Cogito ergo scribo

I did something today that was so not me.

I took the transport provided by the company today at 12.15pm out to lunch. All the colleagues in my department except one were on the same bus. There were about eight of them. When we reached the hawker center, i saw one of the colleagues pulling two tables together. I proceeded to buy the food and then hesitated if i should go sit with them.

As i've mentioned before, i have a bunch of "politely nice" colleagues. None of them has approached me for lunch except on my first day at work. So i've basically been lunching alone or with the consultant who's my ex-colleague.

It was the same today. They didn't ask me along to lunch either. I saw them gathering around the gate when waiting for the bus out to lunch, so i just walked over and attempted to strike up a conversation with one of them. I gave up after asking a few questions because all i got were one-liner replies.

When we were at the hawker center, they also didn't ask me to sit with them. The number of chairs they had pulled to the table seemed to have excluded me. I wasn't sure if i would be welcomed at the table at all.

In normal situation, given my ungregarious disposition, i would have just taken the lunch by myself. But then, i thought i would be isolating myself if i did that, so i just walked over to their table, put my tray down and asked, "can i join u all?"

Of course, i wouldn't get "no" as an answer in such situation. They just made room for me and i pulled myself a chair to join them. There weren't much exchange of words between myself and the others after i sat down, not until the Project Manager who sat beside me (and who appears to be a very nice guy) started asking me some casual questions and we finally started talking.

This is definitely the most thick-skinned thing i've ever done in my life so far. It was awkward. Sigh, it's so not me and i don't feel good one bit in behaving so differently from my normal self. It's like making myself to be someone else just so that i could be accepted. I wonder if i should do that at all.

I'm fine to lunch alone; in fact, sometimes i like solitude more than trying hard to please others. I also prefer to go out for lunch on the second bus (at 1.20pm) because the first one is rather early for me and i would be hungry by late afternoon. But my colleagues always go on the first bus, so if i wanna make an effort to mix with them, i would have to get use to having earlier lunch time.

贝 told me to be more sociable because how we get along with our colleagues does affect our feeling of happiness towards our work place. I understand that completely, yet with a bunch of colleagues who aren't particularly open to newcomers, i would have to take the initiatives to break the ice. This means that i would have to force myself to be someone whom i'm not, which may make myself unhappy too.

So, to be or not to be? I'm really not sure.

Labels: rant, work