About half a year into my first job, I received a text message from a secondary school friend, we'll call him Baviva, asking if I wanted to catch up one of these days.

Now, the working world had battered me quite relentlessly during my half-year stint, which made this chance to reconnect with a used-to-be dear friend from a simpler time in my life a welcome one.

I readily agreed and we met at an inexpensive nasi padang stall near my workplace.

I ordered the usual two meat, one veg combination, although I was briefly tempted by the rather rare appearance of fried sotong amongst the choices offered.

But I needn't have bothered — turns out I was the true sotong this whole time.

There were some subtle points in the conversation that should have tipped me off to the fact that our meeting wasn't just two friends reuniting to bond over our shared experiences in life.

1. He was reluctant to tell me his profession at the start.

I asked what I considered to be rather run-of-the-mill questions "Oh, where are you working at now?" to which he gave an unnecessarily vague response "Oh, I'm in some finance thing".

He then turned the tables on me, asking me where I was working instead. For some reason, I answered vaguely as well, "just some job lor".

The damage was done.

Our rekindled friendship had gotten off on the wrong foot — where there was once nostalgia and hope, now seeds of mistrust had sprouted.

2. He was too invested in my financial plans for the future

Now, while we live in a world where financial security often is a pressing concern, Baviva seemed to touch on the issue a tad too frequently.

For instance, I would be recounting good old times where we got in trouble with the teachers, ("Eh, you remember when we tried to skip class but ran into the discipline master in the canteen?") only to be reminded of the harsh realities of proper financial planning by Baviva ("Yeah man, we were damn rabak, but you know what we can't afford to be rabak about? Our financial future.").

I mean, yeah I guess.

He eventually took out a rather thick stack of insurance papers to run me through different policies I could perhaps take a look at — no pressure of course, he assured me.

I nodded meekly, like a fox ensnared in a mesh cage lined with discarded insurance forms, and the next half an hour was an intricate dance of saying "no, I'm not financially ready" in increasingly complex synonyms and foreign languages.

"Je ne suis pas prêt financièrement bodoh."

After ascertaining that I neither had the means nor the willpower to get a financial plan with him, he put away his papers, we talked a bit more about our lives (quite an enjoyable chat actually) and finished off our by-now cold dishes.

We parted ways and made a verbal commitment to catch up again. Both of us knew the other was lying.

Nowadays when a long-lost friend does offer to meet up, I would more likely, due to my reticence and my own laziness, answer with a "Wah, I'm damn busy now though".

And that was that, which brings me to my ultimate, and only point I'm writing this to make, really.

Please tell me if you're just trying to sell me insurance; I would be really really grateful, thanks friend!

Hey, please dispense with the niceties, just tell me if you're trying to sell me insurance. I would be really, really grateful.

Look, far be it for me to judge another's occupation. Making a living is tough, and I'm sure being an insurance agent has loads of complications and great hardship.

But here's the thing: getting insurance is quite a big commitment. Especially if you're just starting out in your own career.

Which, due to the concept of linear time we all abide by, is usually when these "long-lost" friends tend to approach you for a chat.

Insurance packages, or saving plans, are not something you should spring on a newly minted graduate. It's not like picking a high-class French restaurant as the setting for a casual get-together, and expecting your friend to go along with it.

"Salut monsieur le serveur, je suis fauché et j'ai besoin de faire la vaisselle pour payer mon repas."

This is an actual financial commitment, with perhaps a decade or two in monthly instalments to worry about — so it's possible disguising yourself using a cloak of friendship might not be the best way to demonstrate your credibility and trust.

Maybe this tactic of bamboozling a friend is super-duper great though, and carries a 98 per cent chance of getting you a big fat commission.

And that in no way makes it right, but I get it. If that's the case, please feel free to ignore me and exploit the trust of your friends.

But the thing is, that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

In my exceedingly troubled state, I asked a financial consultant friend of mine, who I did end up getting a savings plan with, why some insurance agents employ this tactic.

And he was just as perplexed as me.

Which makes sense. If you're trying to convince someone that you should trust them with a long-term financial commitment, I venture that hoodwinkery, no matter how slight, should not be the way to go.

But considering the fact that this problem has been happening for years, perhaps it's just a rite of passage some of us have to go through.

Which is a shame, of course, because it always feels good when a friend who you have grown apart from as a result of circumstances and time happens to unexpectedly reach out to you.

And that friendship you had back then, and hopefully still now, feels like a thread that wasn't severed by the relentless onslaught of adulthood.

But now, thanks to this infuriating phenomenon, there will always be that niggling voice in the back of your head wondering if there is any ulterior motive behind the out-of-the-blue request for a catch-up, and common courtesy dictates you should feel a bit hesitant in asking the person point blank if they are just trying to sell you insurance.

And perhaps, on our (non-insurance-selling individuals') part, maybe we could proactively meet up with long-lost friends as well — for no reason other than to meet them.

And if we do that enough, maybe the pool of long-lost friends asking for meet-ups will expand to include people genuinely hoping to catch up.

Wah, but I'm damn busy now though.

Other soft truths

Top photo via Skynesher Getty Images