The Rawpinions Weblog

Woke up about 30 minutes ago and after a nice warm shower, I’ve decided to sit here while I drink some vitamin C from an effervescent tablet. The trick is to drink it within 5 minutes because after that it starts smelling and tasting like medicine (unless you’re into that sort of thing).

I’m also suffering from a sun burn, thank you very much. My arms feel as though someone has scratched all over them with long nails. Yesterday my [Asian] friends decided to compare my skin colour with that of Filipinos (i.e. “how is it that you’re THAT fair and Filipinos are so dark”) so I told them (for the 60th thousandth time) that I’m a mixed-breed. What they don’t know however, is that I tan within 5 minutes of standing in the sun. What can I say? I have efficient melanin producing cells.

But today, I’m not here to talk about skin colour, vitamin C nor my breakfast.  We’re here to talk about me (d-uh) and what those 2 friends of mine said! Hmph!

So we were standing inside the subway train on our way to Songjiang and somehow, it came to someone telling me that I’m conservative.  I was surprised until the other friend disagreed and said “nooo, au contraire I think she’s very liberal” (ok, we were speaking in Chinese so I’m translating the conversation).  I stared at the person who called me conservative and she had a sly look on her face, dare I call it a smirk.

After one minute, I turned to her and asked her what would make her think I’m a conservative person.  She replied, saying “I’m just under the impression that you’re a conservative person”.  I left it at that.

A few hours later, we were having lunch at my university’s other campus when I joked to the friend who called me liberal, “ha! So what are you doing with your friend’s boyfriend? *wink*” (she brought a Chinese guy to come hangout with us in the morning, and I said what I did when he left the table to get us a something to drink).  Before {friend ‘liberal’} could reply, {friend ‘conservative’} asked me if I saw anything wrong with it.  I replied, “well, if I had a boyfriend I honestly would not feel comfortable if he were to hang out with a friend of mine - and her girlfriends for one whole day”.

That’s when {friend ‘conservative’} confirmed “see? That’s why I said you’re a conservative person”.  I was a little confused so I didn’t say anything.  {Friend ‘liberal’} then replied to the question I raised earlier “the guy is a friend of mine and his girlfriend is a really good friend of mine so it’s not a problem”.

I then said, “well, he’s Chinese so it’s more understandable” and they both agreed with me.  At that point, I thought to myself ‘how does not trusting someone have anything to do with being liberal?’ I always thought it was the other way round, that conservative people are more likely to be more gullible than an liberal person (but not necessarily of course).  My conclusion has a lot to do with personal experience, i.e. guys I hang out with, whether they have a girlfriend or not; whether they have a wife or not - are still “easy” guys.  It doesn’t matter how much you trust a guy, if he’s good to you he will STAY AWAY FROM OTHER WOMEN, and will only hangout with them if you’re around.

I was offended when she called me conservative.  I feel I float in the middle really, I know I have a few conservative characteristics e.g.:
- when I’m feeling mentally grounded I’m pro monogamy
- my dress sense when I’m not out clubbing
- I don’t like the idea of ME asking a guy out on a date (but I don’t believe in judging women who do)
- my painting style, i.e. I stick to realism & idealism (but that’s only because abstract paintings are above my level of comprehension!)

I have some relatively liberal characteristics, e.g.:
- who doesn’t love wearing thongs n’ tangas…or a ‘you wear it best when you wear nothing at all’?
- I don’t have to tell you what happens in the bedroom (or anywhere else for that matter) do I?
- I’m not religious anymore!
- I’m a feminist for crying out loud! Isn’t that as liberal as it gets?

This week I’ll have to re-think a few things.  Yesterday the Chinese guy and one of my female friends were teasing me (semi-serious) and I was insulted.  It took me one minute to forgive my female friend, and when the Chinese guy (who I just met that day) asked me a question, I turned to him and calmly but firmly said “don’t talk to me”.

I have a feeling, it’s because I tend to be quite frivolous half the time.  It’s just an involuntary way my mind works (or doesn’t) to get everyone closer and more “à l’aise”.  It works well with the girls, but it encourages guys to be all playful with me and all “open” i.e. they’ll tell me EXACTLY what they’re thinking, feeling I’m the type of person you can tell everything to.  Pisses me off, quite frankly.  That must be it.

