Recently, it showed me various photos taken in 2014.
They are bittersweet memories.
Stanley my sex bunny friend, Carl the dense one and I were huddled really close to one another, our we-fie taken at an exaggerated high angle to ensure none of us showed our flabby double chins.
If you look at this blog's profile photo, well, it was one of those photos taken back then (introducing, from left to right, the hands of Adam, Stanley and Carl!).
In most of those photos, Stanley and I were grinning like goons but Carl was only smiling feebly.
The year was 2014, and Carl was still mourning the breakup with his beloved partner of nearly 10 years.
The three of us were at Carl's favourite gay pub in the whole wide world -- EBar.
It was barely a week after Carl's break up and our friend was in extreme fragile mode, so Stanley and I made sure we kept a close watch on him.
That night, Carl wanted to drown his sorrows, and so Stanley and I braced our livers and gamely went along.
"If there's one organ I can choose to sacrifice to make one of my best friends happy, I'll pick liver any day," Stanley said. "But if it's to please a man I love, darling, I'll gladly choose another organ."
That night, we got VIP treatment at Ebar.
Because Carl was a regular at the Karaoke pub, staff there were fully aware of his newly vulnerable state.
Fellow regulars, the bartender, some of the wait staff and even the boss himself came by to give Carl supportive hugs as he stepped in.
Stanley leaned in and whispered: "I have always wanted to walk into a pub and have everyone line up to hug me. I thought the secret was to keep hooking up -- Carl has just showed me that it's about breaking up."
I elbowed Stanley in his ribs.
"Ow! Adam, that hurts," Stanley says, rubbing one side of his body. "But thank you for reminding me. For a while, I thought I'd never feel pain when someone jabs me."
We both laugh.
Carl remain stoic.
Our dense friend remained unsmiling even as we were led to our usual seat -- Carl's favourite corner of the bar.
To cheer him up, Stanley made the first order: One bottle of Macallan.
"Want to sing a song, Carl?" I ask, hoping that his favourite activity would cheer him up a little.
Carl shook his head dully.
"Want to suck a dick, Carl?" Stanley ventured next, hoping that his own favourite activity would cheer Carl up a little.
Carl shook his head dully.
But no, we're not giving up.
Minutes later, our Macallan came, along with green tea and Coke mixers.
Carl immediately reached for the whisky bottle and filled up one-third of his glass. Neat.
"Wow," Stanley said. "You like it stiff too eh?"
Carl nodded stiffly.
We filled ours carefully -- making sure to mix our drinks with something. We're not here to get drunk with Carl. We're here to be his watchful eyes.
Stanley meanwhile, filled up one-third of his glass, taking Carl's cue.
"But I will have it on the rocks," he said, stressing on the word rocks, biting his lower lip.
"Why must everything you say have to be sexual," I ask, raising my glass for the first toast of the night.
Carl knocked his entire glass back in one gulp.
Stanley and I eyed each other cautiously.
While our dense friend Carl is usually non participative when we're out, partly because he's not always in the zone, he's worryingly quiet that night.
In fact, it's one of those moments when we hoped Carl would be in his dense element so that he won't feel the pain of a breakup.
But Stanley and I kept trying -- alternating between being supportively quiet with Carl, and trying to make him feel better with our usual antics.
Nothing quite worked.
Twenty minutes later, our Macallan was half empty.
"Or half full," Stanley said a tad too cheerfully, before proceeding to fill our glasses with yet another round of drinks.
It didn't take us one hour to order our second bottle.
By then, Stanley was unusually cheerful.
"Keep them coming! Don't stop, don't stop!" Stanley shouted with meaning at the cute bartender, who raised his glass in response.
"This is one thing my sister Adam won't be saying because he's boring in bed with his boring partner J," Stanley continued, looking in my direction.
I raised a finger at Stanley in response.
Carl laughed.
Not so much our doing -- he had been the sole contributor for making our Macallan disappear.
But we took the cue. Carl is showing emotion, and that's good.
Stanley urgently filled our glasses and proposed yet another toast.
"I think we should order something deep fried," I remember saying after what seemed like our 400th toast, feeling a little woozy.
"Adam... we're at a gay bar. We're high. And the only thing you want to put into your mouth is oily food?!" Stanley scolded.
Carl replied automatically: "Yes! Put a cock in your mouth!"
"Big cock, big cock!" Carl continued chanting and clapped his hands like a happy child.
Seeing that Carl was finally warmed up, Stanley took it upon himself to order Carl a song.
Our dense friend has one of the best singing voices we know.
Stanley dragged me to the bar counter because he has limited recognition of Chinese characters.
"This machine is very difficult to operate," Stanley said, slurring his words.
"Hey, future boyfriend, please come and help me," Stanley said to the cute bartender.
And because Carl was VIP that night, our table skipped the queue and immediately was able to sing the next song.
Stanley had very wisely chosen a Cantonese classic -- Hoy Futt Tin Hong (which is loosely translated to mean carefree without boundaries) by Beyond.
It's not an emotional ballad and the song requires lots of cathartic screaming -- just what Carl needs right now.
And Carl did not disappoint, belting out the song with feeling, hitting the high notes with perfection, galvanising the entire pub to sing and sway along.
If only his love life were that perfect.
By the end of the song, Carl was no longer stoic.
He wasn't chirpy and joyful (that would be Stanley who had by then gone around at least four tables toasting random strangers) but he was at least responsive.
But we were at a point of no return so we promptly ordered our third bottle of Macallan to keep the night going.
"I hate men," Carl said sadly.
Stanley pouted along with Carl and urgently signalled me to do the same.
"I hate men!" I said weakly.
"Yes! Fuck them all!" Carl said angrily.
"Yes! Fuck all the men," Stanley said, sounding energised, and stood up and thrust his hips forcefully into the air several times.
And then, without warning, Stanley covered his mouth and ran towards the toilet.
Carl looked at me and giggled.
Minutes later, Stanley returned and said: "Guys... I just puked. And I am so relieved. I thought I'd lost my gag reflex!"
Carl giggled even harder.
And then, Carl pouted.
"I am so sad," Carl said, beginning to sound like himself for the first time that night.
Stanley went over and hugged Carl from behind.
"Adam, get your fat ass over and complete this group hug," Stanley commanded, waving his hand at me.
"Do you think I'll ever love again?" Carl asked.
"You will," Stanley said firmly, looking at Carl in the eye.
"Just like how I will never stop having sex, you will never stop loving. You'll find the right one soon," said Stanley in his most assuring voice.
"I love you boys," Carl said, his eyes looking like a homeless puppy.
"I love you both too," Stanley said, and whipped out his phone.
"This calls for a photo."
And those photos, posted on Stanlye's Facebook page, would go on to remind us of not only this night, but the fact that we'll always be there for one another.
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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
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