TheDancer and I were hanging out at the mall together after I had asked him to go to the big city for a date with me. After watching a movie I had paid for (Did I mention that TheDancer can be such a cheapskate sometimes?), we were having dinner at the food court and catching up on each other’s life.
“So, what reason did you tell your Mom as to why you had to go to the big city?”
He shrugged. “I told her I needed to get something from ClosetKing.”
“She believed that?”
“Well, she didn’t really mind. She was kind of busy since my uncle just arrived from Saudi and was asking the relatives to drop by their house.”
“Oh.”
We proceeded finishing our dinner, in between talks of other more mundane things. After an hour or so, we decided to leave since he still had to catch a bus for the long ride back to his town. As we passed by a couple of tables, someone called him.
“TheDancer!”
He turned towards the sound of the person calling his name and mumbled under his breath, “S**t! It’s my uncle.”
I turned to look at the group of people walking towards us. “Who are all those people with him?”
“My cousins.”
Hmmm… so I was finally meeting the relatives, I thought. Because TheDancer lived quite a distance from the big city, I never had the opportunity to meet anyone in his family. We had been dating for five months and the most connection to his family that I got was occasionally talking to his mother on the phone and asking her if I could talk to his son.
As was the custom for most Filipino families, he took his uncle’s hand and lifted it to his forehead as a sign of respect.
“Uncle.”
“What are you doing here?” his uncle asked, looking at me, and then at TheDancer, and then me, again. His uncle looked like the typical rich OFW, with the unbuttoned shirt halfway through his chest and a huge gold medallion on his neck. Add the carrier suitcase with wheels and the airport cart and he could be the poster child for Duty Free.
“We watched a movie and had dinner.”
“Who are you with?” he asked. I could feel his cousins staring at me from head to foot, sizing me up.
He pointed to me. “My friend.”
It was as if a thousand daggers miraculously came out of nowhere and flew straight into my chest. I ignored it and smiled at his uncle, albeit, a little uncomfortably.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“She’s at home. She said she was going to drop by your house today.”
“We must not have been able to catch her arrival.”
“Yeah, maybe… Listen, uncle, we’ll go ahead,” said TheDancer to his uncle, briefly patting his uncle’s arm.
His uncle nodded. “Oh, okay. You guys take care.”
One of his cousins decided to choose that moment to tease TheDancer. “Hey, bro. Is she your girlfriend?” he asked, as he nodded towards my direction.
TheDancer looked at me briefly and then turned to me. “No, she’s just a friend.”
I felt like another thousand daggers had stabbed my chest.
“Oh, come on. She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?” his cousin taunted, grinning at TheDancer mischievously.
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”
Another thousand daggers pierced through my chest.
TheDancer patted his cousin’s arm. “Hey, we have to go. I’ll see you guys later.”
I smiled briefly at his uncle and his cousins as I followed behind TheDancer. As we finally left them, walking away from the food court, I slowly tried to remove the three thousand daggers sticking out of my chest and cursed him in my mind.
It was a given that he definitely didn’t get any from me that night.
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Because everybody I know has a Friendster account, one of the first persons I tried to search through Friendster’s search engine was an ex-boyfriend of mine from college whom I haven’t seen eversince I broke up with him during the last time I was at the big city.
TheDancer. The guy I broke up with before I started dating Rockstar.
I think he’s the only person I know who probably doesn’t own a Friendster account.
All my attempts to search for him through Friendster have failed. I even tried searching for him through Multiply and nothing. I figured, he wasn’t much of a computer savvy in college anyway – seeing as I had to frequently help him out with encoding his case presentations in simple Microsoft Word – but come on! It doesn’t take computer savvy to make a Friendster account, for God’s sake! I even came so far as to Google him but the only significant result I got was a list from the Professional Regulation Commission of those who passed the licensure exam for our old college course about a year after he graduated.
At least, now I know he’s finally passed his board exams.
Unfortunately, it only confirms that he has totally disappeared off my life and does not wish to be found.
I missed TheDancer. He was the first of the many players who traipsed in and out of my life. He was the first of the not-so-serious boyfriends I ever had. He was the first of the guys who treated me like crap but I continued seeing because there was nobody else around. He was the first of the guys I dated but knew I would never actually end up marrying.
He was also my first.
But that’s another story. LOL…
TheDancer and I met during my last month of internship at some rehabilitation center in Novaliches. He hailed from a private college just some distance from my own university. He was short, well-built, very masculine and cute when he grinned in that boyish mischievous way of his. It wasn’t love at first sight really. He frequently hung out with this other co-intern, ClosetKing, and one of my other co-interns, Fruity, had a crush on TheDancer. She displayed this in the most childish way possible: by constantly picking arguments with him. This did not do well with him, of course, as he ended up being frequently annoyed with her.
