Honestly don’t even know where to start with this. Need to vent because I feel like I’m watching a slow-motion trainwreck happen to someone I’ve known since JC days.
So I have this female friend (24F), graduated from one of the local Big 3 unis around May this year with a pretty generic arts/social science degree. Second lower honours, nothing spectacular, no solid internships because she spent most of her uni life clubbing and travelling. Since graduation, the job market has been brutal—everyone knows that. She’s been mass applying on MyCareersFuture and LinkedIn for months, getting ghosted or rejected after first-round interviews.
Every time our group meets up for supper, she’s constantly complaining about being broke, having to pay back her tuition fee loan soon, and refusing to take any “lowball” $3k admin or contract jobs because she thinks it’s beneath a local degree holder.
About two months ago, we were having drinks at Clarke Quay and she was whining again about how she only has a few hundred dollars left in her POSB account. One of our mutual friends—who is honestly a bit of a cb kia with zero filter—jokingly told her, “Aiya, you got look quite decent, go work as maid cafe waitress first lah. Easy money, no need experience, then can use as stepping stone go KTV or pub become hostess, after that straight away upgrade become full-on chicken, confirm faster than climbing corporate ladder.”
Everyone at the table laughed it off because we thought it was clearly dark humour. She didn’t really laugh though, just gave a super awkward smile and changed the topic.
Fast forward to last week. She suddenly stopped replying to our group chat as often, saying she finally found a “part-time events and F&B gig” to tide her over. Fair enough, good for her, right? Except suddenly her Instagram stories completely changed vibe. Out of nowhere, she’s posting mirror selfies in heavy douyin makeup, wearing those frilly cosplay-ish outfits, and tagging locations around Bugis and Orchard late at night.
Two days ago, another guy friend of mine who frequents those Japanese-style maid cafes around Dhoby Ghaut / Bugis texted me a photo of a menu/flyer with a blurred-out face and asked, “Eh, isn’t this your JC friend?”
Confirm plus chop it was her. She literally took that idiot’s joke seriously.
I’m not here to look down on F&B or service staff—honest living is honest living. What worries me is knowing her personality. She’s super easily influenced by fast money and lifestyle creep, and she already has zero patience for grinding out a normal entry-level corporate salary. Knowing the kind of crowd that hangs around some of these late-night concept cafes and how fast recruiters from Lup Sup KTVs or Orchard Towers / Geylang circles poach girls who want quick cash, I’m genuinely scared that “stepping stone” joke is going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Do I even say anything to her, or just mind my own business? At the end of the day she’s an adult, and if I bring it up she’ll probably get defensive and accuse me of judging her while I’m sitting comfortably in my 9-to-5. Anyone ever seen someone spiral from desperate fresh grad into the nightlife scene like this?