Attending A Group Iftar, Should You? Or Should You Not?

I usually do ngabuburit (ngabuburit is a term indicating activity/ies in the afternoon, while waiting for break-fasting) by scrolling down my twitter’s timeline. After finished doing all the preparation for iftar in the kitchen, well, honestly i don’t do anything helping since everything being taken care of my aunt and sister, so all I do is just waiting for them, smelling the deliciousness of the food prepared. Hahaha when people in your home think and believe that you can cook nothing, you actually do yourself a favor of not fussing and wasting your energy in the kitchen while you can use it for something else hahaha such a bad example 😛

Anyway, I was just scrolling mindlessly on twitter with no interest reading anything further, well, that is, until I read some tweets being tweeted by a famous account and judging from the respond of the follower that being retweeted, it seems like a pretty heated discussion. It all begin with a simple question: “why do you think you feel unsure for coming to an iftar (breakfasting) activity with your friends?” Yep, the reasons you might don’t want to participated on a group iftar. A common question, not-so-interesting one, at least, til you read the answer.

The responds to the question come from a lot of people, it ranges from simple, common answers to creative, unique answers that you might not think about.  Some has simple answers like the date do not matched, the place to do iftar is consider expensive, not feeling close with the people who invited you or simply because you know the event from someone but you’re not directly invited. This kind of reason that commonly create doubt in people but dont usually get to be said out loud. Yeah well, there is person who is bold enough to say it but still uncommon to be heard of. Whenever this kind of situation become a reason, most tend to present other reasonable excuses to cover it, just in case you need to look convincing enough that you actually unable to come.

Some others reasonably said that the place is too far, also that they concern about how to get back home safely, not getting parent permission, or even having another iftar planned in the same day. This kind of things are waaaayyy more common that the first group I explained before. This is a safe yet acceptable excuses both for the one who say it and them who hear it. But I think, sometimes excuses like this are easy to be argued by other who able to offer helps, either to pick you or other help.

Few examples of worse reasons of why one wont come, such as: (1) “Ajang pamer” (an activity of showing off whatever it is that one has achieved). This reason honestly become the one most inconvenient situation. I personally think that it has to do with the kind of friendship you have since the beginning, the type of friends and the purpose of starting the friendship in the first place. Eventhough in some cases, situations make people change their attitude and being too proud of their achievements, of what they have, more than they should be. If it was the later, than you just need to always remember keeping your ego and emotion in check. (2) “Cant bear meeting the legendary ex-boyfriend.” LOL. seems like someone having trouble on moving on. No need more comment on this one haha. (3) “Jobless or having no job whatsoever.” Well, this situation most likely happen to a recent graduated uni students. While before the tittle as student in university gave them a comfort sense especially to those who are involved in various kind of social works or organizations, being recently graduated student make them somewhat more insecure about their status in society and in front of friends who already stabilized enough as in have a job. How to solve this? Don’t worry too much, fill your currently free time with different kinds of activity, can be a volunteering work or learning new skill or language or even do travel to somewhere. Always remember that there is up and down in life, so enjoy your now. There is no need to be embarrassed about it.

And for me, the most common reasons are because the place is too far or I don’t feel close with the people invited me or don’t feel comfortable to be around them. There are, perhaps, a lot more excuses to be said. Some even were too lazy to come. The thing is that whenever I think about the objective of an iftar that is to get together with old friends and get update about each other well-beings, most of the time I pushed down that laziness feeling and all of those excuses that I might have before and decide to attend the iftar. I realized that time is the most precious thing a human can have. I also realize that most of chances one could lose good things/moments supposed to happen in their lives simply because they didn’t invest enough time to work on it.

So, if, in any chances, you decide to not come to an iftar gathering using every plausible reasons that come to your mind, think it thoroughly. What kind of fun conversation that I might miss to hear? What kind of happiness shared that I dont get involved to? What kind of laugh that I didn’t get to experience? What kind of connection that you cant make simply because you weren’t there? And etc etc. Instead of busy thinking about what others will think about you, you’d better focus on whatever good possibilities that might’ve happen if you come. Some moments are getting worser when you overthink about it and getting better when you actually acknowledge that it is not as bad as you first thought of.

I said, give it a try! Enjoy your fun iftar! Cheers! 🙂

Regards,
Dea