Our last day of rotation at the said rehabilitation, all the interns agreed on catching a movie together. TheDancer and I ended up sitting together, our elbows sharing one armchair. Sometime in the middle of the movie, our hands, which were initially hanging loosely an inch away from each other, brushed.
I ignored it. I figured it was an accident. A couple seconds later, I felt his pinkie brush against mine again. Still, I ignored it. But I didn’t move my hand away from his. And then he repeated it again.
I briefly looked at him from the corner of my eye. He was intently watching the movie.
So this time, I brushed my pinkie against his.
His expression never changed. But he brushed his pinkie against mine in return, this time a little longer than he’s supposed to.
I think I smiled.
Somehow, he ended up holding my hand during the rest of the movie. And we did all this with none of our friends ever noticing. There would definitely be a lot of teasing if anybody actually noticed it and we both did not want that. Plus I did not want to have Fruity thinking I was an Anaconda and stole her man. We separated as soon as the movie ended and the lights came on.
That same night, he texted me and told me he liked me. I told him I liked him too. Ergo, kami na (we’re going steady). Because he apparently didn’t want ClosetKing asking him a lot of irritating questions, he told me we should keep it on the down low whenever ClosetKing was around.
Which turns out to be almost all of the time as ClosetKing and TheDancer seemed to be practically joined at the hip.
At one time, ClosetKing, TheDancer and I practically got engaged in this severely complicated game of walking through the various streets and back alleys of Malate just to lose ClosetKing who was adamant in trying to join us. TheDancer it seems didn’t have the heart to tell him to bug off and he didn’t want to go off into a long explanation as to why he wanted to be with me alone, without ClosetKing’s company. ClosetKing must have noticed that I was spending a lot of time with TheDancer so he texted me if TheDancer was courting me. I told him no. He said that’s good because he was interested in me. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no so I just said I’m very flattered but I think we were better off as friends. I told TheDancer about the whole incident and he laughed his head off.
It seems that ClosetKing, who has been his bestfriend for the past few years, is infact inlove with him.
So, ClosetKing is gay.
Okay… that explained a lot.
So I played along with the entire charade between ClosetKing and TheDancer, letting ClosetKing think believe that I know he liked me too, being okay with TheDancer and I not letting ClosetKing know that we were dating. Often times, I would meet him after his duty at the hospital and we would avoid not being seen by ClosetKing together.
It was a really weird time of my life but ClosetKing was fun and flirty and was not complicated to be with so I stayed. He wasn’t as affectionate as I would’ve wanted to. He preferred being held by the elbow rather than by the hands. He was arrogant, a little bossy and was occasionally moody. We talked a lot on the phone and because I didn’t own one and he did, I frequently can be seen heading to a nearby public pay phone with my purse of P5 coins just to chat with him about his studies and making him answer hypothetical questions about our relationship. Because I owned a cellphone and he didn’t, I frequently had to be content with him sending me text messages from various unregistered numbers telling me to meet him somewhere and even waiting for him once for three hours at a McDonalds’ because he never actually got my reply at all. Because he lived one bus ride away from the big city, we didn’t see each other as often as I would’ve wanted and often times I had to entice him to head to the big city by telling him I was treating him for a movie and dinner which of course, I ended up paying for (Darn cheapskate that TheDancer!). Despite the fact that he had a temper, we rarely fought because whenever I would try to open up about certain incident that had made me annoyed with him, he had this way of making me laugh and forget about it before I even started telling him why I was angry in the first place.
He wasn’t the love of my life but I loved him, in one of those crazy I-don’t-know why ways.
When I finally told him that I was leaving the big city to finally go back home, he surprised me by saying the sweetest words I have ever heard come out of his mouth:
“If things were different and we were at an age when we could be more independent to make our own decisions, you [mistress] could have been the woman I would’ve thought of wanting to spend the rest of my life with.”
Such perfect timing. And he decides to tell me this just as I was about to leave the big city and return back at an indefinite period of time.
In all the seven months that we were together, he couldn’t even find the courage to tell me he loved me.
Arghhh, damn men! You all want what you can no longer have.
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Darna, a classmate of mine from medical school who was currently in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend after EngineerBoy, was just like the rest of the classmates in my batch who were in committed relationships. She found it her responsibility to set up the single girls in the class with her equally single male friends. Hence, Mr.Bisaya.
Mr.Bisaya was her boyfriend’s ex-landlord. He came from a rich family who originally hailed from Cebu. Because of his work, he moved to the provinces and was currently living at some boarding house with some friends. Darna gave my number to him and we started texting. Because he was of a different cellular network, I didn’t reply as much as I would have wanted to… Yes, I can be such a cheapskate sometimes. Well, it wasn’t as if he knocked my socks off with his text messages anyway.
Because I was bored and curious about him, I plotted on how I can find the opportunity to finally meet him. I was going home soon for a short weekend vacation from the community. Mr.Bisaya lived somewhere between the community and home. I told him I would be stopping by his area since I needed to catch another bus and that we should meet. He agreed.