All these social problems are due to the conservative vs. liberal me.  I don’t think many people understand that some people are conservative with some things and liberal with others things.

The O’Levels should probably be taken when we’re 12. That’s when most children are still children and the factors that interfere with exam success such as relationships, hormones, and everything else about being a teenager are at all-time low. Children are also a whole lot more obedient than teenagers. I mean, if it’s one time to be disobedient, it’s during your teenage life because it’s no excuse after that.

I loved the O’Levels, it was probably the most memorable time of my life. It’s also my most hated time ever, that’s when problems/issues started rolling in and interfering with my mental and emotional stability (and started being obvious in my school work). Apart from a few stuff I can’t mention on here, was the fact that I hadn’t realized I suffered from exam phobia.

But let’s talk about exams in general.

I noticed, that the subjects I was good at all throughout the semester (and my school years) were the subjects I was unable to achieve outstanding marks for the exams. It frustrated the crap out of me because I’d get As for assessments throughout the year (mainly Mathemetics and Biology) but I just couldn’t do as well for the exams.

What frustrated me even more, was when I realized that I’d get better exam grades for the subjects that I didn’t give a rat’s arse about (e.g. French and Geography). I didn’t particularly care about Physics, but throughout high school I realized that there were only 2 things to keep in mind when you’re revising Physics notes (assuming you feel it necessary): formulae and definitions. The day my grade for Physics surpassed my grade for Mathematics was the day I realized that there was something wrong (well, I also experienced a mind-block during the Mathematics exam).

The worst part is experiencing the mind block when you’re trying to solve a mensuration question (which has always been relatively easy for me as they were my favourite).

The other day when I was chatting with my sister, she was the one who pointed out the relation: my panic attacks. I wanted to shoot myself then and there.

It brought my thoughts back to the day I was thinking of what I wanted to pursue in life: an academic or an art/design subject. Back then, I knew nothing about panic/anxiety attacks. I knew that some people had “exam fright” but I thought it was normal…

You know that love song that goes, “…and it’s sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust” (Patty Smyth - ‘Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough’)? It’s sort of the same thing except in this case, it’s your mind you can’t trust which is even worse because it’s sheer betrayal. But thankfully I believe in destiny and the who theory of “everything happens for a reason” so I accept my fate.

But it really makes me wonder what others go through in life. I had classmates in primary school who had awesome grades. They were obviously smart kids. So what happened to them, what issue did they have? It’s a pity really, because while most people believe that intelligence is the sole factor for success, they don’t realize that people fail due to so many reasons. Some of these smart kids didn’t get to go to Poly. Some of these smart kids didn’t get to attend a post-secondary institution.

Two weeks ago, one of my best friends told me that she wanted to go for therapy; mental therapy. I told her to go for it. I remember 2 months ago when I told my mum that I wanted to see a psychologist (as opposed to a psychiatrist) and her reply was, “why? Are you [literally] crazy?” That’s the big problem with Seychelles - mental therapy is non-existent. The minute someone hears that you’ve been seeing a psychologist they assume your crazy.

A few weeks ago (before my panic attacks) I was chatting with an online friend of mine from Canada. She has been through so much in her life and told me that therapy has helped her so much. It has made her happy again, and has given her a new meaning to life.

Why should any Seychellois be deprived of mental health due to f*cked up stereotypes? “Briz sa silans” has become such a big hit to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. Don’t people realize that it’s all about mental health?

I don’t know anyone in Shanghai (both foreigners and the Chinese) whose parents have separated (by choice) or have been divorced. In fact, I don’t even know anyone here who is an illegitimate child. Nobody’s from a dysfunctional family. They are all a bunch of happy people…I’m surrounded by a bunch of people God loves. They don’t have mental health issues. They don’t suffer from exam fright. When they don’t do well for the exams, they can’t think up of a good-enough excuse.

My friends back home on the other hand are from dysfunctional families (me included). I’m not illegitimate, but at this point what’s the difference? Most of my friends and I were brought up by single mothers who had to struggle to keep us happy. Most of my friends and I have had relationship issues, trust issues, emotional bonding problems, exam phobia, and every other sign and symptom that proves a possible mental health issue. We float at both ends of the extremes, i.e. some of us are over the top arrogant and some of us constantly mistaken ourselves for the door mat at a cheap fast food restaurant (no not me).

