Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last
Contrary to what most people might think, I do not hate Nice Guys. Although Bad Guys may seem more appealing and exciting with their confident swagger, their humorous pick-up lines and their constant fascination for danger and all things forbidden, it is a rare occasion for them to be able to provide that feeling of being safe and the security offered by a Nice Guy.
Some Nice Guys do seem bland. Boring. Vanilla. But there are a selected few who can come up with one-liners that will make you laugh so loud that it makes you think that Vanilla might not be so bad after all.
Airsoft has that talent.
Hence, I decided to crush on him.
I crush you, Airsoft.
The thing when I have crushes is that I become a dumber version of myself. I clam up, avoid looking at him and pretend that he doesn’t exist at all whenever the person I am crushing on is around. I end up talking to myself, flirting in my mind and making up witty conversations with him in my head.
In short, I become a loser.
For example, I had been given two free tickets by my aunt to a concert by Sponge Cola. I love Sponge Cola and I’ve always wanted to watch them live. Because I lived in a small city where concerts by famous rock bands occur every once in a blue moon, I figured this was the perfect opportunity for me to finally watch them perform live.
I asked my sister if she wanted to go with me. She said she has outgrown these things. Heller! I’m two years older than heer! I didn’t want to ask one of my female classmates to go with me. I knew them well enough that they still lived by the highschool girl bathroom mentality – they will only go, if the rest of the group will also be going. I didn’t bother asking one of my highschool classmates because I assumed they would most likely be unavailable. They had work and babies and stuff.
The perfect person to ask to go to these things would have been a boyfriend, in this case, Philip, but of course, he was indisposed in an out of town school activity. Even if he was in town, I would doubt he would be able to go with me anyway. Midge wouldn’t allow him.
So, I figured, the second best person to invite would be a close friend, a boy, who has his own wheels, and preferably someone I wouldn’t mind to be seen dating.
As soon as the realization hit me, my palms started sweating. I debated whether I should text him as early as morning to ask him if he would like to go with me or whether I should wait for the opportunity later to ask him in person since I would be seeing him anyway earlier in the evening because the whole class was invited anyway to attend an RTD* at some popular restaurant. Because I was a coward, I opted to forego the moment and ask him later instead, when we would finally be alone in his car, since I was the one he usually drops off home the last.
I felt nervous about asking him out. To do so would cement the fact that I wanted our friendship to move forward. It would show him that I was interested in him as more than friends. I started daydreaming about the series of events that might happen once we go out together to that concert. We would have to keep the date to ourselves and not let any of our friends know so as to avoid the awkward teasings and tauntings of the barkada. He would probably start picking me up from the house and we’d be going to school together. At first, when our friends start sensing that there was something going on between us, they would tease us mercilessly, them pushing him so that he’ll trip and stumble towards me or flat in his face in the ground infront of me or them quickly lifting my skirt and letting him see the color of my underwear as if we were all still in Grade 3. Eventually, our friends will get used to seeing us together and the teasings will stop and we will become just another one of the boring annoying couples in class.
I took great care in dressing up that night. A black silky spaghetti-strapped shirt under a black knitted sweater, jeans and stilettos for additional height. My make-up was impeccable. I was dressed to impress but casually enough so as not to look as if I was trying too hard. When I arrived at our meeting place, the usual gang was already there, minus Airsoft. I figured he was late, and inquiring about his whereabouts would have made my friends suspicious, so I no longer asked. I hitched a ride with Naruto instead in his motorcycle and together with the rest of my classmates, we all drove towards the RTD*.
The RTD* started with Airsoft still being a no-show. A couple hours later, with our stomachs fully satiated and our brains refreshed with knowledge about the current treatment modalities for Hypertension and the recommendations based on JNC-7, the RTD* ended and we spent a couple of minutes taking pictures of each other. In the end, hitched a ride in SoSexy’s boyfriend’s car along with the rest of my female classmates and I ended up being the first one to be dropped off.
Suffice it to say, Airsoft did not show up at all.
Tang ina mo, Airsoft.. You stood me up before I could even ask you out.
Leche ka, BREAK NA TAYO.
— RTD – Round Table Discussion – a free lecture discourse set-up by medical representatives and their companies for physicians for the purpose of promoting new products and providing a Powerpoint lecture of the latest recommended management protocols for a certain disease entity. Usually begins with an abundant buffet-style dinner and/or snacks and ends with an open forum for any question pertaining to the prior given lecture. May or may not include a raffle draw of promotional give-aways or an acoustic band for entertainment.
