that some of us make about our days when we have nothing better to do.

Started the day by going down to the PC show, which I have no intention of visiting again unless I know exactly what model of what brand of what product I want to buy, which is on a fabulous discount, along with a cheapskate free gift. I don't want to imagine what the weekend will look like, sound like, and smell like, if it is so hot and crowded today, a Thursday. In short, I gave up looking for the SD card after only about half an hour. If I didn't have a friend with me, I may have continued, but I didn't want to make him follow me aimlessly as he wasn't looking for anything. Headed for coffee instead, or in my case, free hot chocolate, as I jokingly asked for a treat in return for his 45 (!)minutes lateness, and shamelessly accepted it when he agreed.

As I was whiling away the 45 minutes waiting, I thought to myself, I do not feel irritated or displeasured that I have to wait so long. In fact, I dragged the time very successfully, taking 20 minutes to look for something to eat, and another 15 journeying to the highest floor to visit the washroom. I thought, perhaps I did not get irritated with him so easily because he is a relatively new friend. Then, I replaced him with let's say one of my hall friends who is notoriously late (cough, achxiu, cough), and I think I would not get pissed at older friends who come that late too. Maybe laugh it off and attempt to tell them not to do it to me again.

Everyone shows their worst side to the people they love - their families and partners. A simple explanation is that we know (or sometimes wrongly think, in the case of partners) that they would never stop loving us. That's why we feel more comfortable letting our emotions run loose with them, sometimes termed as 'showing one's true colors'.

But 2 things that happened to me today tell me that for me, there is something more to the phenomenon of treating the people we love more nastily -

I have higher expectations of them. I expect them to love me, care for me more. I get a million times more let down if they do something that hurts me. I lose control of my emotions more when I feel more let down.

First thing that happened to me today is the '45-minute late scenario'. I am more likely to get irritated at a parent or partner for being that late, because I expect them to care about me enough to not make me wait that long. I am naturally more patient than not, but my high expectations of loved ones can make me displeased sometimes if made to wait that long.

Second, is that I was quite rude to my mum when she turned down the living room light to obviously too-dim when I was reading the papers and asked me if it was bright enough. I said 'of cos its not bright enough', cos I was vaguely hurt that she expected me to read in a dim light, when it is the norm that the family reads with maximum brightness in the living room.

Is my high expectations of loved ones a serious drawback? What can I do to decrease it?

Hmm...