I met up with him at a local fastfood joint. He was short, well-built (from all the tennis playing, I suppose) and average-looking. He was nice, yes, but he didn’t knock my socks off.
There was a major language barrier considering that he speaks in Cebuano (which is something like a deeper version of the local Bisaya) and although most Cebuanos can carry a good conversation with the local Bisayans and vice versa, I, on the other hand, can’t understand nor speak Cebuano. Although I do understand a little of the local Bisaya, that is, if you don’t talk too fast enough for me, I can barely speak the language. My Bisaya-speaking abilities is basically limited to the following medically-related phrases:
“Unsa imong gibati karon?” (How do you feel today?)
“Ginhawa lalum.” (Breathe deeply.)
“Kini imong tambal, imuhang ilumnon tulu ka beses sa usa ka adlaw, usa ka semana.”
(This is your medicine. You drink it three times a day for one week.)
And I am not even going to start ranting about my Tausug. It’s just sooo darn embarrassing enough – for someone who lived majority of her life around Muslims – that I can’t even make one coherent sentence in Tausug.
So, Mr.Bisaya and I ended up sign-languaging. LOL. Kidding… Actually, he spoke in Bisaya while I spoke in Tagalog interspersped with occasional Bisayan terms, in the hopes that we can both understand each other. I finally realized that it’s incredibly difficult to be your true self with someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you do. You find yourself unable to crack jokes and show him your great sense of humor, which is basically what I usually do during first dates… Yes, I don’t take life too seriously. So sue me… You find yourself drastically thinking and rethinking the things that come out of your mouth. My cerebral faculties goes on hyperspeed as it tries to catch up with the Tagalog-English conversations in my head, translating as much of it into Bisaya, and then leaving everything in God’s will as I let my lips and tongue enunciate the words as correctly as I can, hopefully without butchering the dialect.
It was no surprise that I ended up with a major headache.
I must have been a sadist in my past life because apparently I loved torturing myself and he was able to angle a second date from me after that. I spent one very wholesome night with him the next time. On my way to the community, I stopped by his area after a short weekend vacation at home and we had dinner, drinks and listened to some local acoustic one-man band show which he loved and I didn’t but didn’t tell him (The band was singing my grandfather’s favorite songs, for God’s sake!). We ended up checking in at a room at some hotel and sleeping on separate beds. There was certainly no canoodling in the middle of the night and neither did I give him any impression that I wanted him to sneak into bed with me.
I don’t really know if he wanted me to though and frankly, I didn’t care.
As much as I would have loved to torture myself with migraine brought about by English-Bisayan translations, I didn’t think that it was going to work. We ended up on another date, this time with Darna, her boyfriend and some of Mr.Bisaya’s friends. Maybe he was becoming more comfortable with me because all their teasing finally brought out his caring and occasionally flirty side, but at that point, I really just wasn’t feeling it. We started communicating less and less until a year or so later I found out he got some girl pregnant and ended up marrying her.
I was okay with it. He wasn’t worth all those headaches anyway. Seriously.
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I was out with JR, an old classmate of mine from medical school, and some of our classmates for a nice dinner. He quit medical school after his 2nd year and like many others, was currently taking up Nursing. It had been a long time since we’ve seen him so, we definitely had a lot of catching up to do. When I told him I was single, he immediately wanted to set me up with his friend on an impromptu blind date. He believed that we would really hit it off.
“Come on, [mistress]. He’s a classmate of mine from Nursing.”
“How old is he?” I asked. I didn’t want to be dating someone who’s still in his first few years of college.
“About my age. He’s a graduate of BS Biology and teaches a few courses at the College of Arts and Sciences.”
Hmmm… Interesting. “He must be really smart then.”
“Yes. That’s why I know you too are just going to be perfect for each other!”
I was still feeling a bit skeptical. “So, what is he into, aside from Nursing and teaching?”
“Well, he loves James Blunt and can sing really well, if my memory from our last Videoke session serves me right. You’ll like him.”
I wasn’t such a big James Blunt fan except for the song “Goodbye, My Lover” which basically has the same tune as all the other songs in his album, no offense to James Blunt fans who are reading this. But I do love Videoke and guys who can carry a tune. Still, I had my second doubts about being set up.
“I don’t know, JR…” I’ve never been set up on a blind date before. I’ve always preferred meeting a guy the traditional way and finding out myself first-hand if he was worthy enough for a first date or not.
“Come on, he just lives around here. I can just text him and he’ll be here in less than a minute.”
I still had doubts and I certainly looked it.
“And he’s quite good-looking too,” he added, winking at me.
I was sold. “Okay,” I told him.
