A Letter to My G-Spot
Dear G-Spot,
Where the hell are you?
Do you even exist? Are you just a mere myth invented for the sole purpose of torturing women with high expectations and taunting men for their substandard horizontal techniques? Are you just a mere fragment spun from some lonely woman’s imagination as she lay under the heaving Wookish morbidly obese body of her panting husband to entice him to stop his one minute pounding of her disenchanted vaginal canal?
Where the f**kin’ hell are you?
How Many Is Many
DocS was the one of the deans of the medical school where I came from. Because he was a member of a family-owned educational institution, he asked me and some of my classmates to help him conduct the annual physical examination of all of the elementary and highschool students of the said educational institution. We all rode in his van and he drove us towards the said institution, with me sitting in the front seat with him while the rest of my classmates sat at the back. As he started grilling us about school, the review, my former highschool classmate who is a niece of his, our conversation shifted to the more personal and interesting questions.
“So, [Mistress], when are you getting married?”
I laughed. “Di ko pa alam, DocS. Di ko pa po iniisip yan sa ngayon.”
“Why not? You should start thinking about settling down already.”
A polite smile was my only reply.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
My classmates laughed from the back. They were all aware of my sordid stories of the men who had come in and out of my life. “Uhhh… no.”
“Why not? Didn’t you have a boyfriend when I interviewed you during your application to the medical school?”
Uhhh… that was eons of years ago, I wanted to tell him. But instead I just smiled.
“And I think I saw you before with some guy, I just can’t remember when it was.”
“Which one, doc?” I asked him. After which my classmates laughed. They thought I have just incriminated myself to one of the deans from our school by implying that I was a slut.
“What? So you have had many boyfriends?”
I simply laughed him off and ignored his question.
Darna then whispered to me jokingly that I should just keep my mouth shut because I am forgetting that I was talking to the Dean of Student Affairs, who was the henchman for knowing the personal stories and reputations of all medical students in the medical school.
So, how many really is many? And how many boyfriends is appropriate enough? How many boyfriends will a girl have had to be labeled a slut? Does having had a number of boyfriends, regardless of whether or not I was monogamous to them (I was, by the way, 100% of the time!), of whether or not I slept with them, or whether or not I was truly madly deeply inlove with them, label me a slut? Does the simple fact that the number of guys whom I have called “My Boyfriend” are more than the number of fingers in my one hand evidence enough to categorize me as a slut?
I do not really consider myself a slut. Yes, I have had numerous relationships, a lot more than I would care to but I regretted none of them. I did not sleep with all of them. I do not wish to tell the actual number of boyfriends I have had but rest assured that I can still count them using the fingers in my hands. I will admit though that I have only fallen truly deeply madly inlove thrice in my life.
I once heard in some show at the Discovery Channel that a person will fall inlove about an average of three times in his entire lifetime.
So, does this mean that three is the magic number?
You tell me.
The Third Floor
Secrets.
Everybody loves a secret. There is something incredibly exciting when someone speaks to you in hushed tones about his or her or someone else’s secret. Whether it’s a good secret like hiding the fact that you will be graduating at the top of your class from your parents so as to surprise them during graduation, or a bad secret like being involved with a married man or a boring secret like smoking in the house’s bathroom before bathing or exchanging flirtatious text messages with the boyfriend of someone who comes from the same school as you. Everybody loves a secret.
The third floor of my school building has its secrets.
It has been a constant witness to the numerous women taking daily baths at the 3rd floor CR despite the school forbidding it. It has been a constant witness to the many secret rendezvous with one married medical student, despite having been chastised once by one of the priests in the school for public display of affection (We were only talking and holding hands, by the way). It has been a constant witness to the various maneuvers to sneak into classrooms despite the door being locked for those who are late for even half of a second to their 7:00 AM class, the scandalous conversations between women in the comfort room regarding their sexual activities with their boyfriends, and the sexually-charged atmosphere when gay men illicitly check out the penises of straight men while peeing in the urinals.