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 Deux)
I was talking to Philip one time and was telling him about the time I helped out my brother with making the fruit salad for his class’ Linggo ng Wika.
“Hey, that’s my favorite! I love fruit salad,” he told me.
I smiled. “That’s good. Don’t worry, I’ll make you one someday.” Sooo not gonna happen. Unless we started moving in together and there is no way THAT’s gonna happen… I just like to make him think that I might actually cook for him. He can always fantasize about watching me toil infront of a hot stove wearing a cute teddy, stilettos and an apron, during those long cold nights.
“Do you cook by the way?”
I shrugged, “Uhhh… no.”
“Why? Haven’t you ever watched your mother cook and then ask her to teach you?”
“My mother rarely cooks, we have a maid for that. And when my mother actually does cook, it’s usually the kind of food that I would never eat, like Pinakbet or Kare-kare,” I said, scrunching my face in disgust.
He looked at me. “You don’t eat vegetables?”
“I do. But I’m picky. I will never eat okra or ampalaya (bitter cucumber) though. I have reservations about stringbeans and eggplant but I will eat them if I really had no choice.”
He smiled. “Too bad. I love a girl who can cook.”
Silence. He’s probably thinking of Midge, who can cook. And I’m thinking of him thinking of Midge, who watches him everyday as he consumes the meals she cooked for him.
Refusing to feel depressed, I erased the sordid image in my mind and beamed at him, “My mother always asks me how will I ever survive when I finally get married and I still don’t know how to cook for my husband and my children.”
“So what do you tell her?”
“I tell her I’ll just find myself a husband who will cook for me instead.”
Philip laughs and finding me adorable, proceeds to hug me.
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 Diary of the Other Woman 2
I am the other woman.
I am not proud of it. But I have to embrace the fact that yes, I am his other woman.
Before you start alerting my parents and labeling me a homewrecker, let me get a few facts clear. I am not living in with him and neither is he supporting me financially. I love my independence too much to actually do that. He is married, yes. But we do not have sex all the time and neither does he make me feel like I am his constant booty call. Yet I am aware that he has a wife and a kid out there somewhere. And maybe other girls, who knows? And that because of too many unwanted factors, our relationship has to remain a secret to almost everybody.
This isn’t a plea to justify my actions. I know what I’m doing is wrong.
I am just stating a fact.
So, why am I announcing this fact now?
Because I don’t want other girls to be in the same state of confusion that I am in right now.
If you ever see yourself going anywhere near that same path, don’t even think about it. Just walk away and don’t turn back. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
Being the other woman has its thrills, yes. Studies reveal that the chemical receptors responsible for that feeling of being inlove lasts only approximately three to eight months, but because our relationship has no set boundaries, I am constantly in a state of perpetual excitement. Our relationship neither has any limits nor expectations that if he ends up doing something really nice or really sweet, I swoon over the fact that he actually cared enough to do that for me. I would like to think that he is more honest to me than to anyone else. There is no need for anyone of us to bullshit each other and try to impress, thus, we enjoy each other’s company while simply being our true self. He occasionally surpassses my expectations and constantly surprises me because I never expect him to care for me as much as I care for him.
But I don’t really trust him that much. I admit to keeping myself from falling inlove with him even when I know my attempts are futile because I already love him, probably more than he loves me. I presume that when he doesn’t text me right away, he could be with his wife. That no matter how compatible we both are, somebody else has a bigger hold on him. That no matter how sweet and caring he is to me, I can only be at the most his second or third priority. That even if he did leave his wife for me, some other girl can still come and take up the role I used to portray in his life.
Yes, karma’s a bitch.
We both know that eventually what we have will end. We both know that when things get rocky, or the thrill has ended, or things had stopped being fun for both of us, neither of us are actually bound to work hard to still make the relationship work. I cannot delude myself to believing that I will marry him someday, or else I will only disappoint myself and get my heart really broken.
The life of the other woman is unfulfilling. Yet I stick it out with him because I have never felt this free and this comfortable in a relationship. Except for a few minor hitches, he could have been the ideal man I’ve been looking for.
He is after all the male version of me.
She Must Have Had Sixth Sense That He Was Cheating On Her
[Mistress] Midge s hir… Surprse vsit agen.. dnt tx, il tx u.. mis u. M so sori.Seriously, I have got to break things off with Philip.