A couple minutes later, JR’s friend, Chinito, arrived. He was casually wearing a loose polo shirt, denim jeans and sandals. Very casual, as if he just took the closest thing he could get from his closet and dressed up in a hurry. For some reason, I didn’t feel any sparks between the two of us. Could it be because he wasn’t that cute? On the contrary, he was. Very cute chinky eyes, curly hair, nice teeth, well-toned physique. An 8.5 in a scale of 1-10. Could it be because he was smarter than me? Nahhh… I enjoy making conversation with smart guys. They’re very stimulating. I can spend hours with a guy who has a lot to say and not be bored than with someone whose best literary reads are limited to FHM. Could it be because he was cynical about love? Hmmm… maybe. A little. But then, I think I am just as cynical about love as he is.
Yes, I too believe that sometimes love shits you in the face.
Actually, when I thought about it, I think the reason why there were no sparks is because he seemed too good for me. Not that I was into bad boys – okay, fine, who am I kidding? I AM into bad boys. They give me a panty a puddle just by looking at me – but although he does drink socially and all, like me, I don’t think he’s the type who will be compatible with someone as complicated as me. He’s like Rockstar without the temper, the ego and the emotional hang-ups. I can already see a lifetime of forbiddens if ever I ended up with him. I will be too much of an emotional baggage for someone like him. Eventually, he’ll end up being the kind of guy who will try to set my life straight when in fact, as of the moment, I don’t see myself as someone whose life needs straightening.
Some might think that I’m just backing out from something that might be good for me. Or that maybe I still have commitment issues that I have to work out… Whoah! Commitment issues! I’m sounding like I’m 30 already… But seriously, I’m not that picky when it comes to guys. If a guy is into me, even if he’s not my ideal kind of guy, as long as the chemistry is there, why not? Getting to know a person is a lifelong process anyway so why bother with hang-ups as to a guy’s height, his built, his looks, his personality, his attitude, his vices or his quirks? Those are the things that make him unique as an individual. Personally, I find those character flaws the things that make a person more deviant from the norm and thus, make him more desirable.
But chemistry, that’s a totally different thing. You can’t work with something that’s just not there in the first place. You can change everything else, the looks, the personality, the quirks but once the sparks aren’t there, what’s the point of trying to work things out?
TheRock once told me that maybe I’m always confusing chemistry with lust or simple physical attraction. But on the contrary, I can be incredibly into someone even if he’s not that physically attractive. Or I can also not like a guy even if he’s the school heartthrob or the most good-looking person in the whole world. Chemistry isn’t equatable to physical attraction. It’s an inkling of a possibility of mutually-shared romantic interest between two people. It certainly isn’t something you can just force to develop between a man and a woman.
If it’s not there, then, it really wouldn’t be there.
Actually, when I think about it, I’m kind of disappointed that I don’t like him that much. I mean, my blind date was really really cute and really really smart. He’s a good catch! But if we would end up together I’d be this little devil who will spin his world upside down and I will always feel guilty when I’m with him because I would always be unable to keep my hands off all things forbidden.
Tsk, tsk, tsk… too bad. Why didn’t I feel any sparks in the first place? Why, Lord, why?
There wasn’t any chemistry at all that we didn’t even act on any pretenses that we were supposed to be flirting with each other. I exude flirtatious vibes when I’m interested in someone, albeit subtle, and a guy usually picks it up easily if I liked them back. I don’t think he felt it too. No numbers were exchanged that night. I did thank JR for introducing me to Chinito. I told him Chinito was a good catch but I don’t think there were sparks between us. But he wasn’t that bad. I’ll probably be seeing him at the hospital next year when he starts his hospital duties. I told him to tell Chinito that if he ever needs to walk on the dark side and wants someone to spin his world upside down, just text me.
Of course, I was only half-kidding.
*** UPDATE – I bumped into Chinito a few months later during a night-out with friends. It took two of my closest girlfriends for me to realize that he wasn’t really all that. In fairness, he did slim down a lot and he looked pretty stressed-out… Arghhh!! Who am I kidding? He does have an effeminate air around him! I like my boys very masculine and naughty. Must be why we didn’t click in the first place. LOL.
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A cute good-looking friend of mine from college, DonutGuy, called me up unexpectedly today, after a quick misunderstanding through text. Back in college, when there was still such a thing as free calls if you don’t last more than 1 minute on the phone, we used to do that all the time. He’d miss call me and I would be calling him back, saying, “Hello, DonutGuy? You called?”
Yes, my classmates had a blast making fun of me back then for those cheapskate phone calls.
Okay, I admit. I used to have this huge crush on him. His unexpected phone call brought me to an instant flashback of those days, back when I was still my more naive and less cynical self.