As one passes by the open door of the 3rd floor Men’s CR, one will be able to see the heads of men standing infront of the stalls as they drain the main vein. A moment of discomfort occurs as one briefly catches the eye of anyone currently doing his business. For a fleeting time, the man holding his penis as he purges out his renal secretions and the woman passing by who manages to look into his direction exchange a few seconds of awkwardness. The man, as if ashamed of this normal act of excreting bodily fluids, is usually the first to turn his eye elsewhere. The woman, conscious of what anatomical part he is holding at the moment, proceeds to turn her gaze elsewhere as well, as if somehow afraid that her stare might cause all the blood in his circulation to rush to his main pipe, completely unaware despite her highschool background of Biology that it is almost impossible for a man to urinate when he has an erection.
And somehow they are reduced to forget that a mere strip of metal that stands as a stall separates the other from whatever it is that he or she is thinking.
Stop the Wedding!
“[Mistress], you’re late. Everybody’s in church for the rehearsal.”
I hurriedly dressed up in the simple black dress my mother handed me. As I put on the 3-inch sling backs on my well-manicured toes, she began ranting off a litany of things that she had to do for the day.
“I already told your sister that you’re on your way. Everybody’s waiting for you in church. I think the seamstress has a problem with your dress. But I think one of your bridesmaids has already talked to her. I think you should try to get in touch with her anyway. I still have to go to the printers because I need to have a few more invitations printed up since your groom had additional guests he had to invite at the last minute. And your father’s busy with the caterers so he can’t do it himself.”
Wait. What the F—. “Excuse me? Mom? What is this all about?”
My mother rolled her eyes at me. “Your wedding, iha. Please don’t joke with me right now. I am soo not in the mood.
I plopped down on the bed ungracefully. Did I just hear her right?
MY. WEDDING.
“My wedding? With whom?”
She looked at me exasperatingly. “Iha, this is not the time to dilly-dally. Now, chop-chop. Hurry. Everybody’s waiting for you.”
I felt like I was going through the motions as I rode the car that was bringing me to church for the rehearsal dinner. I vaguely remember hearing myself ask her again and again who I was getting married to but she took my lack of knowledge of the man I was getting married to as another one of my well-known cinematic ploys to joke and make fun of her.
“Can I take a look at the invitation, Mom?”
Maybe I can take a peep at this mystery man that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
“I don’t have a copy of it. We ran out of invitations, that’s why I have to go to the printers to have an additional batch reprinted in the first place.”
“Ma, who is this mystery groom? This isn’t a parental kind of thing, is it?”
She rolled her eyes at me again. “Oh, you! Why should I set you up with a parental? We’re not even Muslim. Stop playing these silly games with me, iha! I don’t have time to deal with this right now!”
God. I’m getting married tomorrow.
And to some stranger I don’t even know.
I tried desperately to search through my memory for my so-called groom. The most that I got was a medium-height well-built faceless guy in a black coat and tie. When my mother dropped me off at the church, I saw the line of men and women, mostly friends and relatives, waiting for my arrival. Several orange and purple flowered topiaries were lined in one side of the church. I cringed, hoping against hope that somebody will tell me that those are not for my wedding. SexyMama, one of my highschool classmates, approached me right away.
“[Mistress], there’s a problem with your dress. I’m so sorry. I’ve already talked to them and they said they can’t get you the dress you asked for to be ready by tomorrow. I know it’s my fault since I was the one who recommended you to them in the first place but they are willing though to have my old wedding dress resized to fit you and they’ll be able to deliver it to you as early as tomorrow morning.”
I just looked at her blankly. SexyMama was tall and extremely lanky. I, on the other hand, was petite and more curvy. It would take the best darn seamstress in the entire city to make me fit into her wedding gown. “I’m going to be wearing someone else’s wedding gown on my own wedding day?”
