Unpacking Life

[user8457]

I came across this place while scrolling about the Internet at night, as you do, and it being the typical late-night brain clarity/non-clarity situation that lets you impulse-buy stuff or do things that you normally won’t do, I decided it would be a nice idea to write this all out cos why the hell not.

I’ve recently turned 28, and I’m currently unemployed after quitting my Forbes-500 job 1 year out of university because I couldn’t stand how the company conducted itself when dealing with clients, and how it was equally dispassionate with its people.

That position I entered into was really on a whim. I entered a university challenge that turned out to be an interview in disguise and landed myself a relatively high-paying salary for a fresh graduate just because I had a good brain that came up with an interesting idea. That, or nobody else submitted good ideas and I just got in purely out of luck. Only the company that held said event would know.

Regardless, I derived no joy from being in said company outside of the fantastic pay, and already planned from day 1 to quit, simply because I knew from the get-go that it was in an industry I (1) had no interest in, (2) hadn’t the technical skills to be competent in, and (3) hadn’t found the purpose in gaining the skills for.

Prior to my consultancy job above, I have always been into electronics engineering in general, and consumer electronics in particular. I ran a freelance operation repairing products since I was a kid in secondary school and grew up in a family that ran an oldschool audio-visual business that involved a lot of hardware. You could say it’s in my blood.

The issue is, there are very few companies in Singapore, insofar as I have researched, that do such consumer electronics design and development. The big names you hear of (Razer, Apple, Creative) are primarily in the market for people with higher qualifications (read: Masters), and with significantly greater working experience. I too do not wish to apply for a position that requires more skill than I believe I have, despite knowing that for the average electronics engineering fresh(ish) graduate, I have a lot more practical hands on than average.

So there’s issue 1: I am lost in the job market. I’m a hardware guy in a software (and AI) era.

My education in University, in my opinion, did not prepare me well enough to be familiar with the tools to engineer AI, and my uni course itself is a can of worms to unpack. TL;DR: I was the first batch of a newly-revamped engineering course from one of the 6 local unis and management of said new course was slap dash to say the least, let alone the quality of the course material or its delivery.

On to issue 2: My personal background

I come from a lower-middle income household, with parents that grew up in the age of the Kampung, my father especially so. Dude, to this day, still finds it necessary to collect rainwater because it helps save money, and was only recently convinced by SG’s insane day temperatures to actually use the aircon. Previously, he would rather sweat it out with a fan than to turn on what he believes uses an ungodly amount of electricity, and hence eats into his bank balance.

My mother, bless her soul, is dead. Passed on when I was 18, and when my younger brother was 12. Didn’t go out well either, breast cancer patient of about 4 years, discovering that she had it only after her back literally broke from metastasized bone cancer. Needed titanium implants. Was bedridden for a good half year or so before she passed. In my own home, because that’s where she was most comfortable, amongst her family here in SG. She was a Malaysian immigrant.

We travelled back to MY to bury her ashes with my grandfather, so she could be her father’s child again.

And yes, I was aware of the mortality of my mother when I was in, again, secondary school.

My family also, due to my father’s lack of education, ran its own business. A failed one, I must add, with my father taking on jobs that didn’t make money or wasn’t making enough. My mother quit her job to run the books for my father, but you can imagine how being a cancer patient didn’t jive with meticulousness in bookkeeping and having to take care of two kids.

So yes, I effectively grew up without the luxuries of the typical SG youth. No tuition, no supplementary classes, no afterschool activities, nothing. Essentially socially isolated, because I didn’t get the same luxury of money to spend after school, nor the luxury of time given school pressures to score.

Score I did. Express student, went to poly, graduated on time, went to uni, also graduated on time despite a nearly 50% dropout rate in my course, got into a Forbes-500 consulting company. Externally, looks good.

Internally, I remain miserable.

And that brings me to the issue of today. Issue 3: The hole in my heart

I never had the time to look for love as a kid, nor the mental bandwidth or the emotional maturity. I also have peer-reviewed ADHD and/or autism to some mild degree, though it is strongly associated with introversion as the layman understands.

I prefer being alone unless it is with people I’m comfortable with my brand of freak, which are 100% guys at this point, but I couldn’t be further from gay (and before you guys come screaming about homophobia, read below).

Given the realistic restrictions in SG however, getting a house by reasonable age involves 2, and the long chats I’ve had with friends also highlights the emptiness in my life, quite literally now that I’m functionally a NEET in my own home. I also discovered condoms in my younger brother’s room and have caught him snuggling with his GF in the house. I’m not traditional enough to be sensitive about it, and I trust him to be responsible, but it further highlights my own shortcomings in that area.

