I finished another book.
I have been struggling to finish reading anything for months, but I somehow went from Matcha on Monday straight into another book, and now I’m wondering if my reading slump is finally over. This time, I picked up We Are All Alone in This Anyway, a collection of 13 short stories, and my first reaction after reaching the last page was probably melancholic…
This is also my first stop in SEAblings, my little attempt to read at least one book from every Southeast Asian country. Since We Are All Alone in This Anyway is set in Singapore, I was especially curious about it because I’ve actually been to Singapore. Reading it gave me a different glimpse of the country – one that had very little to do with the Singapore I knew as a visitor and much more to do with the ordinary, complicated lives of the people who live and work there.
The Singapore in these stories felt very different from the Singapore I experienced during my trip. I know the city through the places I visited, the food I ate, the MRT rides, the shopping, and all the little things that made up my time there. But this book reminded me that behind the polished, efficient city is also a place where people are dealing with messy relationships, loneliness, family problems, work, money, and all the complicated things that come with simply being human.
And perhaps that’s exactly what made the book linger.
When fiction imitates life too closely
I’m so used to fiction giving me something good at the end. Even when a story puts its characters through terrible things, I would expect some kind of redemption. Someone gets a second chance, someone learns something, someone finally leaves, or at the very least, we get some sense that things might eventually be okay. This book didn’t always give me that.
There were 13 stories in the collection, and while they weren’t connected to each other, several of them made me genuinely irritated. Not sad. Irritated. It’s like I wanted to put my Kindle down and ask the characters why they were making things so much harder than they needed to be.
Take Debbie as an example. She was the passenger who accused a taxi driver of something he didn’t do. Wee Teck, the driver eventually finds out that she was in an abusive relationship and when he realizes what was happening, he tries to help her. My immediate reaction after what happened to him unfolded was, uncle, bakit mo pa tinulungan?! But then I remember that Debbie was around the same age as his daughter, and of course he couldn’t just watch someone who reminded him of his own child get hurt.
Then there was Mr Tay and it’s about a student and teacher whose relationship crosses a very serious line. The student even threatened to report him, which had me practically yelling at my Kindle, E DI I-REPORT MO! 😂 Of course, we can say that from the outside. The person actually living through the situation has to deal with fear, shame, attachment, and a power imbalance that makes the supposedly obvious choice much harder.
There was also Balut, which I found particularly disturbing because of how vulnerable Angela was and how badly the situation spiraled after the man she got involved with disappeared. And then there’s Meiyan in Land of a Thousand Smiles, who catches her husband cheating on her in their own bed and somehow ends up trying to win him back. At that point, my pol sci brain couldn’t just sit quietly and read, so naturally, I started Googling Singapore’s marital laws to figure out what legal options she might have. Hahaha.
I actually found myself doing this throughout the book. I would get frustrated with a character’s decision, then immediately start thinking about what their actual options were and why they weren’t taking them. Sometimes I understood their reasons, but that didn’t necessarily make me less annoyed.
Sometimes we know what to do
I think that’s one of the things the book made me notice about people. Most of the time we already know what’s the right thing to do. The difficult part is actually doing it when feelings get involved.
We can know that something is bad for us and still want it. We can know that someone is taking advantage of us and still make excuses for them. We can know that we should leave and still stay. We can know that we should speak up and still choose silence. It’s easy to judge someone when we’re sitting outside their situation. From where we’re standing, the answer can seem painfully obvious. But the person inside that situation doesn’t have the same distance we do and feelings have a way of making rational decisions much harder.
I also kept thinking about how kindness can become a vulnerability. Being willing to help someone means opening yourself up to whatever happens after, and sometimes people take advantage of the fact that you care. At the same time, I don’t think the book is saying that kindness is foolish. Wee Teck probably couldn’t have walked away from Debbie, even knowing that helping her might put him in danger, because sometimes you simply can’t watch another person get hurt and do nothing. And that’s frustrating too. Because doing the right thing doesn’t always give you the right outcome.
We Are All Alone in This Anyway
The title made me think about loneliness differently.
My first instinct was to disagree with it. We’re not really alone, are we? There are friends, family, colleagues, communities, professionals, and so many resources we can reach out to when life becomes too much.
But one of my friends, Aira said something that made me rethink that. She said that not being alone is a privilege, especially in a time when it’s difficult to know if you can actually trust the people around you. And she’s right.
Having people around you isn’t the same as having people you feel safe enough to ask for help. Someone can ask “Kumusta ka?” and you might not even know if they’re genuinely concerned or simply looking for something to talk about. When you’re already carrying something difficult, the possibility of being judged, mocked, misunderstood, or having your story turned into gossip can make you decide that maybe it’s safer to keep it to yourself.
So yes, there may be someone you can call. But can you trust them with the version of you that isn’t doing okay? Because that’s a different question, and a significant one, too. And I think that’s where the title started making sense to me. The characters aren’t necessarily surrounded by no one. Some of them are alone because the people around them aren’t necessarily people they can safely lean on. Sometimes being alone feels safer.
I’ve become more careful about who I let in
Maybe that’s also why I reacted so strongly to these stories.
I’ve been hurt by people I trusted. More than once, I’ve been disappointed by people I thought highly of and at some point I realized I couldn’t keep giving everyone the same level of access to me and then act surprised when someone mishandled it.
So yes, I’ve become more selective about my friends.
We joke that I only have about 15 friends now. 😂 And honestly, I’m okay with that. I don’t really go looking for people to add to my circle anymore. I let people show me who they are first. I watch how they treat other people. I pay attention to how they behave when they’re angry, disappointed, inconvenienced, or when they have nothing to gain from being kind. I don’t need someone to prove themselves through some grand gesture. I just watch what they consistently do. And when someone turns out to be okay, I slowly open the door.
I haven’t decided that people are terrible and that I don’t need anyone. I’ve simply accepted that trust is something people earn over time. Because really, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can trust people and get hurt, or you can refuse to trust anyone and end up lonely.
So I choose the people I spend my time with. I choose the people I ask for help. I choose the people who get to know the more vulnerable parts of me, and I wait for them to show me that they’re safe.
Maybe we’re not alone after all
Maybe that’s why, after finishing this book, I felt like the title is not necessarily true. What I think is that sometimes we fail each other.
There are people who will take advantage of kindness. There are people who will hurt us even when we trusted them. There are people who will disappoint us, and there are situations where we’ll make the wrong choice even when we know better.
But there are also people who will stay. People who will help without asking for anything in return. People who will keep your confidence. People who will tell you the truth without making you feel small. People who will show up when you finally decide that maybe you don’t have to carry everything by yourself.
The difficult part is finding them. And maybe that’s why I’m okay with having a very small circle. Even Jesus had twelve disciples, and one of them betrayed Him. 😂 So perhaps having a small circle isn’t really the point. The point is knowing who you’ve invited into it.
Reading We Are All Alone in This Anyway didn’t make me lose faith in people. If anything, it made me understand a little better why people become guarded, why some choose to suffer quietly, and why asking for help can be harder than it sounds. It also reminded me that being careful with people doesn’t mean closing the door forever. I can wait until someone shows me who they are, and when they do, I can open the door slowly.
Maybe we’re all alone in some ways. There are parts of our lives that nobody else can completely understand or carry for us. But I’d still rather believe that somewhere along the way, we’ll find a few people who make the weight a little easier to carry.
Maybe we’re not alone after all. Maybe we just have to be careful about who we choose to walk with.