She smiled sheepishly. “Y-Yes…”
I have dreamed of my wedding my whole life and now, I’m going to be wearing someone else’s hand me down? “SexyMama, are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
“I am SO sorry. The dressmakers totally underestimated the time it will take them to get all the beads and embroidery sewn into the dress. I think they only got the embroideries today so they still had to saw up the whole thing and your actual wedding dress will not be finished by tomorrow.”
“Okay…” As if I had a choice. I sighed in exasperation. “Ahmmm, SexyMama?”
“Yes?”
“Who am I marrying tomorrow?”
SexyMama rolled her eyes at me. “Stop it, [mistress]. That’s not funny. The two of you have been dating for almost two years. Don’t tell me you’ve somehow conveniently forgotten who you’re marrying tomorrow!”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to get any dish from her, I grabbed my sister’s arm as she was about to walk past us. She was busy trying to set up the entrance of the bridal entourage.
“Hey, you’re here,” my sister, SisterJ, exclaimed. “Finally, we can start the rehearsal. Places, p—“
“SisterJ, who’s my groom?”
“Oh, don’t be coy, [mistress]. We’re all too busy to go along with your lousy pre-wedding humor.”
“What the— I have no idea who I’m marrying! Can’t you just get me a copy of the invitation so that I at least know the name of this guy I’m supposed to be spending my life with, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health?”
I was freaking out, obviously. But I didn’t care.
SisterJ slapped me on the cheek. “Stop it! Get your act together. This is all just pre-wedding jitters. Why don’t you just go there and stand at the end of the line and wait for your turn to march. We’ve been waiting for you for almost an hour! We’ll start with the rehearsals. Now!”
The sting from her slap was like a cold bucket of iced water spilled on my entire body. It calmed me, yes, enough so that I was able to go through the motions of walking towards the end of the bridal entourage and waiting for my turn to march. I vaguely remember saying thanks to the friends around me who congratulated me for my wedding tomorrow.
“You must be so excited!” exclaimed Darna.
“You’ve been waiting for this all your life!” Janedoe remarked giddily.
“Who would have thought you’ll actually get married before you turn 30?” Funnyboy interrupted. “We used to think you weren’t interested in marriage until you’ve finally saturated your desire for your single blessedness.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I heard myself say to them. Like a robot. I still had no idea who I was marrying. And then I thought, They are right. I have been waiting for this for almost my entire life. Even if I somehow gave them the impression that I was okay with the relatively short durations of my many past relationships because I was still enjoying being single, at the back of my mind, I secretly longed for the long-term relationships that most of my friends had. I worried that I might become a spinster for the rest of my life. I feared that I may not get the happily ever after I’ve been dreaming of.
And then I thought, What the hell?! What girl in her right mind marries someone she doesn’t know?
So in the middle of my wedding rehearsal march, I stopped and I screamed at the top of my lungs:
“Itigil ang kasal!” (Stop the wedding!)
And then I finally woke up. It was just a really bad dream after all. Thank God.
* Parental – A Muslim custom of fixing up the marriage of one’s child to another child of another family after an agreement between the parents of both families, which includes the settlement of a certain amount of money or dowry that will be exchanged from the family of the groom to that of the bride’s in exchange for the services rendered in rearing the bride.
The Great Beautification Project
I am one of those girls who loves dressing up, but only once in a while, about less than a typical fashionista but more than the average jobless woman in her late 20s. So, during those days of girly-girl insanity, I might end up either wearing a short skirt, gussying up my face with full make-up, showing some cleavage or walking in 3-inch stilettos.
So, one time, I decided to go to school in sans full female painted warrior mode and proceeded to attack my make-up drawer. Yes, I do not have a kit, like most girls do, but instead I have a drawer for all my cosmetics. Over the years, I have accumulated a vast amount of cheap and not-so-cheap make-up in various kinds, brands and colors, and they are all sitting at the top drawer of my vanity. My beautification skills are still not as brilliant as I would have wanted to but I’ve learned to improvise by using a couple tricks here and there. What has frustrated me when putting on make-up, since time immemorial though, is the fact that I can’t make my eyes pop to save my life.
