of like a baby too.

Once, when we met for dinner he told me that his mother was sick and seemed very worried about her. He was confused and didn't know what to do. His family is from Gresik which is the next city from Surabaya (it would take him less than an hour to get to his parent's house). I told him that if his mother was unwell, all he could really do was to go home to see her. He seemed so worried that he was almost crying but for some reason he wasn't convinced that he should go home. I started to think something must be seriously wrong with his mother. Turns out she had a cold.

Soon after we met, Budi enrolled in a course at the language school I teach in. It felt a little awkward to me at the time but I had no choice in it. Luckily, I didn't have to teach his class. As we were getting to know each other, I saw Budi more and more like someone I wouldn't date seriously. He seemed to see things differently and I remember once returning to my motorbike after work to find a rose and a letter from him. By October, we weren't talking. I didn't want to give him the wrong idea and felt that a friendship wasn't possible at that time. 

One night after work, Budi came up to me in the parking lot. He told me that I looked like Avril Lavigne. I thanked him (guessing that it was supposed to be a compliment), put on my helmet and sat down on my motorbike. He went on to say that whenever he watched Avril Lavigne videos he thought of me and he felt sad.  I thought he was joking at first but his face looked the same way it looked when his mother had a cold. I don't really know how to deal with a guy crying (especially for no reason) and I panicked. In my panic, I quickly said "don't watch Avril Lavigne videos if it makes you sad" and drove off. Am I heartless?

Many months later, when Budi understood things better and he was no longer a student at our school, we became friends again. During this time I discovered another issue with Budi. He was also not particularly smart.  He was taking an engineering degree at the time and seemed to know that stuff quite well. Anything outside of that, he seemed completely unaware of. 

Around the time of the presidential election in 2014 Budi was at my house. He asked me which candidate I preferred and I told him I liked Jokowi. He seemed quite angry at my choice and yelled "Jokowi is a bad man!". At that time in my life, I enjoyed talking about politics A LOT so I asked Budi why he thought Jokowi was so bad. 
Again he said "Jokowi is a bad man!". 
"What do you think is so bad about him?" I asked. 
"F*** Jokowi!" he answered.
"Ok, well why is Prabowo better?"
"Prabowo is a good man, Jokowi is a bad man" he explained. 
"Why do you think that? Did your mum tell you to say that? What's the reason?" I asked.
"Prabowo is a very good man." 
"But why? Do you have any reason for your opinion?" I asked getting a little frustrated.
Budi went on to tell me a long story about engineering in Indonesia. It didn't make any sense whatsoever and had no relation to the presidential election or either candidate.
"What are you trying to say?" I asked.
"Jokowi is not going to do anything for engineers!" he replied.
"Do you really think that is the number one concern for Indonesia right now?" I asked.
I guess my question was too difficult because Budi responded by taking a tissue and flinging it at the map of Indonesia on my wall and shouting "Jokowi is a bad man!".

By that point, I was done with the conversation.
"Okay... So, if you're going to throw things around my room, I think it's time for you to leave." I told him. He agreed and walked out of my room. 
I decided to be a bit of a smart ass as I remembered I had a T-shirt with a picture of Jokowi on it. I put on the T-shirt.

Budi was sitting outside on my sofa smoking a cigarette. We have two sofas by our front door. I sat on the sofa opposite him. 
"Come and sit next to me" Budi said. 
"Uh, no thanks" I answered "I wouldn't want to get cigarette smoke on this beautiful T-shirt."
He responded to this by flipping me off. 

Several days later, he messaged me to apologise for what happened. I noticed that his profile picture was of Hitler and questioned it. How he explained it was so incredibly stupid that I will just post the whole conversation here:

I couldn't think of any "#reason" to reply to this so I let it go and realised I'd rather find friends who can carry a reasonable conversation.

A little while after that he apologised again. He explained that he read an article about the good side of Hitler. He went on to say that he didn't care about the history of other countries anymore and that he wanted to stick to reading only "good news".

Thank you guys for continuing to read my blog. I am really enjoying writing out my experiences and also reading other people's opinions on the weird stuff that seems to happen here. See you again next Friday!