Not a Girl, not yet a Woman

Recently, more and more people have taken to calling me 'Girl'.

I grew up being called 'Ah Girl ah', or more correctly, 'Ah Ger ah'. My entire family calls me that, because I was the first grandchild anyway, so there are no other girls in the family. Also, my name is pretty hard to pronounce especially for the old folks, so that term stuck. The only time someone calls me by my real name, or my chinese name for that matter, was when I did something wrong, or someone needs something done in the family. When it's because I'd done something wrong, you can hear the stretching of my name in an accusatory tone. If it's because there's something really tedious to be done, then you'll hear it uttered in a sickeningly sweet manner.

The next few people who started calling me Girl, were my guy friends. I've known some of them since my secondary school days, and the rest from poly. One even called me Princess once, when he was wishing me goodnight. What the hell? Still, all was fine. They were my friends, many even older than me, so calling me 'Girl' was still okay. It's also kinda endearing and sweet that they remembered I was a girl.

Then there was this one female classmate from poly. Once in a while when we do sms or talk, she'll attach 'Girl' to the end of the questions she asks. I don't know why I feel uncomfortable hearing that from her. We're the same age (same birthdate even), and coming from her, it's sounds really patronizing. There's also a classmate from my Soc Psy class who calls me 'Girl', and she's 2 years younger than me. Granted, she does talk like an old woman sometimes. Well, since she wants to act older than her age, I let her. But sometimes, I use the 'Girl' thing back on her when we speak, just so I can reestablish the hierarchy. Muah ha ha.

And I just remembered something really weird. Both the above mentioned friends have the same name. Maybe people with that name like to sound old.

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining. In fact I do like it, coming from the correct people. I'd also rather be called 'Girl' than "Woman' anytime.