Happy Valentine's Day

I guess I let the pressure get to me. First off, let me say this little trivia: I don't ever remember worrying about Valentine's Day before. Sure, I did all the little celebratory stuff with friends and family, and at one time with a significant other when we were in a relationship. But this Valentine's Day is something else in at least three ways:

1. A group of friends in the block have this little agreement to have a Valentine's date for tomorrow. Whoever doesn't get one loses. This deal was made some months ago, and with the actual day a mere hours away, what's the result?

Zilch. None of them managed to find a date, and now they're posting all these queasy stuff in Facebook. 

2. Once I had lunch with a blockmate and M--easily one of my best friends in law school. It was one of those moments when we didn't talk about the stress of law school...they talked about something that, to me, seemed more stressful to them: the prospect of finding a husband.

They literally, categorically said that law school is the last chance for them to find a future husband. Once they graduate without a boyfriend, they said they would have to accept their fate: that they will be single lawyers forever. The more I think about it, the funnier the idea sounds--yet they were dead serious when they made the pronouncement. 

3. He and I had our advanced Valentine's celebration, and it was great in every way. But this means that we won't be celebrating tomorrow. Which means that I have a free date tomorrow, along with all the anxious souls in the block. It got pretty crazy: I even had a little fight with him about this, only until I realize the morning after that I have to be more than thankful that I have him. Every day, not just on Valentine's Day. And I guess not celebrating is the best thing to do. We're not exactly up and about, if you know what I mean.

Through it all, I don't hate Valentine's Day with the same passion my former debate partner in undergrad did. When I asked him last year what his plans for the day was, he told me that he didn't believe in commercialization and would in no way subscribe to sensationalized, Hallmark-fabricated events.

That's certainly one perspective. But really, would it hurt all the single people and those who wouldn't be able to celebrate on that day to just give happy couples a break and celebrate their love? Just a day? The alternative, I think, is much worse. Without an actual day to call Valentine's, I don't think every couple would bother to set a date for expressing their love. 

What I'm really saying is, without bitterness from an anxious guy who can't celebrate the day with the love of his life: Happy Valentine's Day! 

A Manifesto

You're know, you're really something. You come here, and we try to live for the moment. I can't touch you because you're not here...but you're here. I can see your smile, the way you laugh. You'd lean over me and kiss me. And every once in a while you'd sulk because I did something you didn't like. And I'd hug you from behind. You'd turn around and we'd kiss. And those kisses, they have varied meanings. It can mean something as simple as 'see you later' or 'thank you'. And often, on my part at least, it's a message that I'll love you forever, and I'll never get tired of this. I'll never get tired of waiting.


You'd wake me up at 5 am. And I could barely make anything of what's happening. It could be your kiss. It could be you shuffling, still asleep. The sadness of parting in a few hours' time. You'd wake me up at 5 am and before we slept, in all my half-asleep sanity, I thought to myself: I love this person so much. 


So tell me. How do you manage to earn the trust I thought I lost forever. How do you get me through a particularly bad day by saying the perfect words, sometimes even none at all. How do you say sorry when you probably know I'm the one at fault. How do you make me flash images of your smile in my head every single time. How do you make someone want to just make everything as perfect as possible for you. How do you make me live for each moment, knowing that it's one second closer to sliding my fingers against yours. How do you do it?


I'd see you go away. Yesterday. The day after. Tomorrow. Something would well up inside of me. And then tears would form. But it's perfecly alright.I made a choice. That choice. To love you no matter what. 

A Delayed Reaction

It's been a custom of mine to sleep every chance i get...sometimes even in class. In law school. Last Friday, people kept telling me how I was too easy a prey for snatchers--I'm always asleep, seem indifferent and place my important stuff in all the wrong places. Later that day, it finally happened: my phone got stolen.

On the venting side:

I absolutely hate how motherfucking thieves are so cunning and take advantage of people like me! People who are too tired from last night studying for an exam. People who are none too richer and who are working their asses off, knowing fully well that life is not fair. And what do they get? Well, to put it bluntly, what's not theirs.

There's something absolutely wrong with the coping mechanism that goes this way: Buti na lang walang masamang nangyari sa'yo. So what, now I actually have to thank the thief who took advantage for not going out of his way to inflict harm on his victim? But alas, we live in a country where we apparently have to be on our toes every single second and pray that nothing more harmful than getting one's belongings stolen happens to us.

On a seemingly unrelated note, let me just say: I hate how this country's elites (who go way back from the Spanish and/or American times, exerting their good time and effort sucking up to aliens) are practically running this country's government...and how many of the poverty-stricken (some of them aren't even poor to begin with!) have taken the streets for their thieving hands.

On a somewhat romantic note:

Actually, the moment I found out my phone was stolen, I didn't give a rat's ass about where or how I lost it. I immediately thought: Shit. I can't remember his cellphone number!

And so I spent the remaining time of travel for trying to mash together random numbers in my mind in the remote chance that somewhere along the trail, I'll come up with the perfect permutation that is, his number.

I didn't. What happened was, I got home, was scolded by my mom, and waited for him to show up in the one place I know he would. He did. And just like that, all the problems went away. No shit. It's amazing, how a conversation with someone miles away can just take it all away with one simple hello. Literally.