Flashback music please…
We actually met during a Battle of the Bands thing in school. He was brought along by a childhood friend of one of my classmates. They were three guys, we were three girls. After the Battle of the Bands, we went to play billiards, hanged out at the boys’ apartment and went home in the morning. My classmate, YoungMama, entertained her childhood friend and my other classmate, Lee Lee*, started being chummy with the other guy. I never was the friendly type so I spent most of that night smoking and joking with my girlfriends, occasionally smiling at the boys. It wasn’t until I was going home that he, DonutGuy, decided to accompany me.
And thus, starts the incredibly confusing saga of our so-called relationship.
Back when I was young, I never knew how to handle a new interest (Hmmm… when I do think about it, I think I still don’t. LOL…). He would find opportunities for him and his friends to drop by our school and see us and I, who didn’t know how to flirt back then, could barely look him in the eye when our friends were around. When he would visit me alone, we would talk about his dreams, our friends and our families and eventually, I started looking forward to seeing him more. He was a working student at Mr. Donut at the mall near my school so I occasionally dragged my friends to the donut shop just to get a glimpse of him. Suffice it to say, I stuffed myself with a lot of donuts and coffee during that particular time.
One time, he visited me at my dormitory and before he left, we hanged out for a while outside, infront of the building, oblivious to some of the other dormers standing too close together with their boyfriends at the other side.
“[Mistress], I ahmmm… I have something to tell you.”
I smiled at him. “Yes.”
“Let me find the courage to say it first,” he said, as he tried to take a deep breath.
“Come on, tell me.”
“I’m not sure how to say it.”
“What is it?”
It took him some time to come right out and say it. I had to painstakingly drag it out of him.
“Ahmmm… the thing is… I… I like you.”
I smiled. Yes! I said to myself. “I ahmmm… I like you too, DonutGuy.”
“So, let’s just let destiny take control, okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled hesistantly.
I was left there, still standing, confused by what had just occurred. I had no idea what he meant but apparently it was supposed to mean that we have an understanding already. Ergo, kami na (we were officially a couple). But at that time, I have already been with two boyfriends and I knew that that was not how it was supposed to work. Isn’t the guy supposed to tell the girl he loves her or something to that effect? I mean, hello! “Let’s let destiny take control” certainly doesn’t equate to “Be my girlfriend”! So, the next day, along with his friends, he visits me and my friends in school. I didn’t know how to react so I ended up completely ignoring him. He gets mad at me and apparently goes drinking with his friends. I got pissed off with his overly possessive reaction so, I dragged Lee Lee to a bar, got pissing off drunk as well, and proceeded to bitch off about him while Lee Lee, who was texting one of his friends, reported stories to each other of how inebriated DonutGuy and I were getting because of the said incident.
We must have been extremely embarrassed about the incident, knowing full well that we both got drunk because of each other that we couldn’t find the courage to face each other again. Suffice it to say, our couple status lasted for only a day and we never saw each other ever again.
Although we remained friends – probably because Lee Lee ended up dating his friend for more than three years – we never really talked about that incident. And strangely, even after Lee Lee and his friend broke up, we still remained good friends, albeit, long distance. Sometimes, I do think about how I could have better handled the situation and how it would’ve been if things were different. We were both too idealistic back then, him, because he hasn’t experienced having a girlfriend yet that time and me, because I played it safe and never took any risks. If we had met today and he would still have done the same thing, I would have known better what to do and I would have been DonutGuy’s girlfriend in a heartbeat.
*Lee Lee – name assigned for a former college classmate as inspired by a friend of NML in Tired of Men
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When I finally decided that
HotNurse and I should stop sleeping with each other, we fell into a comfortable relationship that played with my emotions just as much as if I was sleeping with him.
We were like bestfriends who flirted madly with each other.
He told me he had broken up with his girlfriend, but it hasn’t ended that amicably so he still needed to talk to her again after she get backs from her vacation outside the country. It was as if he was justifying his actions to want to sleep with other people, but not wanting to commit to them, since he believed that strictly speaking, he was still attached and unavailable.
Suffice it to say, he drove me crazy with all the mind games. And I tried pushing his buttons for as hard as I can push, just to see if I even mean anything more to him.
So, I started dating someone else, TheBusinessman. HotNurse was hurt but he just let me and instead got so pissed off drunk one time that he was ready to invite all his brothers from the fraternity to the club where TheBusinessman and I went to for our date.
The thing is I knew HotNurse liked me. And he knew I liked him. But I wanted more from him. I wanted him to commit to me. And he wasn’t ready for that.
So, we continued with our charade of constantly seeing each other, going to clubs together, attending school functions together. People frequently thought I was his new girlfriend and even if we tried to correct their misconceptions, the way he accompanied me to the bathroom or the sight of us holding hands made other people think that maybe we were just trying to keep our couple status a secret.
