Sibling Triggers

Well, S texted me on my birthday.

And I have therapy in a week or so. Yay. We’re hitting the point in my timeline where I talk about my Taiwan trips and shortly before S moved down the street from us. There are so many points I want to address:

1. My Taiwan sibs repeatedly rejecting me; mostly notably Meimei flat out pretending she didn’t hear me when I asked a question in her room (she wasn’t on her phone or anything). Repeated myself a second time in the dead silence of her room around 11p and was completely ignored. It’s possible she didn’t understand my Mandarin but in the context of her ignoring my DMs, she probably just didn’t want to give the effort of telling me “Wo bu dong.” (I don’t understand)
2. Gege didn’t actually ignore me — he’d answer, but not often in a way I could understand, and it was obvious he’d only offer me more food or bring me out because he was playing the role of “dutiful son.” But I didn’t actually expect me to want to get to know me, given he couldn’t remember when I was a baby and he already had his wife and upcoming kids to worry about.
3. I don’t blame them for finding it exhausting to try and communicate with me. It can’t be fun for them to play word games with someone whose vocab matches that of a 3yo.
4. I do blame them for ignoring me. And of course, although it is no one’s fault — I do still have intense sibling rejection triggers from all times I hoped to find a friendship in a sibling. *ANY* sibling that I have.

It hit hard — as no one else remembered to actually message me on the day of. At 8:30p a text came through and I thought it would perhaps be my IRL friend, or even my folks, or possibly a relative. Turns out it was S.

I went into the living room and bawled my eyes out.

“Why is it that he is willing to acknowledge me on my birthday, but can’t be bothered to remember I exist the other 364 days of the year?”

~~~~~

I’ve come to the conclusion I am “primed” to look for sibling stuff/implications, even when they may not be intended that way. When Gar and his family took me out to go to the beach, we stopped by a Tims (my request) — they didn’t go out of their way; his sister F likes to grab iced coffees, Gar will usually grab a doughnut and F will pay for a treat for their mom. I happen to love iced cappuccinos so they are almost always fine with dipping into Tims for a few minutes.

During this particular event, F noticed there were banana-favoured baked goods. She said she would buy one to try it out and offered to buy another one for Gar.

My brain interprets that as deliberate snubbery — her mom and brother are there, brother sometimes has the same taste preferences as she does so of course she’ll ask him, and not even bother to ask me if I want to try something out. She’s gone out with them (and him by proxy) on so many outings long before I even entered the picture, so it’s just her first instinct to buy something for him to try out. Siblinghood, after all.

Or I may have been reading too far into things. Maybe she thought he would like it, maybe she thought I wasn’t interested. It is true that she is more likely to think of him when buying a baked good rather than think of someone her brother is dating. But my brain sees it as being “snubbed out.”

It’s like those moments when we drop by their place, and she asks to take a picture with him. Because they’re siblings (OK, they don’t really look much like siblings at all, except for the eyes and both being tall). She would never ask to take a picture with me — I don’t register as a “sibling.”

~~~~~

When S moved down the street, I thought I had my chance. I thought we could become friends. It turns out that S was way too emotionally enmeshed with screaming at mom and dad, and thus would turn the relationship toxic. How could I have had a friendship with someone like that, someone who screams at our parents and treats them like an ATM?

How could I have had a friendship with someone who can’t hold down a stable job? Who has kids that must be the priority?

The argument here is of course his kids became the priority. They’re his family.

Then I went overseas, hoping I could find a refuge and build up a friendship with biological siblings. That hope was dashed within less than a month.

Plenty of adults in their 30s can eventually find a balance. People online that I game with have kids and a spouse and are able to schedule in the occasional gaming hour. S is unable to, or unable to and doesn’t have any interest in doing so.

But with S I never even had a chance. Even before his kids happened.

Then S moved away again, before the relationship between himself and our parents completely shredded. Before mom thought she would have a heart attack from the stress and dad’s savings were decimated because he was paying for S’s mortgage, groceries and transportation. My dad was effectively supporting two families for a few months. At one point he realized he couldn’t do it or else he would start having health complications and *we* might end up bankrupt.

~~~~~

Last night Gar came into the kitchen when I was grabbing a snack. He opened the fridge and took a picture of the black-lemonade juice flavour bottle. The name of the flavour is called blackberry-lemonbabe. He said he wanted to send it to F, because she had messaged him a photo with the caption (for a drink) that said: Strawberry-dad.

And he wanted to send back a screenshot of *our* juice flavour bottle saying: “Is that like blackberry-lemon-babe?”

All I could think of was “I wish I could’ve been texted or sent that kind of message, in our group chat. I would’ve liked to make a comment that jokes about how the bottle says lemonbabe instead of lemonade. But no, she has to send stuff to you directly all the time. And it feels weird to send her a message in a group chat about something she sent to you privately, even though I know the context are something she would’ve been fine telling you about in person, with me there, listening to and laughing about.”

It’s the little things like that, which make me feel like I’m on the sidelines, witness to a relationship I can never have.