I don’t really know why we’ve ended up this way, esp. because most of us (my friends and I) agree that life would have been more yuckier with a dad in the house (no offence to you dad-loving sods). To think, that’s just me and my friends. How many other Seychellois are actually going through the same thing I wonder.

During my language year here in China, I had to prepare a presentation about my country in Mandarin. So I had to talk about all aspects of my country. Talking about the people was my favourite bit, because I knew most of my classmates would laugh (assuming I was joking) when I talked about the lack of marriage back home. Ok, so I was wrong they didn’t laugh. They were more like…shocked. Ok, so why bother trying to make people laugh when you can shock them instead?

Darn, I gotta go. Business calls…and then I have to work on overdue homeworks - arwi lavi. So yeah, think about it: importance of mental health.

According to thefreedictionary.com, opinionated is defined as: “holding stubbornly and often unreasonably to one’s own opinions.”

A few people have this bad habit of thinking that an opinionated person is a person with lots of opinions. Or someone who disagrees with the majority’s opinion on a certain matter is an opinionated person. That is why, I feel a lot of people who call me opinionated is actually a lot more opinionated than I am.

Believe it or not, I have no shame in apologizing when I’m wrong. I have no shame in telling someone that their strong argument has convinced me that they are right. In any argument, I try my best to calm down and focus on rationality.

We all have opinions. Just because I have the guts to state my opinion (whether it’s supported by others or not) doesn’t mean I’m not willing to hear others out. It just so happens, that people either:

1 - don’t care to challenge my opinions
2 - throw insults when they disagree, rather than take the high road and simply tell me they disagree

Remember this: if you disagree with my opinions, it’s only because you have an opinion on the matter too. What makes my opinion wrong, and yours right? How is it that my opinions automatically make me an opinionated person, and your opinions don’t automatically make you an opinionated person?

I love hearing what others have to say about everyday stuff. I feel their opinions help me grow; their opinions help me form better opinions.

There are two ways to react to someone’s opinions: the rational and the irrational way. When I state my opinion and someone disagrees with me, I reply by trying to further explain why I think the way I do. They’re very welcome to convince me otherwise. That’s the rational way of dealing with opinions I believe.

There are more than a handful of people who decide to take the irrational route to dealing with opinions. Just recently, someone decided to call me a racist b*tch rather than saying something like “no way, I totally disagree with you”. One other time, this African guy disagreed with something I said so he not only told me to drop dead (or whatever it was he said), but he also decided to wish harm on my mother (the argument had nothing to do with mothers, he just wanted to get personal)…all that because he couldn’t get me to agree with him on something. *Rolls eyes*

When I was a kid, I’d be so frustrated when people just didn’t agree with me (highly opinionated?). When I eventually did some independent thinking, I decided to respect what others thought and believed, hoping to get the same amount of respect in return (not so opinionated, huh?). But after a while, you realize that everyone’s kind of the same: we all think we’re right. So believe it or not, if you feel I’m opinionated then you are just as opinionated as I am.

I have the news on in the background, I can barely hear myself think…so if you didn’t understand anything I said, tough.

Some time last week, someone I was talking to was trying hard to convince me that racists are one race of people who hate another race. My reply was “no, not necessarily” and the following is why I said what I did:

I’ve been surrounded by racists all my life. Black Africans are spared of racism when they’re in Africa. Asians are spared of racism when they’re in their part of Asia. Biracials like me however, are never spared of racism and that’s why nobody can truly understand racism unless they’re biracial…mainly because often times we’re misidentified (so we actually get to hear what one race thinks about another, behind their backs).

Racists believe in a racial hierarchy; with categories ranging from animals to subhumans to sorta-humans to humans and to elite humans, depending on your race.

Hatred-Type Racism
Pure-breed Filipinos are by far, the most racist group of people I have ever met. Not only would they be willing to spit on “Blacks”, they tend to idolize Whites. Which is quite funny really because Filipinos are also known as “Black Asians”. So you’d think that they of all Asians would be the least racist against Blacks, but nooo.

Non-Hatred Type Racism
By definition, racists are people who believe that their race is superior to another race; that another race is inferior to theirs.

If you don’t understand the meaning of inferior, here’s an example: if someone told you that either your best friend (human) or your house dog must be killed for whatever reason, which one of the two would you pick? Most people would pick the dog to be killed instead of the human because they somehow feel dogs are “inferior” to humans.