Why am I even writing about an event that happened almost a week ago?

Two things:

1. I am tired of reading about Legal Profession aka What-You-Shouldn't-Think-of-Doing-When-You-Get-There. Or stressing over an upcoming exam, for that matter. I think I've gotten to the point where I'm just tired of studying all the time. And what's weird is, I don't even study all the time!

2. I am counting the days, literally, before I get to see him again. Waiting. It's like suspending reality for that one or two days of genuine happiness, of the consummation of this thing we have. Or, actually, it's more like suspending the drone of everyday nothingness for those two days where I get to see and touch and hear this reality of loving him.

The Truth

The truth is, I don't think I deserve him. He's every bit as gorgeous as anyone can possibly be.

But it's more than that. It's so much more than that. He is also charming, sweet, funny...and he has this amazing personality that's simply hard to resist. He was, for a fleeting moment, just that hot guy I got to know. But he just had to let me know him more. And none of the looks mattered, because who he is...it's more than enough.

So yeah. I fell. I fell after saying that I don't know love. I don't know how to feel that soaring feel I haven't had in a while.

The truth is, I want to make it work this time. I must've said this a million times in this sweet little space of mine. So I'm going to hold all the stops, let myself go, and enjoy this great feeling I want to call love. But is he the one?

Just let me. Let me jump and soar.

Because Life Goes On

In between the intense remorse and self-pity, I drowned myself in the following:

And this:

They actually blend well together: the first because it might be the funniest chick flick I've watched, and the next because it pretty much says a lot about who I am. As he so eloquently said:

I always find something wrong
You've been putting up with my shit just way too long
I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most

What will happen?

I will call it off with he-who-I-taught-was-the-one. And it's not because of PE crush. Think of it. If I liked him so much, I wouldn't have swerved off the path of righteousness...and celibacy.

As for PE crush...there's no telling what will happen. But love is definitely the least of all possible and plausible options. We agreed so ourselves.

So after a few more conversations, he might want to leave. I would let him.

I will..I will stop being so dramatic about it. Because oftentimes, something needs to be done. And it has to be done as unromantically as possible.

Meanwhile, i shall gorge myself in optimistic music, such as:

When I think about it...I mean really think about it. I'm okay. I'll be okay, as I've always been. After all, life goes on. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Questions. And Answers

Hello, old friend. There's probably no need to say this: it finally happened. That time when I am slipping away from you, simply because I'm too busy not being busy. I'm too busy smelling the roses.

To make up for the lost time, let me answer some few basic questions.

Is he the one?

I don't know...possibly...probably. I still can't brush off the uncomfortable feeling of having to trust myself completely, even partially in fact, to another person. The idea of being in love, a surrender of one's self to another, is an old-age practice. But every time I try to fall deeper I fear that I might hurt myself.

The funny thing is...I know he won't. I'd probably hurt him a lot more than he would do me. In fact I've probably hurt him already more than I realize it.

The fact remains. I like him. Maybe I love him already, but I'm being too smart to get there. Then again, maybe this is the grand karma for all things past.

How's school?

It's crazy. In the midst of all this plagiarism issue, I honestly don't know where I should place myself. When I had him as a mentor last semester, I only remember ill feelings toward him. But who can hate a person who stands up for justice?

When I blog I try to keep as little legalese out of my content as possible. Allow me to stress the apparent though: justice in the Philippines is in the hands of fifteen people who acts like gods and use flawed reason to get what they want. Quite depressing and disheartening for an aspiring lawyer like me.

Also I've finally decided to take evening classes. It will push my plans back by one year, but this is the only way I think I can live for the next few years. By being somewhere else. Or something else other than a law student.

This is a Sad Story of Frustrated, Fabricated Love

It was a Wednesday night, exactly two days before the last, big final exam. The entire class was burned out, both from the two preceding final exams and the fact that the professor in the subject was a lawyer who, in easy words, was and remains to be a psycho genius.

Earlier that day, I was in the library, just as I had been for the previous ten days, studying intensely for the final exams. In my mind, I could think of no other topics than the Constitution, the local government, the powers of the Senate and the President, and so on.

At that point, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, and I was willing to work my way through it. So I studied like I never did…until a text message came. You asked me what I had already studied and if I was with any of our blockmates. I told you I was studying alone, and you knew it was probably the best thing for me to do. The idea of studying alone—or being entirely alone, for that matter—was not a foreign concept at all. The blockmate who would study alone, who would not budge when asked about his love life, who was easily one of the class nerds and who probably didn’t know the concept of fun…that was what you thought of me, wasn’t it?

Still you came, with the full knowledge that I was alone and it would probably be awkward to hang out with me. Once there, you teased me about my obsession about grades, and we ate inside the library. For that moment, and all the other succeeding moments I was with you for the short span of time, I felt like a dirty rebel. A delicious feeling.

