Table Chat

A pleasant evening.

It started with an intention to help a friend. I thought it'd be good to take her away from her problem for a while. So, four of us, all ex-BJlians were sitting in a restaurant, chatting away.

While waiting for the food to be served, came a couple sitting next to our table. First impression, the guy was quite obnoxious. He was telling the girl something about his leg. His action was rather big in the limitted space, so I looked over. He noticed that, and said, "Oh don't worry, I'm just stretching my leg. I don't have AIDS." At that moment, I thought wow, what a thing to say to a stranger!

Over the meal, I overheard the guy mentioning volleyball. Me being my usual self, I don't mess with strangers. Towards the end of our meal, the conversation from the next table somehow over flowed to our table. The guy, still seemed quite obnoxious, claimed that he'd seen us before. He started mentioning big names in sports, claiming that he's famous, and flashing his ego relentlessly.

It's a small world. Apparently he is the CEO of a sport attire company, and he's sponsored a great deal in big sports events. He also revealed that he had sponsored the whole Kuala Lumpur contingent in the 2000 SUKMA, which I was a part of the team. Between 6 of us (4 us and 2 them), we actually know quite a number of same people.

Well, I think people that have a lot of money (not necessarily rich, because rich in money doesn't mean rich in the soul) tend to have big ego. They speak as if money is no substance, as if they do not have to be responsible for the words they say. "You just name it, I'll sponsor it!", "You want me to sponsor? Give me a title in your sports association. I only want vice president and above.", "Why not I sponsor a tournament? You guys organize it for me?", "How many of you in a team? 12? ok, what about I sponsoring you 2 sets of attire each year? Enough?"... An hour into the conversation, he did not seem so obnoxious anymore. I figured it was just habit that the ego constantly needed stroking. Beneath all that, he seemed quite sincere; OR he's got great acting skills, probably accumulated throughout the years in business.

The conversation became very interesting when he mentioned that he would like to hire a designer to design the next official attire for the Malaysian athletes in the 2012 Olympics in London. Obviously we are no designer, but it is one of my dreams to be able to design my own line of sports attire. If only I could be the designer he is looking for...

We exchanged name cards ;)