In this case, you don’t hate your dog - he’s your baby. I mean, he scares strangers away, he calls the gorgeous girls/guys over because he’s so adorable, he sleeps next to you, keeps you company, etc. In fact, you love your dog. But because your dog’s not human, you’d probably choose your human best friend over your dog because you feel your dog “Spot” is simply inferior to John (your best friend!).

Some of my non-Black friends who love dating (aka “riding”) Black guys told me that they would not consider having kids with these guys because they don’t want dark-skinned kids. It has nothing to do with hatred for dark skin (esp. since they probably spend hours…ok, let’s not go there right now). But simply because they feel dark skin is an inferior attribute to white skin. Many of my Asian friends also prefer White people characteristics, like: pointed nose, light hair, soft hair, blue/green eyes. These physical characteristics are all considered “ideal” for most Asians and because Blacks have pretty much the opposite characteristics, Asians don’t want their kids to have these “non-ideal” characteristics.

I hope I’ve explained that part enough.

Residual Anger Type Racism
If an Asian decides to generally hate or dislike Whites due to the sufferings caused by White racists, then these types are what I like to call residual anger-type racists.

True-Type Racism
Purely biological, and actually quite factual. This type of racism refutes the popular quote “colour is only skin deep” and supports the existence of what is commonly known as inbreeding depression (anti-incest).

If I had to be a racist, I’d choose this type. In fact, it would not be natural for me to NOT call myself a true-type racist because I love being mixed-race/multiracial (anti-incest, anti-monoraciality).

As a child, my mother always taught me to “chin up” and hold my head up high. After marrying my dad who was an expat in Singapore at the time, my mother developed delusions of grandeur which she passed on to my siblings and I. Throughout our childhood, we all believed we were better than everyone else. I did pretty well until after high school when I decided to start thinking independently. I then forced myself to believe that I was just like everyone else; that humility was a beautiful thing…and about 2 months later, I failed my first exam ever. I consoled myself, trying hard to convince myself that failure was a part of life; that failure is something “normal” people go through.

Things started to go wrong from then on: I was no longer a perfectionist. If I wasn’t able to do something, I’d remind myself that being good at only a few things was a norm. All my life, I never really did blend in well with the other kids. I wanted to be “normal” so bad, that I stooped to a level that people should never stoop to: I swapped arrogance for humility.

Occasionally I’d get the “why are you being so arrogant?” A few hours ago I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone’s got a bit of both characteristics (arrogance & humility), but the danger is when you’ve got more humility than arrogance because too much humility is a curse.

I mean, why in the world won’t anyone think that they ARE the best at everything? I admire people who can think that way, because it’s definitely a personal achievement. The society will spend years telling you to reach for the stars, and when that’s exactly what you’re doing they’ll do what they usually do and b*tch on you.

The nuns at Mary Cause of Our Joy Catholic School (MCJ) taught me to obey my parents. My mum taught be to be arrogant, and I shouldn’t have disobeyed her by trying to be humble because that’s definitely one of the biggest mistakes in my life. The nuns were right, it’s important to listen to your parents.

When my elder brother had the words “I am the best” on his pencil case and someone reported it to me, I shouldn’t have been quite surprised. I should have just turned to them and ask them why they didn’t have the words “I am the best” on their pencil cases.

Perhaps humility is the real delusion? Do people really believe that they are just like everyone else? Do people really believe that their A grades are just “ok” and not “nah nah nah boo boo I got an A and you didn’t”? Why is arrogance frowned upon? Does looking highly at yourself automatically mean you’re looking down on others?

The greatest people of all time are arrogant people. Shouldn’t normal people learn something from these great people? Napoleon Bonaparte was unbelievably great, and was a very arrogant man (gutsy enough to crown himself emperor of France). I mean, even people like Mahatma Gandhi taught arrogance: he wouldn’t have gone on a starvation strike if he didn’t believe he was that important. Even The Holy Bible portrays God to be an arrogant person, as He is quoted to have said “you shall have no other gods before me“.

Perhaps a sane quantity of arrogance is not as bad as many people think. Even the great singers of all time are as great as they are because they’ve sang at least one “pro-arrogance” song: Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston’s “When You Believe”, R. Kelly’s “I believe I can fly”, and gosh soooooo many more.