I’m halfway to a possible depression. If he’s in town, we can’t see nor communicate with each other, if not for the occasional times that he’s in school for presentations and classes. If he’s out of town, his wife keeps visiting him and we still can’t text with each other. I’m in a lose-lose situation. My friends are starting to think that I’m making my boyfriend up, seeing that they haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him.
I am SOO getting the wrong end of the deal here.
I remember one time when I had skipped a few days of class to visit him outside town. We spent the day cooped up in this inexpensive hotel, most likely capturing the interest of the local gossip mill among the hotel staff. We didn’t care. It just felt great to finally spend some quality time with each other, away from everybody, outside the range of the judging eyes of friends and acquaintances.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he said.
“I know. I can’t believe it myself.”
“I seriously missed you.”
“Me too.”
“And I’m really glad that you’re finally here.”
I just kissed him in reply.
It was nice to finally be with Philip. He made me laugh a lot and we found plenty of things to talk about. I found out he was a channel surfer as well and like me, he would barely spend more than five minutes on one channel, before he decides to switch to another one. I found out how wordly and knowledgeable he was regarding current events. I, on the other hand, had a faux pas regarding Hillary Clinton running for presidency. I also found out he loved wrestling shows and never tired of watching them… Okay, so I hate those kinds of shows. I guess that just means he’s not perfect.
We didn’t sleep together that night but he stayed with me until late before heading back to his own boarding house. We had plans to do the next day, places he wanted to show me, and I was looking forward for his duty to end so that he’ll finally be free to come back to the hotel with me.
As I returned from my grocery shopping, I was told by the receptionist that Philip had already taken our room key and was already inside. I knocked on the door and made sure that I had a big smile on my face when he opened it.
When I saw his face, I knew that there was something wrong.
“Did you get my message?”
“No. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Midge’s coming today. Surprise visit.”
I sighed and wearily put the grocery bags on the bed.
“Okay…”
There was really nothing more to say. I couldn’t get mad because who would receive the brunt of my anger? Philip? For what? He didn’t force me to be with him. I went into this knowing what I was getting into. Midge? She was the wife. She had the right to visit him whenever she pleased. If I had to get mad, I would have to get mad at my own self. There was always the possibility that something like this might happen. I knew that. I should have been more prepared for this. Therefore, I AM to blame for the own tragedy of our situation. I AM the other woman who has entangled herself in their web. I AM the outsider. I am the WHORE.
So, I took a deep breath and managed to fake a happy face for Philip.
“Hey, we still have a few hours together. Let’s not waste it on depressing thoughts that we have no control of.”
He hugged me. “I’m so sorry about this. It’s my fault.”
“We knew there always the chance that something like this might happen anyway. And now it did. We can’t really do anything more about it. And we’ll just be wasting our time thinking about it. Let’s just enjoy what little time we have left together.”
For the next hour, we tried to forget about everything else and just lost ourselves in each other. Afterwards, I made him leave a little earlier than he was supposed to. As I closed the door behind him, the tears I have managed to hold back a while ago finally fell down furiously down my cheeks.
And I finally cried for the love I didn’t possess for the umpteenth time.
Female, 27, single
Some people have been asking me recently if I have a boyfriend. I think the answer for that would be yes, I do have a boyfriend. But why, you ask, do I consider myself single, if I am with someone?
It’s easier to tell people I’m single than to tell them I’m not. When you tell them you’re single, the only questions to follow will be “Why aren’t you married or in a relationship?” and you can just tell them, “I’m dating, nothing serious.” And your companion laughs awkwardly and proceeds to shift the conversation to another baseless topic like school or the weather. On the other hand, when you tell people that you have a boyfriend, a barrage of follow-up questions are sure to come up, like “Who is he?” “Do I know him?” “Where did you meet him?” “How long have you two been going out?” “Is it serious?” “So, when are you getting married?”
Ever since I’ve started seeing Philip, I’d been very ambivalent regarding my responses to those kinds of questions. It would have been okay if I was confident as to the status of our relationship, especially when the only person I’ve been brave enough to talk about him is JaneDoe and a few close friends from highschool.
But the thing is I’m not.