You see, I probably have the world’s shortest female eyelashes.
I can only dream about having long flirty eyelashes because apparently mascara and I don’t mix. Whatever I do, I always end up blotting them. An hour after leaving the house, I already looked like the girl who had just spent hours crying after she got dumped, with my raccoon eyes and clumps of mascara sticking to my upper and lower eyelids. I have tried the black mascara, the blue one, the cheap ones, the more expensive ones. In case anybody is about to give me unsolicited advice on how to use a mascara wand properly, trust me, of course, I curled the lashes first using the handy eyelash curler (Hello. Give me some credit. I am not dumb enough to actually not use one before applying the mascara) but still nothing worked. The curl in my eyelashes would only last for a couple minutes before my lacrimal glands would start acting up and proceed to blot out my previously well-applied mascara, making it run all over my eyelids, raccoon style.
It was sooo not the look I was going for.
When I finally resolved to accepting that indeed I do have the world’s shortest eyelashes and have already finished trying to cope up with this by slashing all the pictures of every long eye-lashed Maybelline model in every women’s magazine around the 100 m vicinity from my bedroom, I decided to try using eyeliner instead. Watching Gossip Girls and The Hills somehow inspired me in this new endeavour as I wondered how they looked so chic and casual with eyelinered-eyes and lip-glossed mouths even while apparently just lounging around at the comforts of their own homes.
Now, black eyeliner is making a comeback due to the so-called Emo. In my desire to avoid being stared at by salesladies at cosmetics counters or being mistaken as if I’m vouching for Emo-ness at the age of 27, I avoided the pencil and wanted to try my hand in using black liquid eyeliner. I remembered one particular young lady dentist I met from the community who used liquid eyeliner who looked incredibly fantastic that I sooo wanted to BE her. After poking my eyes repeatedly with the sharp pointed thingie, making weird crooked black lines in my upper and lower eyelids and having it blot all over my face less than 5 minutes after, I finally decided to give that up and stick to pencil instead.
I’ll take the Emo look over the girl-who-just-got-dumped look any day.
This cosmetics-related post looks obviously lost among the dating stories in this blog but I decided to write this because I remembered that Philip once commented that my eyes looked really nice after I had used some black eyeliner (with a pencil) on them. Must be why I’m doubly trying to master the skills for making my eyes pop using make-up, even if I’m repeatedly failing in them. Apparently I can stitch a 10-inch laceration using silk 3.0 in cutting needle in my sleep but I cannot make my eyes pop using mascara and eyeliner.
Sigh… the stupid things we do for love.
— inspired by Charming, but Single’s So… (November 7, 2007)
Cooking 101 (Part One)
I can’t cook.
For the past 27 years of my life, I have never learned to cook.
Oh, I can fry an occasional fish, boil an egg, warm up a can of corned beef, cook rice in a rice cooker (which is basically following the 1:1 rule, no science in that), but I cannot make a complete fantastic meal to save my life. I can make a really fatty atherosceloris-beckoning breakfast though, composed of coking an egg sunny side up, warming up a can of corned beef, frying a couple of nitrite-laden hotdogs and toasting last’s night’s left over rice, if I really had no choice, but a year of that kind of cooking and I’d be the youngest contender for bypass surgery at the age of 28.
I’ve had several cooking mishaps, one which consisted of me attempting to make pancakes which resembled doughy scrambled eggs (which a few of my classmates have witnessed and never made me forget, referring to it as “The Unforgettable Day [Mistress] Tried To Make Hotcakes In the Community”) and another incident where I tried frying hotdogs, only to realize that I had actually forgotten to remove the hotdogs from their individual plastic wrappers and I had managed to make those plastic wrappers curl up as they burned in all that hot oil.
I blame it on the fact that I lived most of my life with a maid, who cooks all our meals for us. My mother, being a working mother for as long as I can remember (and will probably continue to do so, as long as the Philippine government will allow her) rarely cooks except occasionally, on the weekends that our maid has her days off. Actually, even on those days, my aunt, who has never married and lives with us, does most of the cooking so, I never really found the opportunity to ask my mother to teach me how to cook as she toils over a hot stove nor the drive to actually immerse myself in the kitchen.