Even Google - the greatest search engine of all time supports arrogance, with 10′200′000 search results for the word “arrogance” and only 7′350′000 results for the word “humility” (Live.com is in disagreement).

Lions; the king of the jungle, are generally arrogant animals. The only humble lion I know was King Mustafa in The Lion King…and he was killed, by the all-arrogant Scar.

Arrogance is not a psychological disease, it’s an mental ability.

The next time someone tells me humility is a virtue and it’s something that I lack, I’ll tell them that it’s arrogance that’s the virtue and it’s something they lack. The next time someone calls me arrogant I’m not going to bow my head down in self-disappointment. Rather, I’m going to raise my chin to the lack of confident mass they call a ‘body with a face’, and assertively say “damn right I am”.

I mean, are you an eagle or a chicken?

Current Mood: Angry

Quite a while ago, I mentioned the stress I’ve been getting (I don’t know if the post is still in my drafts folder though). It’s definitely related to the whole quarter-life crisis phase. It’s like all of a sudden, your 1cm-tall imaginary friends called Worry and Pain have grown a thousand times bigger than the giant zit on your forehead, decides that they are no longer imaginary and start spitting all over your face.

A graduate salary in Seychelles will usually start at 4500 to 5000 rupees (public sector). A few years ago before the rupee was re-evaluated, it used to be 5.5688 to the dollar (2004, when I was still back home). Which means a new graduate was earning about $800 to $900 a month. $800 actually being considered a good-enough salary, as most people are actually living on less than that.

One dollar is now 8 rupees, so 4500-5000 rupees is now only about $560-625. That’s what I’m doing in Uni…I’m spending 5 years away from my family and friends to earn $560-$625 a month for 5 years.

How can this not frustrate Seychellois in my shoes? Especially knowing that there are people with the same qualifications earning thousands of dollars a month.

I laugh at the thought of people complaining about the 12% GST. Because what they don’t realize is the tax is a whole lot more than just 12%. I used to think ‘wow, I live in a country where healthcare & education is free’. Until I realized the existence of hidden taxes…and the fact that nothing in life is for free.

I don’t doubt the many advantages of such hidden taxes. They exist to benefit the majority which lives on less than a new graduate’s salary every month. But still, I can’t help to wonder if the plan could be leaning more towards human rights.

A recent-graduate teacher in Seychelles earns 4900 rupees a month, and works 800 hours a month. That’s only about 6 rupees an hour, which is now less than $1 an hour. Is that humane? Worst of all, food doesn’t come cheap in Seychelles. A beggar on the streets of Jingan Si Guangchang here in Shanghai probably earns at least 10 yuan or a whole lot more per hour.

My twin sister told me not to compare rupees with dollars. Anyways…

The reality in Seychelles however, is this: 8 rupees will not get you $1. Even the banks are unwilling to give out foreign exchange. Anyone needing more than $400 for travel expenses will have to buy dollars from their friends…and most are not willing to sell it to your for normal rates. The current black market rate is about 12.5 according to one of my friends. So Seychellois are practically working for peanuts (one can per hour)…and we’re talking about new graduates.

Current Mood: Playful

I was browsing through a domain forum where everyone was asked if they would gladly accept a jet full of money. One guy “humbly” said he wouldn’t but if he did, he’d give it all to the poor. I honestly can’t believe anyone would lie an obvious lie.

I would honestly love to know how many celebrities prayed for wealth and promised to be charitable…and how many have actually kept their word.

I’m pretty sure the guy who didn’t want the jet load of cash just felt he’d be cursed if he were to tell the truth in a public forum; that if he were to say ‘yes, give it all to me now’ God would never make him rich.

I believe he wasn’t humble at all (even if that’s what he might have intended to be). Being humble is telling people you’ve lost a game, if you really did lose the game. It’s telling people you’re sorry when you really are. It’s also admitting that you wouldn’t mind being rich, period.

I have an affinity towards humble individuals and a pet peeve for fauxhumility. Do I sound like I just got one of my pet peeves peeved? Yeah. Guess why.

I’ve had several pets in my life.

There was Curly the cat, who died when I was really young.  Then there was my potato plant which didn’t really have a name (wait…can plants be considered pets?).  Then there was Pepsi the dog, who was a half breed (mongrel) Golden Retriever, and half something else (I don’t know what) my he RIP.