I never received love from my father, outside of meals he buys for breakfast and the allowance he gave when I was schooling. My mother never taught me to be a man, and I have never spoken to girls outside of being cordial colleagues at work or school.

I am, emotionally, a robot, which I was very comfortable with until I faced my own mortality in NEETdom in the past 6 months of self-imposed unemployment.

But now, onto the stuff that I’m hoping will work.

Part 1: The Portfolio Project

I am working on a self-designed circuit/product that first aims to revive the skills I lost in the 1 year I wasn’t in electronics, just to make myself somewhat relevant to whatever electronics company still exists in SG. The development process can be entered into a thesis on its own, so I will save the details only for those really interested.

For the business-savvy, this is not exactly a marketable product due to its niche, but I do have target audiences in mind because it addresses a problem I also personally face.

I have targeted an ETA of EOY 2025, and progress is good. This part I planned while I was still at my previous job. Self-imposed unemployment for revitalization of lost technical knowledge.

Part 2: I have put myself onto 2 dating apps, though I have come to notice that a significant majority of girls I am seeing there aren’t the types I am interested in, and I cannot help but wonder if there was a selection bias for the girls that would end up using such apps anyway.

I see no roadmap for this for myself, but my options are as open as my availability on said apps.

My personal interests, to my friends’ input, have nearly zero intersection with what most girls in SG would be into either, unless there are (1) engineering or (2) gamer girls out there in SG hiding in some corner like myself.

How I can work on myself in this department, I have no idea, and I certainly am not ready to throw myself into things I have no passion for just to pick up girls. I don’t feel any authenticity in doing so, and maybe I am a traditional romantic in that sense.

Part 3: Job hunting

This part I have been looking into mildly, but due to my self-imposed exile, I am not actively searching yet. I have come to realize that in absence of my primary passion/dream job in SG, I am perfectly okay going into testing positions (i.e. automated testing/regression testing), even if I know very little about the techniques required of such.

I don’t mind taking a pay cut, but I also don’t know how much of a pay cut given my lengthy informal experience, as well as the one formal one in a previous company I interned at (though it was really a full-time engineering job in disguise, my manager, supervisors, and HR rep all said that).

(For the curious, while I loved that job, and I reckon the company would readily rehire me, I could not empathize with the products the company sold, and it’s also real far from where I live. Losing 3 hours a day to transport is horrible. My supervisor is also even more of a robot than I am, which I found honestly disconcerting, and one of my inspirations to speak out here. Dude’s an awesome engineer, but not the best at being human, and that’s a path I don’t wanna go down.)

I have my resume (mostly) ready, with an empty slot reserved for my portfolio project. I have a work-in-progress blog that I will document my successes and failures in once I am done. I just want to complete said project before I throw myself at the job market.

That ignores the technical tests that I almost certainly expect to fail given my rustiness in the field, but I know I can wing that during F2F interviews given my previous interviewing successes.

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I don’t know what to do now. I know I am lost, and for certain, more concrete things, I have an idea of how to move forward. For other things, of love and of emotion, I have absolutely no clue. Can’t plant a seed when the land has been barren for 28 years. And far from being barren, it’s been salted by repeated childhood trauma.

If anyone here has a way out, and is willing to be a guide, I am willing to listen, though I do have some inertia and hesitation to new things. I’m putting this out there just to see what comes.

[ScribblingSunflower]

Hey @user8457 . Thank you for sharing so courageously. Late nights tend to bring up clarity and confusion at the same time, and sometimes that’s exactly when the most honest thoughts surface. I’m really glad you chose to put your story into words instead of keeping everything bottled up.

You’ve had to be practical all your life like surviving financially, surviving academically, surviving emotionally. For so long, you didn’t have the luxury of stopping to feel or reflect; you were simply trying to keep your head above water. Now that you finally have space, all the questions you didn’t have time for are surfacing at once and that can feel overwhelming, disorienting and exhausting.

With everything you described, your mother’s illness, the instability at home, the lack of emotional safety, the pressure to ‘be okay’ on your own, it’s understandable that you feel like the land has been ‘salted’. That’s what happens when you grow up having to manage too much too soon.

But your entire story shows that you’re capable of learning, adapting and rebuilding. Perhaps your emotional life is another system you’re starting to understand gradually and gently at your own pace, the same care and patience you’ve given to your craft.