Oh, yes, I love him – he rocks my world – and I would like to think that if we had only met in different circumstances, at a different time, at a different place, then, he would have been perfect as THE ONE for me. But I don’t know if I am strong enough to make our relationship last, even if I know he wants me to. I’m not 100% sure I can give him that, especially since we come from different backgrounds, what we have is unconventional and complicated, it is not the kind that will last forever (I’m preempting an end sometime within the next two years or sooner, even if he always makes all this 5-year or 10-year plans for the two of us) and let’s face it, I‘ve been burned too many times, it’s a surprise that my jadedness has not yet affected our relationship.
Plus, let’s not ignore the big white elephant right infront of us.
He is married.
So basically we’re taking it slow, just enjoying the moment, and I even if I know it will end someday, I refuse to think of the future. We have each other. That’s certainly enough for now.
The L Word
It’s been five months since Philip and I started seeing each other and we have yet to say those three little words to each other.
The thing is I don’t want to be the first person to say that in the relationship.
To be the first person to say that would implicate a much bigger expectation from me, like I’m supposed to show him more that I love him and it implicates that HE has the upper hand in the relationship.
JaneDoe asked me once if Philip and I have ever said those words to each other. Considering that we’ve been seeing each other for quite some time, those three little words are just bound to pop up one day. I’ve never told him so and neither has he except for the occasional text messages that “implied” (rather than actually said) that he had fallen for me. Personally, I would like to think that he reads those three little words through the things I do for him, in the same way, that I feel it through his actions and the effort that he does to be with me. I once read that there are five languages of love: words, touch, gifts, time and oh, I forgot the other one, sorry, LOL… Anyway, I would like to think we’re conveying the right language except for words, through all those other languages. I mean, we wouldn’t have made it this far if we didn’t love each other and weren’t willing to take that emotional leap and not see the potential that our relationship might actually work.
Although I have to admit, there were times when I wanted to hear it from him. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to say it first. I really don’t know. For now, the actual verbalization of the L word is simply a mere step and a confirmation of the strength of the relationship that we were both sharing. I don’t want to tell him I love him simply to make sure that he will stay with him. I do not want him to be attached to me simply because he is indebted to me. I want him to love me, because I am me, because he chooses to be with me.
Confronting Your Monsters
This was more, for my own personal sake, rather than his.
I feared for my life.
I feared for my name, my family, my career and my reputation.
I was afraid that Midge would start stalking me and finally, go to my place of work and yell obscenities to my face infront of a lot of people. Personally, I hate confrontations. A couple times, I had fights with ex-boyfriends that ended with me either walking out on the guy or faking crying just so he’ll take pity on me and stop fighting with me. I wasn’t brave enough for face to face confrontations.
I was a coward, I admit.
A cheater who couldn’t bear to face consequences.
So I told him about what his wife did. And like a man caught with his pants down, there was really nothing he could say that would make me feel better. All the “I’m so sorrys,” the “I didn’t want you to find out this way,” the “Just when I was falling for yous…” couldn’t take back the fact that he was after all, MARRIED.
And unavailable.
I wanted to scream at him, give him a tongue-lashing that he will never forget, slap him so hard for putting me in a position I swore I would never get into. But I chose not to. The choice was still up to me as to whether we should still go through what we had then. I was afraid but I was also partially bored with my dating life. I wasn’t inlove with him and I wasn’t particularly sure about how he felt about me back then. But I figured, I needed the excitement anyway and if the only choice was a man who understood me so well and was almost perfect, except for the fact that he was married, then, so be it. I figured, this won’t last that long anyway, give or take two weeks.
I think I could still handle that.
So, I stuck with him. With the premise that he will be more careful about keeping me a secret.
Only I had underestimated the factor that feelings gradually do develop through time.
Somewhere along the line, I found myself thinking about him more, even when I didn’t want to. I found myself rejecting dates with other people and looking forward to the next time I see him. And there was always effort from his part. I told him never to text me whenever Midge was around but somehow, he would find time to do so, never missing a day that he wouldn’t let me know that he was thinking about me. We planned trips, vacations and many times I hear him planning a future with me.
I just smile at him fondly when he does that.
Truth is, I don’t want to believe that we might have a future. I don’t want to delude myself into thinking we’re inlove with each other. I am still afraid of falling inlove with him, that is, if I already haven’t. He never asked me if I was. It was enough for me that he was giving me what I needed.
Friendship.
Support.
Passion.
And affection.
And it seemed that it was enough for him that I was there for him.
- Why the hell couldn’t I lash out at him? -