He bore grudges against my ex-boyfriends, introduced me to his family and relatives, accompanied me to places I had to go to, performed the duties and responsibilities of a typical boyfriend. I brought him along during our class outings, helped him out with his grandmother’s surgery, flirted with doctors from the hospital that I was close with to ask for drugs and sutures for him, skipped classes to accompany him as he watched over his grandmother at the ward and bought drugs with him at pharmacies outside the hospital. I was making a lot of sacrifices from my part, for someone who wasn’t even his girlfriend and I felt that anytime soon, it was all going to pay off and he was finally going to tell me how he really felt about me.
So I waited for him to profess his love for me.
But it was futile.
Maybe it was because he was happy getting the benefits of a girlfriend without the complications of sex or commitment that he didn’t feel the need to elevate our relationship to couple status. Maybe it was enough for him that I wasn’t seeing anyone and neither was he. With every step I took forward, I felt him take two steps back. I guess he didn’t want things to change between us and he was contented with what he was getting from me.
But I was tired. Tired of expecting more from him.
Tired of waiting for his declaration of love for me that would not come.
Tired of loving him without getting anything back in return.
I could have still tried to push his buttons, but I no longer wanted to. I finally resolved to accept the fact that he only had nothing but friendship for me and it was time that I let go of the notion that he loved me more than that.
So I started dating someone else, got myself a new boyfriend too soon, much to HotNurse’s shock and dismay. I didn’t care anymore what he thought. I felt that I had given him more than enough time to make his move. HotNurse and I remained friends but we began seeing less and less of each other until he got himself a new girlfriend as well.
HotNurse and I are both single now and he would still text me occasionally. He was fond of texting me to refer a sick friend of his, or to ask me for a particular diagnosis, for appropriate management and drugs or for possible laboratory procedures available in our area. I had started to think that I was nothing but a walking Harrisons’ IM/MIMS to him.
Still, that didn’t stop me from texting him back.
I admit some part of me is probably still inlove with the HotNurse who used to be my bestfriend, hence, why I can still never say “No” to him everytime he asked for my help. Some small part of me is probably still hoping that we can be together someday. I know we’d be good together. I just don’t know if he realizes that.
There’s a popular belief that couples who end up getting married to each other frequently resemble each other. JaneDoe once said that because he and I looked a lot alike, maybe we’d be the ones who will end up together someday.
Frankly, I still have mixed feelings about that.
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I feel awkward in the company of rich guys.
It must have been because I came from a middle-class family and I have spent a good majority of my life with relatives who were a lot more unfortunate than us. Both of my parents came from big families who were so poor, when they were young, they often walked miles just to be able to go to school. My dad’s father was a farmer and my mom’s was a jail warden. My mother attended college on a scholarship while my dad worked his way throughout college. They were both brought up from difficult lives where every penny mattered, every cent a product of their own sweat.
And they never made us forget it.
I spent a good majority of my youth feeling intimated by my rich classmates. I skipped lunch to avoid them from seeing what measly viand my mother had come up with. I cried buckets of tears on my birthday to force my mother to scrape up enough money just so I can treat my friends. I barraged my mother with phone calls in college asking for more money for books I never got to browse that often. I wanted people to see that not only was I smart but I was not to be pitied as well.
I was proud, but not in the good way.
Hence, it made me uncomfortable being in the company of those with money. I wasn’t particularly close with the rich kids in our class. I preferred hanging out with those who were in the same plight as I was – provincial, barely surviving on the allowance sent regularly, coming from low- to middle-class families. This reflected on my dating choices as well. Although some did come from families with money, they lived so frugally that it was easier to believe that they weren’t as well-off as they really were.
And then I met TheBusinessman, who wore his wealth on his sleeve for all to see.
When he came to pick me up from school, I was surprised to see that we would be riding his
Toyota Innova. It surprised me all the more when I noted that his bodyguard was there to open the door for me. And I was just flabbergasted when I walked into the front passenger seat, and found another man seated at the back with his bodyguard. It was his other bodyguard.
We were on our first date and he brought TWO of his bodyguards.
This was turning out to be one very high-profile date, indeed. And I felt like shrinking lower in my seat.
How are you supposed to get to know someone better if there are two other guys with you? I can’t flirt with him, knowing there are witnesses to every appropriate or inappropriate word that comes from my mouth? How can I bring out the big guns when I know that there are two other parties who will be watching my every move or listening in to every conversation?
Why the hell did he have to bring his bodyguards anyway? And why the hell two, when one should already be embarrassing enough?
We ended up at this restaurant away from town. His bodyguards sat at a distant table while
TheBusinessman and I had our dinner alone at a separate table. The conversation was okay – he was extremely worldly and well-travelled than most guys I’ve dated – but the chemistry just wasn’t there. Maybe it was the way he reprimanded me for joining him when he asked to smoke. I’m not sure. I just knew that I wasn’t really feeling it with him.
I didn’t kiss him goodbye. Neither did I make him think that I wanted him to.