But I’m really just making excuses. I’m lazy. That’s probably it.
But for the past few months, learning how to cook has provided me with a certain fascination equivalent to Fuck-Me-Boots* (black classy knee-length boots that I dream about but cannot find, afford, nor wear since I have calves disproportionate to my body from all that bicycling during my highschool days) and mountain-climbing (an activity I’d really want to take up but have found no friends willing to do that with me). I found myself checking out websites of other bloggers who cook, salivating over the pictures while wiping my own drool from my laptop and poring through cooking recipes in the Internet of foods that I will probably not be able to make from scratch.
Hence, I have resolved to mentally add this to my list of 101 reasons why I should move out of my parent’s house after I find myself a job: It will give me the opportunity to finally force myself to learn how to cook.
SoSexy, who has officially won the class’ vote for the Best Dinuguan (blood pudding) award, used to tell me that learning how to cook will make my then boyfriend fall for me more. As much as I loved my boyfriend then, I’m lazy guys, hasn’t anybody noticed that yet? So, it is only until recently that I actually started fantasizing about cooking up a romantic meal for some guy – after which, he would be so enthralled with my cooking that with a mouth full of Tequila Lime Chicken topped with Cranberry-Walnut Chicken Salad, he will go down on his knees and look up to me and say:
Whhhhmp mmm mmmpppprrrrhhhy mpphooo?
(Translation: Will you marry me?)
And I’d tell him yes.
Unless of course, I didn’t want him to. Then I’d just shove another spoonful of the Apricot and Walnut Vareniki dessert into his mouth instead and pretend that the wedding proposal never happened.
A Letter to my Unborn Daughter
The fact that you will arrive into my life someday is something that I both dread and look forward to. Dread because I know I will not always be the perfect mother to you. We will fight – Oh, there will be fights, I’m sure of that – all the time and there are times when you will hate me, just as much as I too hated my own mother at times. But know in your heart that I love you and I will always have only the best of intentions for you. I also look forward to seeing you because I know you will complete me, in a way that no man, not even your father or any of the great loves in my life, will ever complete me. No matter what you chose to be, you will remain the living proof that keeping you instead of taking drugs or flushing you down the toilet was the best decision that I could have made in my entire life.
Even if I know things may not be so quite peachy between us all the time, even if I frustrate you and disappoint you frequently, know that I will always be here for you. I will not only be your mother who provides you with clothes, allowance and signs your report cards, I will also be your friend whose shoulders you can cry on after some boy you’ve been crushing on tells you he doesn’t like you, who will not bug you constantly and just leave you alone when you are going through your angst-ridden teenage rebellious years, who will not say a word when you come out of your room wearing a skirt that’s too shirt or a shirt that looks too trashy, who will not complain when different guys seem to be dropping you off at home, who will buy you a chick book and open up a bottle of beer for you after you have announced that your boyfriend has just dumped you.
You will however be prepared to explain yourself to us if your grades seem to be slipping, if I ever catch you asking me for P1000 for a book that only costs P500 or if you ever get accidentally pregnant. Do not ever sass me and tell me that times are different. Wherever you think you want to go to, always remember that I have been there and back for many many times than I would care to remember.
Study well but always remember that it’s only grades. Learn to balance your studies, your family, your loves and your friends. There is more to life than the four walls of your classroom.
No matter how much money I and your father seem to be making, do not take the value of money lightly. I was not born from a rich family so I was brought up knowing the true value of every nickel and dime spent. Please understand if I do not want you to be spoiled by letting you live too luxuriously. Whether or not you will be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you will learn to budget your allowance because I will not give you your own credit card.
Do not be angry if your father and I are always encouraging you to take up Karate, Dance, Guitar, Photography or Art classes. It does not mean that we want to live our own dreams vicariously through you. We only want to stimulate your brain to a variety of interests and hopefully expose you to a plethora of choices that may help you find your own niche.