Something that really stands out is how much you’ve managed without the support systems many people take for granted that others take for granted like financial stability, emotional modelling, and social opportunities, and yet you’ve consistently found a way to move forward. You repaired electronics as a kid, got through a chaotic university course, landed a competitive job, and now you’re building an entire hardware project from scratch.

Honestly, it’s really inspiring

This project you’re working on is more than just a technical exercise. It feels like you’re reclaiming a part of yourself that went quiet while you were surviving in spaces that didn’t fit you. The patience, discipline, and passion you’re showing are not traits of someone who is “behind” or “barren”. They’re signs of someone whose resilience is woven deeply into their story.

About the relationship side of things, it’s understandable that dating apps feel mismatched. I mean, they often highlight surface-level compatibility, not the deeper traits that matter to someone like you values, like depth or authenticity; so you don’t need to force interests or pretend to be someone else. The right connection will meet where you are, and the fact that you’re willing to try, despite the discomfort and uncertainty, shows openness and growth.

I wonder if part of what feel like being “lost” is actually you standing at the intersection of old survival patterns and new desires. I see it as you transitioning into a new season of your life where you’re no longer who you had to be, but not yet who you’re becoming. It’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable because it’s new, but it isn’t failure or being behind.

I hope what lies ahead brings you tiny sparks of insight, unexpected chances, the right kind of people, and a sense of where you’re going that unfolds step by step. Rooting for you, okie

[FuYuan_Affections]

Hey @user8457,

When you called yourself “a NEET in my own home,” what I sensed wasn’t laziness or failure. It sounded more like a period where you stepped back from work because you were worn out from the long hours and the pressure you experienced in your previous job. Many people who enter Forbes-500 companies come in with certain expectations; stability, good culture, meaningful work and end up facing the opposite. That mismatch can drain anyone.

I also noticed how often you doubt your own abilities. Even when you’ve achieved things others would struggle with, you still question whether it was skill or luck. That kind of self-talk usually comes from growing up without consistent validation, especially when you had to manage a lot on your own from a young age.

Your reflections about your family were matter-of-fact, but the details say a lot. Your father’s habits; saving water, being cautious with electricity are virtuous values he inherited from his own father, especially as the only breadwinner who had to think about medical bills and day-to-day survival. It isn’t surprising that emotional expression took a back seat in a home like that.

And when you described your mother’s passing in such a straightforward way, it made me wonder how you actually felt about her. Sometimes people write in a factual tone because they never had space to process the emotional part. It doesn’t mean you didn’t care, it may just mean you didn’t have room to grieve properly.

You also mentioned that your father’s business “failed.” Children often see a parent’s struggles and unconsciously link it to their own worth. I wonder if a part of you equates any setback with being a failure yourself.

Even so, you worked hard and achieved more than what your circumstances might have predicted. You graduated on time, pushed through difficulties, and continued to build skills. It’s understandable that you expected success to bring some form of happiness. When it didn’t, the longing for emotional connection, something you didn’t get growing up, probably became clearer.

The loneliness you mentioned makes sense. You weren’t taught how to form emotional bonds, so dating feels unfamiliar. And because you haven’t seen evidence yet that a relationship could work for you, it’s natural that you’re unsure about the future.

What stood out to me was your interest in hardware. When you said, “it’s in my blood,” that line showed a sense of belonging you haven’t felt elsewhere in a long time. Returning to your portfolio project feels like you’re reconnecting with a part of yourself that has always been steady.

And one more thing, the way you wrote everything with clarity and honesty shows sincerity and effort. These are strong qualities, even if they’re not always recognised. It also tells me you’re capable of emotional depth, even if expressing it wasn’t something your environment taught.

You don’t have to force yourself into spaces where you don’t fit. You’re allowed to take time to understand what kind of connection you want and how to build it in your own way. This might be the point in your life where you start defining love and belonging differently from how your family showed it.

Maybe this period of your life is the point where you start breaking that old pattern. Your father’s generation expressed love through provision and survival. Your mother cared by holding the family together until she couldn’t. It makes sense you absorbed those ways of expressing care. But you don’t have to stay in that framework.

You have the chance now to learn a different way of relating, one that includes emotional language, emotional presence, and letting people know what matters to you. And based on how you wrote your story, you’re more capable of this than you think.

It doesn’t require big gestures. It starts from small steps: naming what you feel, being open with people you trust, and letting yourself communicate beyond practicality. You have the foundation for it. You’re doing it here already.