We continued texting after that, saw each other at the gym and decided to give him another chance. We went out on another date, this time a night-out with his friends at a local club. He had a table reserved for his posse and he left me once to chat with the owner. I figured, TheBusinessman must be part-owner of the club as well. He drank Vodka, and he reprimanded me for drinking light beer. Apparently it was not a good choice for people who work-out since beer, however light, still has more calories. We sat close and I was introduced repeatedly to his friends as [mistress], the doctor. Everybody else in the club looked at me like I was part of high society. I, on the other hand, felt like a stupid trophy.
He danced like an old man, a sort of maneuver that had both of his hands in the air and had him pounding his fists and pelvis to an imaginary wall infront of him. A few of his female friends joined us – rich kids whose fathers owned big hardware establishments. One in particular loved me so much because I had no qualms about dancing dirty with her. She made
TheBusinessman promise to bring me with him next weekend on her birthday. I thanked her profusely for the invitation.
When he brought me home, his bodyguards stepped out of the car without being told. I thought I was supposed to step down as well so I tried to open the door.
“Hey, wait. Stay for a while.”
“Huh?… Ah,okay…”
“Did you have fun today?’
“Yes, thank you so much.”
“I had fun too.”
I kissed him on the cheek.
“Okay, then I should thank you as well.”
I smiled, was about to offer my cheek for him to kiss, when he captured my lips in his. It was a quick kiss, lips parted, no tongue, the faint taste of nicotine tinging his breath. It was not the worst kiss I’ve ever had, but I’ve had better.
I grinned at him mischgievously. “How incredibly fresh of you.”
He laughed.
“Thanks for a great night again.”
“ You’re welcome.”
We still continued texting each other but he was not the most engaging person as a textmate. We had limited topics to talk about – my diet, our work-outs, school. He has routines he followed to the letter: a forwarded religious message first thing in the morning, one text message telling me to enjoy my lunch and an occasional text message or two during evenings. It was predictable and I was bored. He reprimanded me for not having enough control with my food intake. He couldn’t take a joke and showed no sense of humor, despite the fact that he bragged how he was frequently not taken too seriously by the other guys in the gym. He never told me what his surname was, nor did he tell what line of work he was in. It felt as if he feared I would change the way I acted around him and started worshipping the ground he walked on once I find out.
When he didn’t ask me out the next weekend, I knew it had ended. He still continued texting me once in a while but I didn’t reply back anymore except for the occasional forwarded messages. Thankfully, my membership was up at the gym so there weren’t any more chances that I’d be bumping into him anymore.
I found out the whole truth about TheBusinessman through a former gradeschool classmate whose sister used to date him for three years. He was apparently a college drop-out and a player who dated only the best – the beauty pageant winners, the daughters of high government officials, the dentists, the Chinese elite – and he had trophy girlfriends in every city he owned business establishments in.
No wonder I felt like he was always trying to mold me into something that I clearly wasn’t. Or how weird it was that he was already discussing my future specialization and how it might interfere with the plans of raising children with him when we haven’t even gotten past getting to know his surname. Or how I felt like he was shoving my profession to all of his friends’ faces.
It wasn’t really me that he wanted. It was only what I represented.
It was my title that fit perfectly in his future, not me.
Loser.
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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?
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I was in my 4th year of college when a good friend of mine whom I’ve known for a long time asked me out on a date.
I will fondly refer to him as TheRock.
TheRock was a classmate of mine from highschool. He was rich, friendly, flirty, not much in the looks department but always very fun to be with. He had this thing in highschool wherein every night, he would call me and about four other girls in my class and chat with each one of us on the phone about school, our classmates or just anything under the sun. He has always been a little flirty for as long as I can remember but because I didn’t know if half of what TheRock is saying is true or just something he made up to make me laugh, I never really took him that seriously.
Well, none of us five girls did actually.
When I left for college in the big city, he also took up his in another city away from home. Every vacation, we’d both go home back to our hometown and he would call me up at home as soon as he arrives. I began to look forward to his calls because he was funny and really knew how to crack me up. Plus, when the two of us are together, there just aren’t any silent moments.
He called me by a special pet name, the name only my family calls me, as if he was a member of my family as well.
Christmas break, year 2000. TheRock has started spoiling me. I would only joke about wanting to eat balut (duck egg) at the Boulevard and he’d be like, “Okay, go and change now. I’ll be there to pick you in an hour so we can go.” Or I’d be talking to him on the phone and I’d be saying something like, “I miss eating pizza. I haven’t had one in a long time,” and a few hours later, he’ll be at our house, and we’ll be eating from the box of Greenwich pizza that he bought for me. I figured, he was just being sweet, and considering that he and I have always been close, I didn’t think of it that much.
Until the day he tells me that he likes me.
“I really like you, [mistress].”
“Hey, I like you too, TheRock.”
“I mean, as more than a friend.”