Enjoy your youth. Do not be afraid to make mistakes while you are young. Do not fear love or getting hurt, for it is only through experience that we grow and mature into the person that we are. Be open-minded. Experience all the good as well as the bad. The drinking, the smoking, sex, etcetera. But do not let yourself be sucked in by the bad. Know how to discern and to walk away from something you feel is not right.
There will be boys who will come in and out of your life. After one man dumps you, there will always be someone else who will come after him. Do not despair that you will end up a spinster whenever someone dumps you or breaks your heart. Give your love to many but give your heart to only one. Learn to be picky, to be patient and to choose the one you should give your heart to, because my daughter, you deserve only the best. Never ever settle for the second best.
Sex is not bad. It is normal and it can be really good. But do not let anybody pressure you to engage in it unless you truly believe that you are emotionally and physically ready, until you find that special someone who will make your heart melt whenever he holds your hand. Hold on to that virginity until you see your partner as someone you are willing to be tied to just incase something goes wrong (i.e. you get pregnant). Do not engage in meaningless casual sex unless this person is someone who will actually make you cry when he leaves. And when you do start having sex, never tell me, unless you are old enough to finish school and have already started working.
Follow your dreams, my dear daughter. Never let anyone, not even me, stop you from running after what you want. We can only provide you with education and emotional support. Everything else is up to you.
Never forget your friends and your family. A man can only love you for as long as he feels something for you but your friends and your family will always love you unconditionally.
Laugh a lot. Do not take life too seriously.
Love a lot. In the end, it will be worth it.
I love you, my dear unborn daughter. I would like to believe that someday you would realize that despite all our fights and incompatibilities, despite the yelling, the door slamming and the cold shoulders, it was never easy to raise you but I did my very best to be the best mother that I could be to you.
It was the most that I could do after seeing how you proved that I did not live all my years for nothing.
— I’m not pregnant. Just listening to some serius uterus weeping. It’s those darn eggs…
Am I Supposed To Want to Get Married Soon?
I had just come into the classroom and found the rest of my female classmates hunched over HotMama and her laptop as she perused over some girl’s pictures one by one which she had posted in her Friendster profile.
“Hey, who’s that?” I asked curiously as I took a peek at what has been keeping their interest.
“A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend,” HotMama answered.
SoSexy beamed when she saw me. “Hey, you should’ve been here earlier. We were looking through the girl’s wedding photos. They were amazing. You would’ve loved it.”
I heard the word “wedding” somewhere in the statement and I cringed. I cringed all the more when she said that I would’ve loved it. It was too early in the day to start ranting madly about marriage so I, of course, ignored what she said. I figured, it’s the girl thing. It is assumed that as a girl, I’d be mooning over wedding pictures since most women my age in general cannot wait to get married.
Just to make it clear, I am not in a hurry to get married. I will only consider marriage if I have invested at least one year in a relationship with a man who will continue making me laugh even when we’re both 80 and whom I am sure will never make me have any doubts at all that I settled for something less just because I was afraid of spending the rest of my life alone.
But of course, I didn’t tell her any of these – lest I look defensive – and I just smiled.
Anyway, a couple minutes later, HotMamasat infront of my desk as she started reading her book. She then looked at me. “So, when are YOU going to get married, [mistress]?”
I thought I had heard her wrong. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t seem to remember saying that I was getting married anytime soon. I haven’t even found the right person for the job.”
“What about your current boyfriend? Aren’t things serious between you and Philip? And by the way, when are you going to introduce him to us?”
“HotMama, I don’t see my relationship with him as the kind of relationship that will eventually lead to marriage. Hence, he’s not worthy enough to be introduced to my friends. Plus, even if he turns out to be a serious long-term kind of thing, I don’t exactly want to get married yet. At least not when I’m still in school.”
“Oh, come on. Seriously.”
“I’m serious, HotMama. I don’t want to get married yet.”
