Sometime in late-2017 - pre-Christmas period - I finally had time to meet the boys.
That was after I had wrapped up a particularly hectic and long-drawn work project.
That night, at PS Cafe Dempsey, I made an announcement to the boys Stanley and Carl.
"I have presbyopia," I said grimly.
Carl the dense one looked up from the menu and studied my features carefully as if I were a museum exhibit.
"Is that some form of STD?" Stanley the sex bunny asked cautiously. "Let's not share dessert," he said, looking at Carl for support.
Carl's python-size biceps twitched ominously. The colour of his face drained and he looked at me with great concern.
I rolled my eyes and leaned forward.
Sensing something sensational, Stanley and Carl did the same, temporarily abandoning the task of choosing a dessert.
"It's just lao hua," I explained, using the more common term in Mandarin.
Stanley slumped back in his seat in a dramatic manner, and groaned that there was no real value in that information.
Carl was still leaned in, his head cocked sideways as if he were a K2 kid trying to understand Pythagoras Theorem.
"Adam, there's no drama in this. It simply means you're getting old - there's no need to fret," Stanley said. "Ageing happens to all straight men who're married, and to all gay men who're attached. Only single and happy gay boys like Carl and me never age."
Out of pure kindness, Stanley later put me in charge of ordering dessert, then proceeded to rest his chin on his hands, patiently awaiting drama.
A week later, J accompanied me to have my eyes checked, and reading glasses prescribed.
All my life, I had not needed to wear specs.
The only time I did was when I was a kid, when I secretly tried on my Godma's specs.
I felt as if the floor had tilted and had to take big, arching strides to walk, as if I were Neil Armstrong on the moon.
I were to later find out that I had 100 degrees of presbyopia in both eyes.
I wasn't over the moon.
The good news, as J had so lovingly put it, is that I can now choose a pair of trendy specs which would make me look more distinguished.
I didn't achieve that goal.
A few days later, while poring over page after page of documents without my reading glasses, I finally gave up.
A colleague who saw me put them on and reading my documents exclaimed that I reminded her of her grand uncle.
That young li'l bitch - who was all of 22 - even remarked that my iPhone fonts were enormous.
Stanley would later boast that the only thing in his iPhone that's enormous were images of a specific category that's best left not discussed in public.
But life has to go on, with or without reading glasses.
But mostly with reading glasses these days.
After the initial two weeks of getting used to donning specs, I no longer felt giddy whenever I took them off.
And I had gotten used to the fact that if I eat without my reading glasses, the morsels of food in front of me would appear fuzzy.
Yes, I am old.
And it took putting on the reading glasses to see this fact clearly.
Often, the first signs of ageing creep in without us realising it.
For those of us who still look youthful when we're near forty, we aren't aesthetically reminded of our age.
But when these clear symptoms kick in... there's no denying it.
It will first start with innocuous conditions like presbyopia.
And then we'll have, I don't know, slipped disc or something.
I vocalised my thoughts to the boys about ageing some time later.
Carl the dense one who lifts weights like it's his profession, looked mortified at the prospect.
Stanley the drama queen whispered theatrically.
"Slipped discs can go down a slippery slope very quickly.... and we could soon be paralysed from the waist down boys!"
Carl looked like he wanted to cry, and started patting his python-sized arms lovingly as if he were saying goodbye.
Stanley went very quiet.
Then he decided: "But that's okay. We're survivors.
"Even when that happens, I can still use my mouth."
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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
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