Marriage Is Not An Option. Yet.

4:00 PM
It was a lazy Friday afternoon. I honestly wanted to waste my night just surfing the Internet. I had just woken up from my post-24-hour hospital duty nap and I intended to spend it lazily at home, in my most comfortable shorts and T-shirt. But then, a classmate of mine from medical school who was also one of my housemates at the community started the cascade of tonight’s events:

Wer on our way hom. Cocolee has sum pipol he wants u girls 2 mit

I wanted to hide.

I’ve been set up by friends so many times I was probably a master in blind dates. And it always ends the same. We remain nothing but acquaintances. Occasionally, I bump into one during my nights out and I sometimes pretend that I don’t see him or I hide, afraid to find out if he even remembered me. One in particular just disappeared out of the face of my inbox without any warning only to see his Friendster default pic a month later with him and his new girlfriend posing infront of his cellphone cam.

But I disgress.

So, the guys arrived and I finally met Beckham, the one my classmates were apparently setting me up with. I reluctantly entertained the guy for my classmates’ sake. In all fairness, it surprised me that he wasn’t actually as bad as I expected. He wasn’t shy but he wasn’t very talkative either, which was a good thing because I usually get bored with shy guys who don’t talk and I could not tolerate guys who are too talkative. I don’t like it when you have uncomfortable gaps of silence and I absolutely hate the skipping rope conversations: The ones wherein you’re just waiting for the other person to catch his breath in between sentences, just so you can inject your own lines into the conversations.

He wasn’t from around here and was only in town to celebrate the festivities for the day with his cousins and relatives, whom he was currently staying with. He was two years younger than me and physically, okay… he was quite good-looking, I admit.

This could be interesting, I said to myself.

6:00 PM
Despite my adamant protests of not wanting to get out of the house, my classmates were still able to drag me out of it, into the guy’s SUV, and into the house of his relatives for a scrumptious dinner. Beckham took it upon himself to be an ever-attentive host as he personally served me various utensils, presented me with viands and made sure I was not without drinks. He continued to regal me with tales about his hometown, his college days, even his highschool days before dinner and during the post-dinner drinking session. My ever-familiar friend-slash-foe, Emperador Brandy, was the choice drink of the night. Remembering how much I had gotten acquainted with our toilet bowl because of this traitorous friend-slash-foe, I knew I was going to have to pass up the alcohol shots if I wanted to continue making a good impression.

But not after downing at least one glass though.

I kind of have a love-hate relationship with Emperador Brandy. So, sue me.

10:00 PM
People always said that when you talk to a drunk guy, he will always tell you the truth. I honestly had no idea if he was telling me the truth. I couldn’t believe that he too believed that one’s youth should be spent experiencing the good as well as the bad, for the simple purpose of not having any regrets when one gets old and looks back on how he lived his youth. It seemed impossible to me that he too watched the same cheesy soap opera as I did and that his favorite movie was “If Only,” a major tear-jerking chick-flick, which also turns out to be one of my favorite movies. I couldn’t believe we had so much in common that I had to keep myself from asking him, “Are you for real?”

He loved talking to me, So much so that we spent the night talking animatedly to each other, away from the rest of our friends. Not that I’m bragging but I can usually carry great conversations. I knew I wasn’t exceptionally drop-dead gorgeous, and not that 36-24-36 kind of sexy either, so I always try to make up for what I lack physically by making a guy comfortable enough when talking to me. And when the guy knows how to carry a good conversation himself, it usually makes for a very interesting thing I like to call “chemistry.”

I think the plan backfired.

Somewhere along the road, he had gotten too sodden enough that we were conversing as if we haven’t just met a few hours ago but more like months or years. This newly found closeness that he had conjured up in his mind was evident with the way he maneuvered the conversation to rapid transitions of anecdotes about his Nursing hospital duties, his past girlfriends, his feelings towards me, his haircut, his highschool teachers and even to sleeping together. I was pleased, flattered, embarrassed, uncomfortable and freaked out at the same time. It amused me to no end that he seemed to be the male version of myself two years ago. Only intoxicated. It would have been a good thing since I can’t resist someone who lives by the same principles as I did, except for the fact that he was totally incapacitatingly inebriated. Inexplicably wading deep sh*t in the throes of alcohol drunkenness.

Beckham was so relaxed and comfortable around me that by the end of the night, he was talking to me with his face practically six inches within my own face. There was really some serious invasion of private bubble space. When we sat down side by side, my upper arm was practically in his chest and the side of my breast was close to brushing his upper arm. I never minded really but I wasn’t that comfortable either. Contrary to what most people will think, I am not THAT liberated. What made the situation more amusing was when he started holding my hands, swaying them while walking, as if we have been boyfriend-girlfriend for a long time.

Add that to the fact that we were doing so infront of my landlord’s teenage children who supposedly looked up to me as a role model, my conservative housemates and the class’ two worst jokesters of all time, who will never make me live this experience down for as long as they lived. I was incredibly embarrassed and just wanted to stand in the middle of the highway and wait for a passing bus to hit me, most especially when one of the jokesters started singing a song made popular by Yeng Constantino.

“Hawak-kamay… Di kita iiwan sa paglakbay… “ (Holding hands… I will never leave you on your journey…)

Arghhh…

And to think, I wasn’t even drunk.