“But [mistress], you’re not getting any younger.”
Oooh… how sneaky of her to bring up the age card. I finished college in five years and delegated a year trying up pass my licensure exams, looking for a job and volunteering at a local hospital so basically, I was about two years older than most of my classmates. This also made me one of the oldest and unmarried females in the class.
Does this mean I’m supposed to just settle for anybody willing to marry me because I was nearing 30? I. DON’T. THINK. SO.
“HotMama, I kind of have a few things in my plate that I still want to do before I settle down, like move out of my parent’s house, buy a car, travel, that sort of thing. Whatever gave you the idea that I can’t wait to finally get hitched?”
At this point, she was looking at me like I was weird and I had grown horns at the top of my head or something. I decided to take the focus out of me instead by bringing up my other classmates. “If anybody’s excited to get married in here, it would be Darna and SteroidsGirl. They are the ones who’ve been seeing their boyfriends exclusively for like, almost forever.”
One of our other classmates, BabyG, must have heard our conversation and so, she decided to join us. “Speaking of getting married, SanBedaGirl is getting hitched this December.”
This made all the girls in class go, “Oh, wow!” It was obvious that none of us knew that oneof us in the class was actually getting married soon.
“I’m one of the bride’s maids,” BabyG added.
We started congratulating SanBedaGirl, who, as always, just smiled shyly and did not say any word. Everybody started becoming excited. It was, after all, going to be the first wedding of someone from our group. And in the middle of reviewing for the board exams, at that.
“So, I guess we’ll all be eating plenty this December,” Darna remarked.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed. I love food. So Sue me.
“No dieting in December, I suppose,” HotMama said. Some of the girls in class have been cutting back on their food intake since our currently sedentary lifestyle were apparently making them gain more pounds.
“Of course,” said BabyG.
And then another one of our classmates, FEUGirl, added her own two cents worth. “I’m so excited to get a taste of the wedding buffet … Oh, wait! Are we even invited?”
I laughed so hard I practically fell off my seat. She had a point. SanBedaGirlwas a bit aloof and did not come from the same school as a good majority of us did, hence, she only talked to a selected number of girls. Even when we’ve been talking about weddings infront of her face, she did not say a word at all about her upcoming wedding and neither did she actually invite us, even when we started congratulating her. We were all just so excited about her wedding that we automatically assumed that we were.
I slapped FEUGirl’s hand, “Nice one, FEUGirl!”
She laughed along with me.
The Dating Saga of The Filipina Mistress
I spent a good majority of my growing-up days dating, or at least, wanting to date.
Growing up as the eldest among four siblings and brought up by academically-driven parents, I wasn’t allowed to be exposed to a lot of the teenage drama and the experiences that was expected for teenagers to go through at that time of their life. My parents weren’t really strict. I was allowed to go on school outings and supervised overnights unlike some of my less unfortunate friends. My parents were just somewhat conservative and goal-oriented, believing that boys would totally make me lose my focus from my education. I wasn’t really allowed to date and my parents wanted me to get a boyfriend only after I graduate from college. That didn’t stop me, of course, for I had my first date with one of my highschool classmates by the age of 15.
I got curious about boys at an early age and was envious of highschool classmates who find themselves in the throes of their first boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. When I left home to study college at the big city, I finally escaped the clutches of my parents’ supervision. As I went into my 2nd year of college, I watched my fellow classmates falling inlove with boys and venturing into territory that I’ve always wondered about. I was jealous. I kept thinking, What the hell do they have that they actually find themselves a man and I don’t? I am so much more prettier than them! So, when a guy I barely knew started showing some interest, I reeled him in with my feminine wiles and in less than a week, I finally got myself my very first boyfriend at the age of 17.
I was born a Roman Catholic and lived majority of my academic life in Catholic schools. Thus, it was a given that I imbibe the same Christian values that Christianity preached: masturbation is a sin, oral contraceptives are bad, and premarital sex is a no-no. Because I lived in an era that was slowly embracing the Western culture, expanding my horizons and gradually evolving me into the inquisitive open-minded woman that I now am, my religious values did not stop me from forsaking my morals and I lost my virginity at the age of 21.