I decided to end my short-lived euphoria and told you I was going to study at home. I wasn’t. I was going to some coffee shop, where I can study away from you—you, a misplaced distraction that should not have been there in the first place. It was raining hard, I didn’t have an umbrella, but I was prepared to take the jeepney ride home anyway. In my mind, the rain was a much more welcome obstruction than the idea of being in your dangerous company, where we ate in the library at the risk of being banned in my little paradise, the library. But you were ahead of this little game I created in my head. You asked me to get in the car, headed for a fast food chain quite near to my place. You made a subtle invitation of me studying with you, but when we got there, I told you I needed to get home. You casually told me that I should’ve said so and that you could’ve driven me home instead.

I did go home. But I decided to go back, not because I was starting to get addicted to your company but because I needed to feed myself.

And there in the fast food chain, without your consent, I started to fabricate our story. In fairness to me, we did talk. You opened up about how law school insulted your intellect and how you used to get by in college without studying at all—it’s a personal story we all share, but hearing it from you was a refreshing welcome. I was, of course, being biased. You talked about how indecent proposals were made to you by old men. Your family, who all graduated from the same institution and who were making names for themselves. Yourself, your inspiring and your ironically courageous dream of starting a farm and growing all sorts of, uhm, farm animals.

We laughed and made fun of our block mates. We talked about the future. On a Wednesday night. Two days before a crucial final exam. Just the two of us. We were rebelling against the single yardstick by which we are measured in law school: exams.

When it was time to go home and I was about to take my ride home, you asked me why I let won't you drive me home. It was a weirder invitation in the already weird wheel of events, but it was the perfect way to end what I imagined as a date between two law students. Two law students, who planned to study vigorously but ended up falling for each other.

And this is where that word comes in. Love.

You will never get to read this, for the simple reason that I can't ever let you. I have conveniently ruled out the remote possibility of having you, as a possession and a person I can call mine, in my life. It's a frustration I must live with, along with the frustration of not graduating with the highest honors or not making my parents proud back in my elementary graduation. That's how far I'll let you go--a frustration I can't just do all over again, alongside academic frustrations that I have shelved at the back of my mind.

I guess you are the first casualty of what I now consider to be a myth that is love. And me? I am the person who possibly, imaginatively loved you one night, two days before that last big final exam we'll all look back to in the future, once we are all lawyers.

Lord of the Rings. Gay. Frustrations.

For the past two days, I've been watching what I am now going to call my favorite movies: the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was around eleven to thirteen years old when the movies were screened in the cinemas. Although I appreciated the sceneries and the action back then, I didn't really understand what the movie is all about. I remember reading the books back in high school, but I nearly if not totally forgot about them.

I managed to finish the movies without getting bored one bit. It doesn't help that there are visual treats as well:

Aside from that, I can't help but wonder what's going on with Sam and Frodo. As if the PDA they've been doing throughout the movie wasn't enough, Frodo just had to give these parting words to Sam:

My dear Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be and to do. Your part in the story will go on.

So what if Sam is a married halfling? For all I know, gay men are the best adulterers. :> Oh, the things I allow my head to run off to.

Anyway, I'm two days away from the official end of sembreak. Of all the men I flirted with over the break, there's one man left standing (or, err, texting). He's not exactly my ideal partner. On our first date, he asked me if I wanted to have sex, to which I said no. Our exchange of messages was limited to stupid greetings or queries of what one or the other is doing. Worst, he's this clingy and needy creature who literally craves for attention. I pointed all that out to him, and he ended up liking me even more for my "honesty". Great.

What really did it was when he asked me if I could loan him some money. I told him it would never work and, just like that, I stopped talking to him.

At the last part of the film, Frodo said something. These words sliced through me, and I couldn't help but feel exactly the same:

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on... when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are somethings that time cannot mend... some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold.

The truth is, I don't think I would ever fall in love again. These hurts are self-inflicted, sustained after roughly four failed relationships. Why did they fail? There was always something missing. To put it bluntly, none of them was the one.

The one would have to be someone who could put up with my spontaneity, with me putting up with any of his quirks. He (maybe even a she? LOL) would have to be street-smart, to supplement my lack of life skills. Maybe good-looking, even average... but definitely not the macho and debonair type, as I would probably just be insecure and wary all the time. He must not be a sucker for love, someone who knows what he wants and is working to get it. That person should like movies and books a lot as I do, so we'd have something to talk about without forcing topics into each other's mouths. Oh I can go on, but do I really know what I'm talking about?

The commercialized world would have us, specifically me, believe that all these standards will be done away with anyway once I am swept off my feet. I disagree. After four failed relationships, I can say as a matter of fact that there are things that are not a matter of compromise. I cannot, and shall not, compromise depth and compatibility for a pretty face, the warmth of intertwining fingers, or the sudden rush of inexplicable emotions. I do not care for those moments when I am treated sweetly, knowing that they are merely fabricated to ensnare my heart. Through it all, the worst part is knowing and at the same time not knowing what I really want and in whom these standards exist. Okay fine, I'm being dramatic again.

J told me I should go out often, stop studying too much and start seeing people. A invited me to go to Malate with his friends. I brushed aside both pieces of advice. I suck at contrived settings of socialization, ie planned conversations.

So right now? At this very moment? I don't think I will fall in love again.

But I just know I will, someday...someday.