Silence on my part. The sound of cicadas rubbing their legs.
“Hey, say something.”
“I… Well… I don’t know, TheRock…I, ahmmm…”
“Listen, I know you’re probably still not completely over your boyfriend and we’ve been good friends for quite some time so I’m sure you probably know by now that I respect you and I have nothing but good intentions for you. It’s just that I think we’ll be good together and if I don’t at least try then, I might regret it someday. And I don’t want this to be one of the things I’ll always wonder about.”
I smiled. “Okay, you got me there.”
“So, how about it? Would you like to go out with me on a date?”
I bit my lip. “Okay.”
So, considering that I was already 20 years old at that time, already with two boyfriends and one serious relationship on my belt, I assumed my parents would finally allow me to go out on a date.
Well, I assumed wrong.
When I told my parents that I would be going out on a date with TheRock, they totally flipped out. First of all, because TheRock was a Muslim. Apparently, despite living in a town where half of the population practice the Islam faith, the proximity of living with our Muslim brothers has done nothing to make them rethink about their bigotry.
“Who is this boy? You don’t know how different Muslim boys are from those who are like us. What if he’ll take advantage of you, put something in your drink when you have your back on him and then, rape you or something? [Mistress], they are not like us. They are different. They’re so much more dangerous.”
So, are you saying all the rapists and criminals in jail are Muslims? I wanted to tell them but instead, I kept my mouth shut out of respect.
Second, my mother had equated a simple date to going steady. How archaic can you get! Like one date with the guy and I’m already going to find myself inlove with him and wanting to marry him? I got annoyed with her and I ended up yelling out angrily, “I’m only going out with him on one date. One date! I’m NOT marrying him!”
Personally, I think my parents basically gave me a hard time about that date because I spent majority of my dating experiences at the big city, away from my parents. This was going to be the first time that they were actually going to experience what most parents dread – waiting impatiently at home for your daughter to come home, knowing that she has gone off on a date with some boy who hopefully, will not take advantage of her.
Anyway, after all the drama, my parents and I compromised by agreeing to bring someone along with us on our date. Thankfully, they agreed when I finally told them that one of our highschool classmates, FutureDoctor, will be joining us. So, TheRock picked FutureDoctor up at her house and together, they picked me up at my house. I made sure that my parents saw both of them before we headed out to TheRock’s car. In the flurry of nervousness, TheRock and I totally forgot the customary You-look-nice-So-do-you crap that first dates are supposed to have. I did notice though that he smelled really nice, which, of course, he usually did.
We then brought FutureDoctor back to her house – Seriously, you didn’t really think we’d be bringing her along with us! – and then, alone at last, we finally headed out to start our date.
TheRock brought me to this really romantic quiet restaurant away from town. He ordered a lot of food, we had great conversation and we laughed a lot. But the thing with being on a date with someone you’ve known for a long time is that you’re way past that certain imaginary line that divides friendship and a potential love interest. I didn’t feel the particular need to put my best foot forward nor did I feel any butterflies in my stomach. I admit, I wanted to feel the butterflies and fall inlove with him. But nothing happened. I couldn’t really look back anymore and say “Hmmm… I think I’d like to kiss him tonight.” That just does not happen. If that certain sexual chemistry wasn’t there in the first place, then, in my case, it usually doesn’t pop out at all.
The date was perfect, the company even better, but I really couldn’t lie to myself and say that I could find myself falling madly inlove with him. Afraid to destroy the magic of the moment, I kissed him on the cheek when he brought me home. A bittersweet ending, for my part, in exchange for a great night. A kiss he had misconstrued as a possibility.
The next time we saw each other, he was picking me up as we were about to attend our annual highschool reunion. I told him he was a great friend, one of my best-est of friends, but I was afraid that if we got into a relationship, I might only hurt him. He said he’ll be patient with me. But I knew right then and there that it was a lost cause. I spent the rest of the night flirting with another classmate of ours who previously courted me in highschool,
EngineerBoy, sneaking for a quick smoke and exchanging rowdy remarks with the girls, even Frenchkissing one sexually-confused classmate of ours as part of a dare, and getting pissing drunk. I didn’t even notice that
TheRock, who doesn’t drink, had left the party to meet another one of our classmates who did not want to attend the reunion.
He didn’t even say goodbye. I felt slightly insulted that he brought me to the party and left me to fend for my ride home on my own. Maybe it was his way of getting back at me. I don’t know. Up to this day, I never did ask him why he left that way.
The next day, he called me up and it was like the past few days never happened. We were laughing and talking like good friends, the way we used to, before all this business about liking me more than a friend came about. It was like he had never considered seriously dating me. We continually remained good friends, and after college, when everybody went back home, because of me, he and EngineerBoy even became really good friends as well. At that time, the three of us had become quite a pair and I felt so blessed, just being in the company of my two favorite boys in the whole world.
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