I met my Mr. Almost in the form of Rockstar at the age of 21. After a particularly long and tumultuous relationship, I got engaged at the age of 24. Few months later, I got “dis-engaged.” I have been in and out of serious and not-so-serious relationships eversince as I continually search among the Mr. Wrongs for another Mr. Almost to become the one perfect Mr. Right. Because I’ve been to places and situations that most Filipina girls my age would probably have not gone, I have learned valuable dating lessons and experiences that opened my eyes about the opposite sex, which most Filipina women probably don’t know about. As such, I have developed more open-minded views and less-idealistic opinions than most of my friends, which prompted them to start calling me “The Master” or rather, the more politically-correct “The Mistress.” They have watched me flirt my way through certain situations, noted the succession of men who have gone in and out of my life, witnessed the hook-ups and break-ups, while I still maintained the same sunny disposition regarding love, continually believing that the right one for me is still somewhere out there, I just have to wait for him.
I’m not saying I’m a flirt. In fact, I’m rather a quiet and very reserved person.
I’m not saying that I’m promiscuous. In fact, I can still count the number of people I’ve slept with on my fingers.
And no guy will ever be worthy enough for me to stop being monogamous to my partner when I am in a serious relationship.
It’s just that I’m willing to immerse myself into the dating scene and check out what’s there. It’s just that I know I should not settle for what’s right there in front of me when I know I deserve so much more. It’s just that I know I’m meant for someone better who will show me true happiness and not just delude me into some fantasy of unrequited love or half-baked promises.
So, if I have to kiss a lot of frogs to find my Prince Charming, then I would.
Besides, who says dating isn’t fun anyway?
What to Expect After A Break-Up
My latest obsession is blogging. I have been writing for three years now through another blog as (*bleep,* name withheld) but friends, ex-boyfriends, guys I’ve dated and doctors I’ve worked with know me through that site and sometimes, there are just things I want to rant about but can’t because:
a) I don’t want to hurt their feelings
b) I don’t want them to have a bad impression of me
c) I would like to think that I am different from most girls I knew.
As a result, I have decided to start this blog, in the hopes of getting my well-needed time to detoxify myself and simply lose myself with bloggers amongst the world wide web.
Minus the guilt. The fear. And all the crap that goes with it.
On that note, I have been happily reading through other blogs (see bloglist) and have found a lot of useful material for my own blog. Take for example, Dating Dummy who once referenced an article from Men’s Health regarding break-ups.
WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER A BREAK-UP
1 day after (the protest stage):
He is more likely to funnel negative emotions into physical aggression. She cries her eyes out.
1 week after (the obsession stage):
He broods and tries to recover by doing things with peers, not by talking it out. She justifies, settling in with friends, relying on their close social network to talk about their breakups. All of the guy’s flaws are exposed and talked about. This is how her friends will see you from now on. Expect icy glares and cold shoulders.
1 month after (worst is over stage):
Interestingly, this part says that the dumpee recovers and is generally as mentally happy as they were when they were in the relationship. He ends up trying to pursue his ex at least once. She blames herself and misses the guy. Keeping one’s distance is highly recommended.
6 months (acceptance stage):
You realize you’ve hit acceptance when you go a whole week not thinking of the other person. He returns to a state of equilibrium and becomes emotionally available again to date. She seeks closure.
I on the other hand, have a somewhat similar coping mechanism after a break-up. I give myself two weeks to cry (I usually don’t last two weeks, more like one week of bawling and one week of looking teary-eyed) and then, 1 month for all the depression drama: the constant looking at your cellphone every 5 seconds or so, the wishing it was him everytime the phone rings, the frequent checking people out in crowds hoping you’ll accidentally bump into him, etc). And then, I am ready to move on.
— For my good friend, JaneDoe.
