DISDAIN?! ME?

a friend of mine gave me a testimonial on friendster recently. her exact words were.. “caring… but funnily disdain at times”. ok, i have to admit that initially i did not know what disdain exactly means (which is rather embarrassing). i have always thought that it means something like disappointed (which is partly true). but that doesn't make much sense does it? funnily disappointed? i don't think so. i had reach out for a dictionary to find out exactly what it means. and the definition that i got was:

disdain (noun): the feeling that somebody/something is not good enough to be respected e.g. monica felt that her boss always treated her with disdain (it’s the oxford dictionary for malaysian students... that's why it has the sample usage in a sentence thingy.. kudos to my little brother)

hmm... i’ve been described as a lot of things, but never as disdain. well, I think part of it has something to do with the fact that the rest of my friends, like me, do not exactly know what it means to be using the word in our daily conversation :)

being the self-conscious person that i am, i had to do an immediate self-reflection session. i read back the testimonial.. a few times. caring ... i can understand... FUNNILY disdain? ok, at least she chose a rather comforting adjective to accompany the verb... to make it sound somewhat endearing. but put aside the funny part, am I actually disdain? this friend of mine has hundreds of words that could have been used to describe me (well maybe thousands, considering her wide range of vocabulary), but she chose DISDAIN (apart from caring, which i have no issues with) to describe me.

as far as i know myself, i’ve always been humble to other people (OK, saying this makes me come off as a self-praising goody-goody two shoes). i’m not saying that i’m good or anything, but i think being humble and modest is good. i have the utmost respect for people who, despite being successful, still manage to remain humble and modest. but in my efforts in emulating that in my own self, have i crossed the borderline of being humble that people see me as a self-depreciating loser?

i guess everyone would like to develop characteristics they like to see in others. that’s why i always try to be modest and humble to other people (not that I have a lot of reasons to be proud of to start off with... but that is besides the point). but I never want to be seen as disdain. disdain, to me sounds like i’m a push-over. and i certainly do not want to be seen as a push-over!

but come to think of it, maybe i am disdain at times. and the reason why i am disdain is because i constantly crave for compliments, praises and flattery (this i have to admit). i need approval from people that i know that i am doing well. maybe that’s why sometimes i would be overly humble to the extent that i ridicule myself, in hope that someone would correct me and say “don’t be ridiculous. you are great at (something)!”. if this IS true, not only am i a self-depreciating loser, i am now a PATHETIC, LOW-LIFE self-depreciating loser... sigh.

nevertheless, i approved her testimonial. well, i need to show the world that i have friends who care enough to write something about me. after all, isn’t that what friendster is all about? it’s just a web-based popularity contest :). so, why am I making such a big deal out of this? maybe it’s because i’m FUNNILY disdain...

p.s: leave it to me to dramatise a testimonial sent by a friend into a 'i can't make sense of the world' episode...