I play table tennis on every Tuesday evening if the time and workloads permit. Last week, yes, i made it for the game. Playing with me were some ex-colleagues from the now defunct Qimonda . I want to introduce one particular guy in this posting as I find partnering with him during the game is really stressful,which defeats my purpose of letting myself loose after a hard day of work.

Reason is this gentleman treats every game like You Die or I Die competition! Damn serious he is!  He wore full gears for the game, and warmed up for almost 15  minutes. I always respect his absolute preparedness for the game in this sense. So, we started the 1st game and i partnered with him. Our game is based on a 3 sets with either 2-0 or 2-1 determining the winner. Long story short, we lost 9-11 in the 1st and 7-11 for the 2nd game. From his face, i knew he was upset with the loss,partially fed up too with me for not being compatible with him during the game. I was fine with the loss but i did blame myself for the loss as i supposed i was the under-performing one.

Then, we exchanged partner. This time, guessed who won the 2nd set? I won with the new partner. By now, the guy was seen even more annoyed and stressful after the 2nd loss. Before the 3rd set, he asked for 5 mins break and 5 mins for warm up again. At the same time, he put on his head and wrist bands to ensure the sweats never ever came close to disturbing his game! See? This is called sportsmanship!  Then, I had a new partner for the 3rd game. It was a tough game but fortunately I won again with this 3rd partner. You can imagine how the 1st guy will react after the 3rd game set. He stopped for the day and citing he is not in his best form that day,at the same time, we were almost done for the day too.

Guys, do we need to be that serious for a friendly game or regular practices? I am talking about like the guy aforementioned….You will just create tensions for your partner if you behave like that. Whenever I made a mistake, this guy will lecture you from the back,be careful of this and that! Nabeh!….I wanted to give his arss a spank ing with my 729 bat but then I restrained myself.

So, if you are partnering with somebody in your next game, do care about your partner’s prowess and feelings in that game. After all, we are going there to sweat out,not bleeding or crying out…..I wish this guy will attain the enlightenment one day. Shit, should i play on next Tuesday? I haven’t decided now…

By the way, my ping pong skills are quite good,just for the record,similar to the skills shown in this clip: