Promo cycle I've come full circle with condo boys and girls.

You see them around, all spiffy in pressed shirts and ties, or corporate skirts and blouses. Armed with a stack of literature, they lie in wait outside coffee shops and hip bars.  They set up shop in various malls, sundry corners, and even hotel lobbies.  It doesn't matter what time of day it is, they could be lurking on early evenings, or slow weekends.

Their goal: to entice you into buying into the latest condo development. They have glossy brochures and snazzy pictures, depicting gleaming structures and luxury amenities.  They use sweet smiles and friendly words, cajole you into giving an email address or a phone number, and the unsuspecting does just that.  A fatal mistake, for this is a trap.

Once a naive passerby expresses interest in a particular development, once the sales patter has been given a momentum of its own, the squeeze comes: sign up for a free tour, a cocktail, an exclusive launch party.  Sign up with a name and phone number or an email address.  Sign up for a one-sided amorous relationship with the real estate agent.

For that is what it is.  It is a relationship, one between hunter and hunted.  The agent will pursue you relentlessly, over phone calls and texts, email blasts and invites. He will wear you down, with incessant follow-ups and unwanted messages. And it won't be just this development.  The next project the developer he works for launches - you get blasted with another round of marketing from the enterprising and seriously driven agent.

And after that project is sold, that's still not the end of it.  The agent might move to another employer, and the cycle starts over.  The competitor's project gets touted as a replacement.  One agent I knew got married, and promptly bequeathed all her contacts to her husband.  Guess who now broadcasts his projects as well?

That is why I used to scramble when I would see the condo boys and girls loitering in the streets.  My heart would sink, and my pace would quicken, I would avoid eye contact, and hope I wouldn't get noticed.  Please, oh please don't come near me.

I don't know at which point I began to feel guilty.  After all, I thought, these were just human beings trying to make a living.  It wouldn't hurt to do the decent thing, smile, just take the damn flyer, and move on.  After being brushed off by hundreds of pedestrians every day, what's wrong with giving a friendly smile and acceptance of the lovely, shiny brochure, and then moving on? (Just don't give a phone number).  The compassionate side won over.

So I did that, and there was inner peace for a while.  Harmony in the universe and so.  At least, until the day I got to the nearest trash can and saw hundreds of condo flyers and brochures dumped into it.  And multiplying that exponentially by the thousands of hungry agents scattered all over the metropolis, you realize, wow. All that tons of garbage.  All that paper, and money thrown into those literature, all that sheer waste.

I was actually promoting environmental degradation with my silly sentimentality. Every time I reached out and grabbed hold of the outstretched flyer, I was dooming generations to come.  Because of course, those marketing companies would churn out even more flyers to advertise their already hideously expensive condos, over and over, until they finally managed to unload all those sad, unwanted condo units.

So guess who's back to dreading the condo marketers.  It's come full circle, although I feel slightly less guilty about saying "no, thanks."  Doesn't matter if I can again hear their thought bubbles blowing my way saying: "twerp!"

At least, I saved the environment.  And I didn't get their hopes up on false pretenses. (I need to tell myself something to make me feel better).

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