Then there was Maxwell (miniature catfish?)…who I adopted because nobody else wanted him/her.  Here’s Maxwell’s story:

Years ago, my elder sister decided to get an aquarium.  There were about 3-4 different types of fish in there, and one of them amused me because it would move away whenever people would approach the aquarium.  The other 3 fish(es) were very attention seeking.  One by one, they’d die and after we moved house there was only one left.  My elder sister had her own place by then so she gave the catfish to my little brother.  He never fed the fish, and never bothered to change the water so I decided to take over.

Nobody wanted to buy another fish to keep Maxwell company so he had the tank to himself.  I fed him daily, cleaned his water occasionally, then one morning I got up and heard the aquarium’s oxygen pump.  It was louder than normal.  I saw Maxwell’s lifeless body floating and I almost fainted of shock.  I felt the water and it must have been around 60 degrees Celcius! I don’t really know if Maxwell died because of that.  I begged my twin sister to bury him as I stayed in my room and cried.   After 15 minutes of crying and intense emotions, I picked myself up. But I’ll never ever have a pet fish again.

The ocean is a fish’s home.  Whether they’re gobbled up by sharks or whatever, that’s what life is about for them.  It doesn’t make sense to me, for people to take a fish from their natural habitat and stuff them in a glass container amongst other colourful fish(es) for the purpose of entertainment and décor.  If fish could talk, they’d say “WTF is wrong with you people?”

Big Brother is a good example of a human aquarium…minus the good food, games, HOH privileges, backyard and everything in the backyard.

Current Mood: Cool

I was reading a forum thread where members were listing out their 5 strongest and 5 weakest traits. Instead of replying to the thread (and give the site more keywords and thus more site visitors LOL) I’ve decided to post my reply here on my personal blog.

I also want to counter the assumption that people have a list of weaknesses and a separate list of strengths. Consider this: our strongest characteristics are also our weakest, depending on how you look at things.

Whether you’ve realized this or not, our individual lives evolve around special personality traits that will either make us, or break us. These traits is what I like to call the “make-it or break-it” factor in our lives.

I’ve listed 5 of my distinct personality traits as examples. They show both my strengths and weaknesses.

1 - I’m anti-social.
Negative: people who don’t know me well will undoubtedly dislike me, and this limits party invitations ;D, acquaintances and on a more serious note potential connections.
Positive: I can spend endless hours hanging out by myself and not be lonely. Which, also makes me a very interesting person to be around…(let’s not deny that one).

2 - I’m generous
Positive: My generosity and charitable-nature helps those in need.
Negative: I sometimes over do it and give more than I can, which ultimately affects my financial budget.

3 - I’m verbally straightforward
Negative: If you’ve got a bad haircut, don’t expect me to say you look great. This might hurt your feelings.
Positive: If I tell you to fix your hair, you might agree with me and get your hair fixed. This increases your chances of being complimented when someone else sees you.

4 - I’m reliable
Positive: you name the place and the time, and I’ll be there if you need me. I’ll drop my own things to be there for you.
Negative: I prioritize on your priorities and not mine. This is most likely my worst characteristic.

5 - I’m pro-feminism (I think)
Positive: I’m admired by people who feel women should not be into a guy’s money, and should earn a salary.
Negative: I’m perceived as domineering.

Current Mood: Cool

100% positive rep is vital when your buying, selling and/or trading online. Also, the more people you deal with, the more easier it is to get a transaction done with someone who doesn’t even know you. That’s because people generally trust people with 100% positive rep. Newbies are usually worried about how to earn their reputation. It’s actually a whole lot easier than imagined. The best way is probably to start selling or buying low-priced items or offering services (or whatever) for a competitive price. People are usually willing to take the risk if they’re buying stuff at a really low price anyway. Work fast, get the transaction done asap to keep everyone happy. When everyone’s happy, you’ll get positive feedback which will help you gain credibility.

I’m a generally lazy person, and wait until the last minute to get something done. If someone I’m dealing with tell me to “take your time” I most probably will. But I have an extremely different attitude when it comes to trading and buying. Trading and buying is when you’re placed in an “I O U” situation, and I hate being in debt. There’s a big difference between the patience of a person trying to buy something from you, and the patience (or lack of) of a person waiting for you to pay up.

Guess who’s more likely to be pissed off if you’re running a little late, thus be more willing to throw you a negative rep point?